Who originated the Freehold Agitation?

James Taylor was extremely important in the development of the Freehold Land Society and the credit for forming the freehold Land movements rests with Taylor. However, evidence suggests that the idea of using the ownership of land as a political tool to increase the number of voters for change rests with others. Of course, Fergus O’Connor, our broken and bankrupt Chartist leader, has a justifiable claim to the title. According to an article reprinted in the The Freeholder the credit rests with Richard Cobden, one of the leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League.

"In the 1843 Lord Morpeth who had been one of the most popular members ever returned for the West Riding of Yorkshire, was defeated on the question of free-trade. ...Mr Cobden, whose attention had been directed to the subject of the forty shilling freehold qualification and who had the sagacity to detect the inherent and practical power of a movement for the extensive acquirement of that suffrage, went into the West Riding and boldly proposed to the men of Yorkshire that they should add that number of votes to the register, by qualifying a sufficient number of themselves and their neighbours as freeholders. In two years it was done, and Lord Morpeth was returned at the next election without opposition!" (The Freeholder 1 March 1850 pp 43)

This appears to place Cobden at the forefront of the campaign to enfranchise voters through the purchase of land. It is clear that purchase of land by Cobden’s 40 shilling free-traders pre-dates the establishment O’Connor’s Chartist Co-operative Land Company. However, at a distance of 165 years it is likely to be hard to demonstrate whether Cobden or O’Connor should claim the honour of "discovering" the legal device of the the 40 shilling freehold, as it is also clear that O’Connor was pushing the scheme for some years before. Again there is lots of room for further enquiry and argument.