John Trenchard (writer)

John Trenchard (1662-1723), English writer and Commonwealthman, belonged to the same Dorset family as the Secretary of State Sir John Trenchard.

Trenchard was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. As he inherited considerable wealth, Trenchard was able to devote the greater part of his life to writing on political subjects, his approach being that of a Whig and an opponent of the High Church party. His works include "A Short History of Standing Armies in England" 1698 and 1731 and "The Natural History of Superstition" 1709. Along with Thomas Gordon he published "The Independent Whig", a weekly periodical. From 1720 to 1723, Trenchard, again with Thomas Gordon, wrote a series of 144 essays entitled "Cato's Letters", condemning corruption and lack of morality within the British political system and warning against tyranny. The essays were published as "Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious", first in the "London Journal" and then in the "British Journal". These essays became a cornerstone of the Commonwealthmen tradition. From 1722 until his death in 1723 Trenchard was also a member of Parliament for Taunton.

John Trenchard died on 17 December 1723.

Further Reading

* Jonathan Harris, 'The Grecian coffee house and political debate in London, 1688-1714', "The London Journal" 25 (2000), 1-13
* Margaret C. Jacob, "The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans" (London, 1981)
* Caroline Robbins, "The Eighteenth Century Commonwealthman. Studies in the Transmission, Development and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II until the War with the Thirteen Colonies" (Cambridge MA, 1959)
* Lois G. Schwoerer, "'No Standing Armies!' The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England" (Baltimore and London, 1974)
* Lois G. Schwoerer, 'The Literature of the Standing Army Controversy', "Huntington Library Quarterly", 28 (1965), 189-212

ee also

*republicanism
*Liberalism
*Contributions to liberal theory