Maj. John Cartwright was the first Briton of consequence to hold an unqualified belief in universal male suffrage. For nearly half a century as a writer, speaker, and political organizer, Cartwright was unswerving in his attachment to this cause and to the need to reform the British political system along lines he supposed consistent with common sense, natural justice, and "England's antient polity"--that is, the constitution of the Anglo-Saxons under "the God-like Alfred." While his uncritical adherence to supposed Anglo-Saxon liberties was being rapidly superceded (notably in the thought of Thomas Paine), it was far from uncommon even in the decade of his death. Cartwright continues to command respect less for what he wrote than for his reputation as the "Father of Reform."

John Cartwright was born on 28 September 1740 to William and Anne Cartwright. His was a minor gentry family in Marnham, Nottinghamshire, and Cartwright had four...