JOHN

See also:

• JOHN ALMON (1737-1805)

ALMON (1737-1805)  , English political pamphleteer and publisher, was born at Liverpool on the 17th of December 1737 . In early life he was apprenticed to a printer in his native town, and he also spent two years at sea . He came to London in 1758 and at once began a career which, if not important in itself, had a very important influence on the political history of the country . The Whig opposition, hampered and harassed by the Government to an extent that threatened the total suppression of independent opinion, were in great need of a channel of communication with the public, and they found what they wanted in Almon . He had become personally known to the leaders through various publications of his own which had a great though transient popularity; the more important of these being The Conduct of a late Noble Commander [Lord George Sackville] Examined (1759); a Review of his late Majesty's Reign (1760); a Review of Mr Pitt's Administration (1761); and a number of letters on political subjects . The review of Pitt's administration passed through four editions, and secured for its author the friendship of Earl Temple, to whom it was dedicated . Brought thus into the counsels of the Whig party, he was persuaded in 1763 to open a bookseller's shop in Piccadilly, chiefly for the publication and sale of political pamphlets . This involved considerable personal risk, and though he generally received with every pamphlet a sum sufficient to secure him against all contingencies, he deserves the credit of having done much to secure the freedom of the press . The government strengthened his influence by their repressive measures . In 1765 the attorney-general moved to have him tried for the publication of the pamphlet entitled Juries and Libels, but the prosecution failed; and in 1770, for merely selling a copy of the London Museum containing Junius's celebrated " Letter to the King," he was sentenced by Lord Mansfield to pay a fine of ten marks and give security for his good behaviour . It was this trial that called forth the letter to Lord Mansfield, one of the bitterest of the Junius series . Almon himself published an account of the trial, and of course did not let slip the opportunity of reprinting the matter that had been the ground of indictment; but no further proceedings were taken against him .

In 1774 Almon commenced the publication of his

Parliamentary Register, a monthly report of the debates in parliament, and he also issued an abstract of the debates from 1742, when Richard Chandler's Reports ceased, to 1774 . About the same time, having earned a competency, he retired to Boxmoor in Hertfordshire, though he still continued to write on political subjects . He became proprietor in 1784 of the General Advertiser, in the management of which he lost his fortune and was declared insolvent . To these calamities was added an imprisonment for libel . The claims of his creditors compelled him to leave the country, but after some years in France he was enabled to return to Boxmoor, where he continued a career of undiminished literary activity, publishing among other works an edition of Junius . His last work was an edition of Wilkes's correspondence, with a memoir (18o5) . He died on the 12th of December 18o5 . Almon's works, most of which appeared anonymously, have no great literary merit, but they are of very considerable value to the student of the political history of the period .