JOHN

See also:

• CARTWRIGHT, EDMUND (1743–1823)
• JOHN CARTWRIGHT (1740–1824)
• CARTWRIGHT, PETER (1785–1872)
• CARTWRIGHT, SIR RICHARD JOHN (1835– )
• CARTWRIGHT, THOMAS (c. 1535–1603)
• CARTWRIGHT, WILLIAM (1611–1643)

CARTWRIGHT (1740–1824)  , English parliamentary reformer, was born at Marnham in Nottinghamshire on the 17th of September 1740, being the elder brother of Edmund Cartwright, inventor of the power-loom . He was educated at Newark grammar school and Heath Academy in Yorkshire, and at the age of eighteen entered the navy . He was present, in his first year of service, at the capture of Cherbourg, and served in the following year in the action between Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Conflans . Engaged afterwards under Sir Hugh Palliser and Admiral Byron on the Newfoundland station, he was appointed to act as chief magistrate of the settlement; and the duties of this post he discharged for five years (1765-1770) . Ill-health necessitated his retirement from active service for a time in 1771 . When the disputes with the American colonies began, he saw clearly that the colonists had right on their side, and warmly supported their cause . At the beginning of the war he was offered the appointment of first lieutenant to the duke of Cumberland, which would have put him on the path of certain promotion . But he declined to fight against the cause which he felt to be just . In 1774 he published his first plea on behalf of the colonists, entitled American Independence the Glory and Interest of Great Britain . In the following year, when the Nottinghamshire Militia was first raised, he was appointed major, and in this capacity he served for seventeen years . He was at last illegally superseded, because of his political opinions . In 1776 appeared his first work on reform in parliament, which, with the exception of Earl Stanhope's pamphlets (1774), appears to have been the earliest publication on the subject .

It was entitled, Take your Choice—a second edition appearing under the new

title of The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty vindicated . The task of his life was thenceforth chiefly the attainment of universal suffrage and annual parliaments . In 1778 he conceived the project of a political association, which took shape in 178o as the " Society for Constitutional Information," including among its members some of the most distinguished men of the day . From this society sprang the more famous " Corresponding Society." Major Cartwright worked unweariedly for the pro-motion of reform . He was one of the witnesses on the trial of his friends, Horne Tooke, John Theiwall and Thomas Hardy, in 1794, and was himself indicted for conspiracy in 1819 . He was found guilty in the following year, and was condemned to pay a fine of boo . He died in London on the 23rd of September 1824 . He had married in 1780, but had no children . In 1831 a monument from a design by Macdowell was erected to him in Burton Crescent where he had lived . The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright, edited by his niece F . D . Cartwright, was published in 1826 .