ABSTRACT
William Hone was a writer, satirist, printer, and bookseller. He joined the London Corresponding Society in 1796, which campaigned to extend the vote to working men. In April 1817, three ex-officio ‘informations’ were filed against Hone by the attorney-general, Sir William Garrow, for blasphemy and sedition, having published prints that were deemed harmful to public morals. The good Christian Ethelston recommended hanging as an appropriate punishment for the prominent radicals of the Peterloo meeting. County magistrates were drawn almost entirely from the class of gentry, aristocracy, or Anglican clergy. The clergy represented a substantial group of magistrates. In Essex, clerical justices formed 28 per cent of active justices in 1785. During the first half of the nineteenth century, clerics were appointed in rural districts where suitable gentry were unavailable.
