Description

[004657] Atkinson, Rev. W.[illiam] Free Remarks Upon the Conduct of the Whigs and Radical Reformers, in Yorkshire: With Some Slight Allusions to the Court Party. Bradford: Printed for the Author, and Sold By T. Inkersley, 1819. First Edition. 8vo. Paper Covers. Pamphlet. Good. [3], 4-16pp. Modern marbled wrappers, with a modern paper title label to upper cover

Externally very good, internally browned and lightly foxed, several corners creased, note in pen to head of title

An attack on Thomas Wooler of the Black Dwarf, and Edward Baines of the Mercury, accusing both of being in the pay of the Whigs, and in Baines’ case, being a government spy

Atkinson, William (1758-1846), pamphleteer and poet, was ordained in 1782, and was the subject of a bitter pamphlet war when he was appointed to a lectureship, which a local grammar school Master, Edward Baldwyn, had expected to go to him. Baldwyn published two satirical pamphlets under the pseudonym Trim: A Critique on the Poetical Essays of the Rev. William Atkinson (1787), and A Congratulatory Letter to the Rev. William Atkinson (1790). “In these he maintained that, although not actually indecent, Atkinson’s work was well calculated to encourage licentiousness among young readers. Although the poetry itself was also lambasted, Trim concentrated mostly on what he took to be Atkinson’s hypocrisy and conservative tendencies, apparently based on sermons preached by Atkinson in Bradford condemning card-playing and dancing. Atkinson, however, was not defenceless against such attacks; he kept a printing press in his home and often issued pamphlets of his own on ecclesiastical and political topics under the name of the Old Inquirer. Between 1794 and 1829 he published a further twenty-five pamphlets, all of which took an increasingly reactionary approach to a variety of political, religious, and economic subjects” (ODNB)

Uncommon, with only three locations in Library Hub (BL, Leeds,and Senate House)

Goldsmiths 22637