Francis Place - Energetic Radical

Energetic Radical

Withdrawing from politics whilst he established his business, he devoted three hours an evening after work to studying, eventually establishing such a large personal library in the back of his shop that it soon became a meeting place for radicals. In 1807 he supported Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet, a Parliamentary candidate for Westminster, which allowed him to come into contact with such theorists as William Godwin, James Mill, Robert Owen, Jeremy Bentham, Joseph Hume and John Stuart Mill. When Place retired in 1817 (with a steady stream of income from his shop, now run by his children), he lived for several months with Bentham and the Mills at Ford Abbey.

It was around this time that he became involved in the movement for organised, public education, believing it to be a means of eradicating the ills of the working class. In the early 1820s he also became a Malthusian, believing that as the population increased it would outsrip the food supply. Despite himself having fathered fifteen children, he advocated the use of contraception, although was not specific about in what forms. It was on this topic that he wrote his only published book, the influential and controversial Illustrations and Proofs of the Principles of Population, in 1822. The earliest national birth control organization was founded in England in 1877 as a result of his thinking and activities. He successfully associated Malthus with the idea of birth control (which Malthus himself had opposed despite his fears of overpopulation). He also lobbied successfully for the 1824 repeal of the Combination Act, which helped early Trade Unionism, though new restrictions were soon introduced. Oddly, Place himself regarded Trade Unionism as a delusion that workers would soon forget about if they were allowed to try it.

In 1827 he entered a long period of depression after the death of his wife from cancer. In February 1830 he married a London actress, whose respectability was questioned by some. Also in this year, Place helped support Rowland Detrosier, a working class radical activist who also sought to distance himself from socialism. Through Place, Detrosier would be introduced to figures such as Bentham and J.S. Mill, who in turn introduced him to Thomas Carlyle. Detrosier's activities and writings would be influential amongst Manchester Radicals and the later Chartists. He was also active in the agitation that led to the Reform Act of 1832, holding up the recent revolution in Paris as an example of what could happen if reform wasn't allowed by legal means.