Richard Carlile and the Zetetics

Abstract

The revival of Paineite radicalism after the conclusion of the French wars in 1815 was initially the work of two men who had been too young to appreciate the events of the 1790s — W. T. Sherwin and Richard Carlile. Sherwin was still a teenager when, having been dismissed from the keepership of the Southwell bridewell for being a follower of Paine, he came to London and set up as a publisher at 183 Fleet Street. Here he issued a Paineite periodical, the Republican (soon renamed with caution, and an eye on the success of Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, Sherwin’s Weekly Political Register.) Carlile (1790–1843), a young tinsmith from Devon who had turned to hawking the Black Dwarf when unemployed in London, was attracted to Sherwin and on the latter’s marriage he took over the publishing business together with legal responsibility for what was sold in the shop.¹