2021-05-05T10:32:00+01:00
Online readers of the Guardian are regularly urged to contribute to its upkeep with a voluntary contribution. But how much to give? Obiter suggests ‘seven-pence’ – price of the first Manchester Guardian, published 200 years ago today. The paper has thoughtfully included a replica in today’s print edition.
But before Gazette readers go fishing in the change pot, they will of course want to make sure there was some legal content that day.
Luckily, 5 May 1821 was one day in an age of political upheaval and growing pressure for political reform. At the salubrious end of things is the report on Lord John Russell’s motion ‘for giving Elective Franchise to the towns’. It was rougher, though, for reform supporters who were not Whig grandees. Lord A Hamilton, the Manchester Guardian relates, took up the cause of ‘Mr James Turner of Glasgow, who had been arrested on a charge of high treason, and had never been brought to trial’. Following a ‘riot’ Turner had been imprisoned the previous year after officers arrived at his ‘house with a warrant to search for papers and arms’. Another petition was on behalf of a child prisoner in Ilchester Gaol.