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Political writer and parliamentary reformer William Cobbett (1763-1835) was much concerned with the plight of the rural poor in the early 19th century. From 1821 to 1826, he rode around England investigating the state of the nation. The articles in which he recorded his observations were eventually published in book form as Rural Rides (1830). Although the Church taught that ‘the poor are always with us’, meaning that it was inevitable that some people would be in a penurious state, Cobbett believed that poverty was often the result of bad government policies and/or greedy employers or caused by poor people’s own desire not to appear impoverished. Today, when spending on credit is reaching unprecedented levels, Cobbett’s comment – first made in his Advice to Young Men and (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life (1829) – still seems relevant.
