ABSTRACT
The SSBR was formed in 1769, not to celebrate the Glorious Revolution in convivial fashion, as might have been the case twenty years earlier, but with a view to defending the existing constitution against royal encroachment and raising money to support a popular political martyr: John Wilkes. A vote for Wilkes was simultaneously an attempt to draw élite attention to the fact that society and the economy were no longer delivering a rising standard of living and a vote for nebulous notions of 'English liberty' that were popularly identified with John Wilkes. The Tory party had been touting some measure of parliamentary reform as part of its electoral platform since the 1730s. Unfortunately for the reformers, the American war intervened before Wilkes could begin to orchestrate such a campaign. In 1779, the Rockinghamite Sir George Savile proposed that penal laws directed against Roman Catholics be abolished, two of his most vociferous opponents were Polhill and Bull.
