Talk:John Wilkes

Prank
So what was the prank that wound up the Hellfire Club? Cutler 11:29, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC) --- According to a book I own, Wilkes introduced a baboon at one of the Hellfire Club orgies, and frightened many of the members present, who mistook the monkey for Satan. Cyanne234 19:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

To do
Date discrepancy: The statue photo in this article and a statue in Wilkes-Barre show his year of birth as 1727. The article has the YOB as 1725. Barney AZ 11/24/09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barney AZ (talk • contribs) 23:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a job to do here of tidying up the events surrounding publication of No 45 of the North Briton, which includes Entick v. Carrington and a number of other court cases. Cutler 00:30, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

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what is an MP?

When John Wilkes separated from the Hell Fire Club, John exposed their orgies and evil ways. When the Earl of Sandwich told John that he would die either on the gallows or the pox, John reportedly said "That, Sir would depend on whether I embrace your mistresses or your principles."

An MP is a Member of the Parliament. John won an election by a huge landslide but the seat was given to the second place winner. John helped America's Freedom of Speech, Bill of Rights, Search Warrant requirements and other rights to protect the people from a tyrannical system of government. Things like the Stamp Act, Tea Act that had brought about the Boston Tea Party caused people to argue about taxation without representation. Taxes were supposed to be a voluntary gift of representative assemblies. "Wilkes, Liberty and 45" was referring to Psalm 119:45 when he was not afraid to speak out against a King in The North Briton. Number 45 is the verse that speaks about liberty in the King James Verson of Psalm 119. It is also referred in James 1:24 stating the Law of Liberty.

John Wilkes was married to Mary Meade having one daughter named Mary (Polly) who died in 1802. He had two other children named John Wilkes and Harriet Wilkes. His descendants are scattered in Canada and the United States. I know this because he is my Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather. I was born in 1953 in Aurora, Illinois, USA. My mother is Ruth Wilkes (1928), daughter of Thomas Coleman Wilkes (1886), son of Henry Charles Wilkes (1834), son of John Aston Wilkes (1807), son of John Wilkes and Ann Aston Wilkes, Ann is the daughter of John Wilkes (aka Jack Smith) and MP John Wilkes's first mistress Catherine Smith. John Wilkes's second mistress was Amelia Arnold who had a girl named Harriet. MP John Wilkes (1727-1797) who was married to Mary Meade and had no children. The dates may be incorrect because the print on the family tree was not too legible.

John Wilkes was close with members of the Whig party from Britian to the 13 Colonies on the American Continent. His Great Nephew was Admiral Charles Wilkes who founded Antarctica where it is named Wilkes Land during the Seven Seas Exploration in 1838-1842. They would not have had the same views if they lived in the same century.

I, Sandra [Lacy, Bouman] Bouchard daughter of Ruth Wilkes and George Bouchard used other internet sources from the writings by a British writer, Marjie Bloy on her Victorian Web, "The Age of King George III"; "International Law Matters, Part XXII: March of Folly" column on the web by William Brinton published on March 11, 2003; "Wilkes Liberty and Number 45" in the Colonial Williamsburg Journal on the web by Jack Lynch and other web sites on John Wilkes. According to literatute that I read about King George III when he lost to America, King George III said that America is lost and the powers of Kingdoms is novel posing a thought that if we "adapted to the real evils of the presnt moment, it would be dreaded ones of the future." SJB

Some of these dates are all screwed up. A lot of the stuff that's said here to have happened in 1769 happened in '68, and while some of the dates themselves are correct (save for the year), a few are just completely off. I've been working with the Gentleman's Magazine "Historical Register" publication from the time period as part of a non-WP project, but I can go through and sort out the problems sometime in the future. Since Gentleman's was a contemporary monthly summary of events, I have little doubt that it's at least right on the dates. Fearwig 01:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the dates are wrong. Like I said they were hard to read. The family tree was written by FC Douglas Wilkes who lived in Oakville, Canada. Their local paper had another article about John Wilkes' direct descendants. They would have more accurated birth and death certificates along with the family tree. Mr. E. Dean Wilkes on George Street in Oakville has the original artifacts of his portraits and sketches. Dean Wilkes is also a direct descendant of John Aston Wilkes, descendant of Lord Mayor John Wilkes. This could help verification. SJB

What is the best way to supply a live reference to "Essay on Woman", rather than the dead hyperlink currently in the article? Presumably the reader will want something like http://keithblayney.com/Blayney/Essay.html Cameron Laird (talk) 20:06, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Confident/Confidant
Under the section on radical journalism it says "his confident, Lord Bute". Surely it should be "confidant"

JW and JWB.
This article states that John Wilkes Booth was related to John Wilkes. The John Wilkes Booth article states that Booth's family claimed to be distantly related to him. Anyone have the real scoop? (I wouldn't be surprised if JWB was simply named after JW, who was a hero among the revolutionary crowd. See, e.g., Wilkes-Barre, PA, named after JW and another MP who was pro-independence.)


 * That whole section "Triva" [sic] was a drive-by somewhat low-quality edit by an anon yesterday. It needs cleanup. The article also needs to decide whether the section headings are all H1 or H2 (one = or two). David Brooks 01:45, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Omissions
The biggest problem with this article is that it leaves out much that is signficant about Wilkes. He was influential among many men who became active in the movement for American independence, including the Lee brothers of Virginia and Caron de Beaumarchais, who was instrumental in providing the early supplies of arms and munitions for the colonists' war effort and in convincing the French to ally with the Americans.

More importantly, however, Wilkes' election to Alderman, sheriff, and MP all indicated an upswelling of popular political participation that signaled a new era in British politics.

Somewhere in there someone needs to work in the word "Wilkesian," too, since someone might do a search for that word and come up empty. The word meant one who supports Wilkes and his politics.

On the other hand, "Wilkite" is the more commonly accepted term for the idea expressed above.

There is a Council building in Enfield, a Borough of North London, named after John Wilkes ('John Wilkes House'). It offers a service dealing with all manner of housing issues to residents of Enfield. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.230.230 (talk) 11:17, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Portrait
There is a very charming painting of Wilkes and his daughter in the National Portrait Gallery in London. I gather that it was quite rare at that time for public men like him to be portrayed with their families. Cranston Lamont 20:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Reworked article
I've reworked a lot of article in the last few days, if I've left anything out or been a bit biased anywhere (I think I probably have) please feel free to change anything. The Intro needs rewriting, and probably the early life section too. If anyone has any other suggestions that would be great. M A Mason 15:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

misattributed exchange with Lord Sandwhich
I had this in my quote file as an exchange between Gladstone and Disraeli so I did some more research and it appears that we have the correct answer already recorded in wikipedia. :) "It was the Earl of Sandwich and the English actor and playwright Samuel Foote who had the exchange 'I think, that you must either die of the p-x, or the halter.' 'My lord, that will depend upon one of two contingencies;--whether I embrace your lordship's mistress, or your lordship's principles.' The Yale Book of Quotations traces this to an 1809 source. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations attributed the exchange to Sandwich and John Wilkes, based upon a 1935 book."The Yale Book of Quotations published in 2006. I am removing this exchange from this article since Wilkes was not involved. --Danny Rathjens 20:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Here is the reason John Wilkes fled to Paris at the end of 1763 (as soon as he could travel) "The Commons debate of 15 November, moreover, had resulted in a pistol duel the following day in Hyde Park between Wilkes and an MP, Samuel Martin, who had impugned his personal courage. Wilkes was so badly wounded in what many thought a plot against his life that he was unable to attend any further legal or parliamentary proceedings. Before the end of the year he had fled from justice: he crossed to France on 25 December and took up residence in Paris. Pleading ill health, he refused to attend either parliament or the law courts." source - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eddaido (talk • contribs) 08:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The Yale Book of Quotations is wrong (although they may mean 1835, which is within living memory of the exchange). This search includes two sources, one from 1840 - and claiming to have it at second hand, and another from 1828. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:20, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

1757 he was elected MP for Aylesbury
I'm adding "1757 he was elected MP for Aylesbury" to the article because without that fact all the unseating mentioned later makes little sense. Nitpyck (talk) 01:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Confusing redundancy
There's a confusing redundancy between the sections Radical Journalism and Outlaw, both of which describe the Massacre of St. George's Field in different contexts, giving the reader the impression that this was two separate events. 128.148.235.58 (talk) 19:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

as a reader...
...I know nothing about John Wilkes. The article says a good 10-15 times that he was a 'radical' but never specifies exactly what was radical about his ideas. since I know nothing about him, hence my consulting the article, I am not able to make these edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.198.206.106 (talk) 22:31, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Anyone know the following Wilkes anecdote?
In a college lecture on this period of English history, the professor told us the following anecdote as indicative of how far Wilkes had fallen in his old age:

As he is coming out of some club in London, a poor old lady recognizes him and begins to cry "Wilkes for Liberty! Wilkes for Liberty!", perhaps approaching him for money. Whereupon he kicks her back into the gutter and says something very like, "Shut up, you old bitch, that's all over now."

I had always assumed this was a famous anecdote, and because it seems so telling, expected to find it here. But not only is it not here, it doesn't seem to be anywhere on the Internet. Maybe it's not so famous, maybe it's not true, maybe it doesn't belong here. But now I have to know. Can anyone cite any version of this story? Thanks.

Mandrakos (talk)

External links modified
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Footnote 18 is broken / misdirected
It links to answers.com instead of the cited material about the Essay on Woman. 96.242.83.40 (talk) 15:45, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Wheble and Thompson
Here's a source on Wilkes' role in the rial of Wheble and Thompson and attempts by parliament to suppress the reporting of its debates:, from which "He ignored an order to appear [before the House] on 20 March, after which no further effort was made to force him to attend the chamber." Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:42, 31 March 2021 (UTC)