ABSTRACT
This chapter considers Richard Cobden's transition from a provincial 'public man' to a national hero and celebrity. It explores the impact of this sudden rise to fame on Cobden himself, while suggesting that it can tell us much about the nature of early Victorian society and politics in general, and the role of the Anti-Corn Law League as a modernising agency within it. The chapter explores the process by which Cobden became a Victorian celebrity, and analyses the varying meanings of his celebrity status in different social, cultural and political contexts. It examines his relationship with his public, the ways in which his image as a celebrity was manufactured and maintained, and the degree to which he was able to retain control over that image. Perhaps of greater significance for the future was Cobden's successful cultivation of Archibald Prentice, the editor of the radical Manchester Times.
