John Jebb, a British radical in the age of the American Revolution.
Item
-
Title
-
John Jebb, a British radical in the age of the American Revolution.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9830751
-
identifier
-
9830751
-
Creator
-
Pearl, Kenneth Lawrence.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Joel H. Wiener
-
Date
-
1998
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
History, European | History, Church | Political Science, General | Biography
-
Abstract
-
This dissertation deals with the life of John Jebb (1736-1786), a leading British radical of the late eighteenth century. Jebb's life reveals much about the nature of political reform in Great Britain on the eve of the French Revolution, including the possible link between religious dissent and political radicalism. Jebb left the Church of England following the failure of the Feather's Tavern Petition, an attempt to end mandatory clerical adherence to certain specific articles of faith. Jebb was also unable to reconcile the teachings of the Church of England with his own doubts concerning the scriptural validity of the Trinity and eventually helped Theophilus Lindsey develop the first Unitarian chapel in England.;Jebb grew increasingly dissatisfied with the government's attempt to put down the rebellion in the American colonies. In response, Jebb became active in the Westminster Association, an extraparliamentary body that sought to bring about a reform of the House of Commons. Jebb was also the founder of the Society for Constitutional Information, an organization that published political pamphlets and helped bring seventeenth-century writers such as James Harrington to the attention of a new generation of readers. Jebb's most important political tract, the Report of the Subcommittee of Westminster (1780), was a sweeping call for the reform of the British polity through universal adult male suffrage, the secret ballot, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts and the payment of parliamentary members. Jebb argued in this work that should Parliament refuse to implement this program, it might be necessary for democratically elected committees throughout Britain to declare the House of Commons dissolved and to work to constitute a new elected assembly.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
