Abstract
William Hamilton Reid occupied the margins of his world — as a deist, prophet, Jacobin and writer — now he appears occasionally in the footnotes of scholarly studies of English popular radicalism. If he is remembered, it is for having published in 1800 The Rise and Dissolution of the Infidel Societies in this Metropolis. Yet even this remains a fringe source. Despite its claim to have exposed ‘the most secret operations’ of a revolutionary, freethinking and millenarian underworld, much of the 117-page contents remains unknown or unused. Modem historians tend to reproduce the same few pas-sages to enliven accounts of metropolitan Jacobin clubs in the 1790s. True, there is good reason to be wary of Reid’s Infidel Societies. He does not establish Jacobin credentials and he writes in the style of an extreme loyalist. Not unreasonably, a Gentleman’s Magazine reviewer of 1800 described him as ‘a converted penitent’ a view shared by modem authorities on both anti-Jacobinism and radical free-thought.1
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Notes
Edward Royle, Victorian Infidels (Manchester and New Jersey: Manchester University Press, 1974) p. 13;
Emily Lorraine de Montluzin, The Anti-Jacobins 1798–1800; The Early Contributions to the ‘Anti-Jacobin Review’ (London: Macmillan, 1988) pp. 139–40.
I.D. McCalman, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries, and Pornographers in London 1795–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) pp. 2, 238
Robert Hole, Pulpits Politics and Public Order in England 1760–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp. 153–6.
De Montluzin, The Anti-Jacobins (1988) pp. 140–1.
W.H. Reid, Memoirs of the Public Life of John Horne Tooke … with his most celebrated Speeches … letters, etc. (1812) pp. iii–xxv, 9.
On this aspect of Priestley, see Clarke Garrett, Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) pp. 133–43;
W.H. Oliver, Prophets and Millenialists, The uses of Biblical Prophecy in England from the 1790s to the 1840s (Auckland: University of Auckland Press, 1978) pp. 42–6.
Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), passim.
J.F.C. Harrison, The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism. 1780–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) pp. 64–85
James K. Hopkins, A Woman to Deliver Her People: Joanna Southcott and English Millenarianism in an Era of Revolution (Austin: University of Texas, 1982) esp. pp. 149–69.
Henry Kett, History the interpreter of Prophecy: or, a View of Scriptural Prophecies and their Accomplishments in the past and present Occurrences of the world: with conjectures respecting their future Completion (1799) 3 vols. The last volume seems to have influenced Reid most.
Iain McCalman, ‘“Erin go Bragh”: the Irish in British Popular Radical-ism c. 1790–1840’, Irish Australian Studies: Papers delivered at the Fifth Irish-Australian Conference, ed. Oliver MacDonagh and W.F. Mandle, (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1989), esp. pp. 174–6.
W.H. Reid, Memoirs of the life of Colonel Wardle, including thoughts on the state of the nation. (London, 1809) p. iv.
W.H. Reid, Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte: with copious historical illustrations and original anecdotes. Translated from the French of M.V. Arnault, C.L.F. Panckoucke and Count Segur. Preceded by a sketch of the French Revolution. [Compiled by William Hamilton Reid] (London, 1826), see esp. ‘Sketch of the French Revolution’, pp. 2–3; ‘Introduction’ to Memoirs, p. vii; ‘Supplement’, pp. 959–61.
Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Georgian England, 1714–1830, Tradition and Change in a Liberal Society, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979) pp. 65–78.
[W.H. Reid] The New Sanhedrin and Causes and Consequences of the French Emperor’s Conduct Towards the Jews: Including Official Documents, and the Final Decisions of their Dispersion: Their Recent Improvements in the Sciences and Polite Literature upon the Continent: and the Sentiments of their Principal Rabbis, fairly stated and compared with some Eminent Christian Writers. Upon the Restoration, the Rebuilding of the Temple, the Millenium, With Consideration of the Question, ‘Whether there is anything in the Prophetic Records that seems to point particularly to England?’ By an Advocate for the State of Israel (1807).
W.H. Reid, ‘On the State of the Jews in England’, GM 80 (1810) pp. 12–14;
W.H. Reid, ‘On Proselytising Societies’, GM 81 (1811), pp. 627–32
Simon Schwarzfuchs, Napoleon, the Jews and the Sanhedrin (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) esp. pp. 24–7, 64–5.
On King, see McCalman (1988) pp. 35–9, 66–7; Todd M. Endelman, ‘The Chequered Career of ‘Jew’ King: A Study in Anglo-Jewish Social History’, Association for Jewish Studies Review, 78 (1982–3) pp. 69–100 (esp. PP. 95–7).
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McCalman, I. (1994). The Infidel as Prophet: William Reid and Blakean Radicalism. In: Clark, S., Worrall, D. (eds) Historicizing Blake. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23477-6_2
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