45 Facts About John Wilkes

John Wilkes was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier.

John Wilkes was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757.

At the age of 65, Wilkes retired from politics and took no part in the social reforms following the French Revolution, such as Catholic Emancipation in the 1790s.

John Wilkes's siblings included: eldest sister Sarah Wilkes, born 1721; elder brother Israel Wilkes III ; younger brother Heaton Wilkes ; younger sister Mary Hayley, nee Wilkes ; and youngest sister Ann Wilkes, who died from smallpox at the age of 14.

John Wilkes was educated initially at an academy in Hertford; this was followed by private tutoring and finally a stint at the University of Leiden in the Dutch Republic.

John Wilkes was beginning to develop a deep patriotism for his country.

Once the rebellion had ended after the Battle of Culloden, John Wilkes returned to the Netherlands to complete his studies.

John Wilkes never married again, but he gained a reputation as a rake.

John Wilkes was known to have fathered two other children, John Henry Smith and Harriet Wilkes.

John Wilkes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1749 and appointed High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1754.

John Wilkes was an unsuccessful candidate for Berwick in the 1754 parliamentary elections but was elected for Aylesbury in 1757 and again in 1761.

John Wilkes lived at the Prebendal House, Parsons Fee, Aylesbury.

John Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time.

John Wilkes possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but he had a charm that carried all before it.

John Wilkes boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face", though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim.

John Wilkes declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.

John Wilkes was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults.

John Wilkes became particularly incensed by what he regarded as Bute's betrayal in agreeing to overly generous peace terms with France to end the war.

At a range of eight yards, Talbot and John Wilkes both fired their pistols but neither was hit.

John Wilkes was highly critical of the King's speech, which was recognised as having been written by Bute.

John Wilkes attacked it in an article of issue 45 of The North Briton.

The issue number in which John Wilkes published his critical editorial was appropriate because the number 45 was synonymous with the Jacobite Rising of 1745, commonly known as "The '45".

Forty-nine people, including John Wilkes, were arrested, but general warrants were unpopular and John Wilkes gained considerable popular support as he asserted their unconstitutionality.

Bute had resigned, but John Wilkes opposed Bute's successor as chief advisor to the King, George Grenville, just as strenuously.

Wilkes's political enemies, foremost among them John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who was a member of the Hellfire Club, obtained the parody.

Sandwich had a personal vendetta against John Wilkes that stemmed in large part from embarrassment caused by a prank of John Wilkes involving the Earl at one of the Hellfire Club's meetings; he was delighted at the chance for revenge.

John Wilkes had frightened Sandwich during a seance put on by the club.

John Wilkes hoped for a change in power to remove the charges, but this did not come to pass.

John Wilkes returned intending to stand as a Member of Parliament on an anti-government ticket; the government did not issue warrants for his immediate arrest as it did not want to inflame popular support.

John Wilkes stood in the City of London and came in bottom of the poll of seven candidates, possibly due to his late entry into the race for the position.

John Wilkes was quickly elected as a Radical Member of Parliament for Middlesex, where most of his support was located.

John Wilkes was said to hold his supporters in contempt during the election campaign.

In defiance, John Wilkes became an Alderman of London in 1769, using his supporters' group, the Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, for his campaign.

John Wilkes eventually succeeded in convincing Parliament to expunge the resolution barring him from sitting.

That year John Wilkes was re-elected to Parliament, again representing Middlesex.

John Wilkes was one of those opposed to war with the American colonies.

John Wilkes was a supporter of the Association Movement and of religious tolerance.

The French Revolution of 1789 had proved extremely divisive in England, and John Wilkes had been against it due to the violent murders in France.

John Wilkes's position was different from that of many radicals of the time and was a view more associated with conservative figures, including expressed indifference as to Catholic Emancipation.

John Wilkes worked in his final years as a magistrate, campaigning for more moderate punishment for disobedient household servants.

John Wilkes was a member of the Oddfellows and today, a statue in his memory stands at Fetter Lane EC4.

John Wilkes was at one point a hero to radicals in Britain and North America, and the slogan "John Wilkes and Liberty" was heard on both sides of the Atlantic.

John Wilkes's struggles convinced many colonists that the British constitution was being subverted by a corrupt ministry, an idea that contributed to the coming of the American Revolution.

John Wilkes was widely admired in the American colonies as a political journalist, a radical politician, and a fighter for liberty.

John Wilkes greatly influenced the revolutionaries who fought for American independence and played a role in establishing the right to freedom of the press in the United States.