John Wilkes

By his own admission John Wilkes was not an attractive man, but he claimed he could talk the attraction away from his own face. John Wilkes was no stranger to trouble and often found himself in jail; this could be attributed to the ” Hellfire club” that he was a part of. This ‘gang’ consisted of elite members many of whom held a place in parliament including John Wilkes himself. The King of the time George III had appointed a Scot as Prime Minister who set up a newspaper called ‘ The Briton’ which was used as a propaganda machine. Wilkes did not approve of the appointment of a Scottish Prime Minister and so released ‘ The North Briton’ which spoke very crudely and unfavourably of the new PM. King George eventually released a general warrant for the publisher of the newspaper as he could not prove that Wilkes was publishing the paper. Subsequently Wilkes sued the government for false imprisonment and invasion of privacy and won which lead the way for indiviual rights in these sorts of cases. He was eventually expelled from the House of Commons and charged with Blasphemous Libel; he fled to France for four years and was put in jail on his return. He was then voted back into Parliament from Jail however the people in power did not see him fit to serve, however in the futre Wilkes went on to become Mayor of London. John Wilkes made a breakthrough in Journalistic reporting when reporting a discussion in Parliament which he published in the City of London, protected by their law he was not arrested by the people of Westminster and was the first to bring Parliament discussions to the masses seen as a massive breakthrough in politics.