John Cartwright (17 September 1740 – 23 September 1824) was an English naval officer, Nottinghamshire Militia major and prominent campaigner for parliamentary reform. He subsequently became known as the 'Father of Reform'. His younger brother Edmund Cartwright became famous as the inventor of the power loom.
Early life
He was born at Marnham in Nottinghamshire on 17 September 1740 to Anne and William Cartwright of Marnham Hall. He was the elder brother of Edmund Cartwright, inventor of the power loom, and the younger brother of George Cartwright, trader and explorer of Labrador. His brother George, when at loose ends, went with him on a cruise out of Plymouth to chase smugglers in Sherborne. Ill-health necessitated Cartwright's retirement from active service for a time in 1771.
thumb|250px|left|Inscription from the Cartwright Gardens statue
When the disputes with the American colonies began, he believed that the colonists had right on their side, warmly supported their cause and, at the outbreak of the ensuing American War of Independence, refused an appointment as first lieutenant to the Duke of Cumberland. Thus he gave up a path to certain promotion, since he did not wish 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".
Constitutional reformer
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 of electoral reform. It was entitled, Take your Choice; a second edition appearing under the new title of The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated (1777) and advocated annual parliaments, the secret ballot and manhood suffrage. or 1805 to move to Enfield, Middlesex, where he made friends with other leading Radicals including Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet, William Cobbett and Francis Place.
In 1812, he initiated the Hampden Clubs, named after John Hampden, an English Civil War Parliamentary leader, aiming to bring together middle-class moderates and lower-class radicals in the reform cause. To promote the idea, he toured northwest England later in 1812, in 1813 (getting arrested in Huddersfield) and in 1815. He recruited John Knight who founded the first Hampden Club in Lancashire. In 1818, Knight, John Saxton and James Wroe formed the reformist and popularist newspaper the Manchester Observer. In 1819, the same team formed the Patriotic Union Society, which invited Henry "Orator" Hunt and Major Cartwright to speak at a reformist public rally in Manchester, but the elderly Cartwright was unable to attend what became the Peterloo Massacre. Later in 1819, Cartwright was arrested for speaking at a parliamentary reform meeting in Birmingham, indicted for conspiracy and was condemned to pay a fine of £100.
Cartwright then wrote The English Constitution, which outlined his ideas including government by the people and legal equality which he considered could only be achieved by universal suffrage, the secret ballot and equal electoral districts. He became the main patron of the Radical publisher Thomas Jonathan Wooler, best known for his satirical journal The Black Dwarf, who actively supported Cartwright's campaigning.
In 1821, he invited Jeremy Bentham to serve with him as one of "seven wise men" to act as "Guardians of Constitutional Reform", their reports and observations to concern "the entire Democracy or Commons of the United Kingdom". Among the other names Cartwright proposed—Sir Francis Burdett, Rev. William Draper; George Ensor, Rev. Richard Hayes, Robert Williams, Sir Charles Wolseley, and Matthew Wood—Bentham described himself as a "nonentity", and declined the offer.
Cartwright had sent a copy of The English Constitution to former President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wrote to Cartwright in July 1824: <blockquote> Your age of eighty-four, and mine of eighty-one years, ensure us a speedy meeting. We may then commune at leisure, and more fully, on the good and evil, which in the course of our long lives, we have both witnessed; and in the mean time, I pray you to accept assurances of my high veneration and esteem for your person and character. </blockquote>
Industrial and agricultural innovator
In 1788, Major Cartwight bought an estate at Brothertoft, near Boston, Lincolnshire. He sold his heavily mortgaged estates at Marnham soon after.
Cartwright took a keen interest in agricultural improvement and used his estate at Brothertoft to conduct crop trials and to develop new agricultural implements, several of which were invented by his bailiff and later estate steward, William Amos. He turned over a large part of his estate to the cultivation of woad, creating dedicated buildings and improving the apparatus used to process the crop. He began addressing his letters as being from Brothertoft Farm. or Brothertoft house, to which the farm was ancillary. Cartwright extended the house with octagonal additions to both ends and applied a stucco finish to the walls. William Marrat described it as "an elegant mansion". Brothertoft Hall, substantially extended about 1850, is a Grade II listed building.
By the time he leased the estate and moved to Enfield, Middlesex in 1803, Cartwright had developed the rich loam soil into a profitable site for the cultivation of woad. Marrat recounted in 1814 that Cartwright had sold off much of the land as separate farms and that the holding had consisted of around . Most of the buildings have been demolished - only one remains.
Personal life
thumb|right|The monument to John Cartwright at [[St Mary-at-Finchley Church in 2021]]
thumb|right|The inscriptions to John and Elizabeth Cartwright on the Cartwright monument at St Mary-at-Finchley Church
In 1780, he married Ann Catherine Dashwood, the eldest daughter of prominent Lincolnshire landowner Samuel Dashwood and Anne () Dashwood. She was a granddaughter of George Dashwood, MP for Stockbridge (and son of Lord Mayor of London Sir Samuel Dashwood), and James Bateman, MP for Carlisle (and son of banker Sir James Bateman). He adopted his niece Frances Dorothy Cartwright, daughter of his brother Edmund, after her mother died in 1785.
Cartwright died in London on 23 September 1824, and was buried at St Mary's Church, Finchley, north London.
Legacy
In 1793 Captain George Vancouver named Cartwright Sound - on the west coast of Graham Island in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), British Columbia, Canada - in his honour in relation to his Royal Navy service under Admiral Howe.
The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright, edited by his niece Frances Dorothy Cartwright, was published in 1826. An uncritical account, it had no competitors until 1972.
In 1831, a monument with a statue by sculptor George Clarke was erected to him in Bloomsbury, London, where he had lived. Burton Crescent, the original name of the street, was in 1908 renamed Cartwright Gardens in his honour. The statue is Grade II listed.
In 1835, a monument to him was erected in St Mary's churchyard, Finchley, paid for by public subscription. It is also Grade II listed. and was on the English Heritage Heritage at Risk Register due to its dangerous condition. The monument was removed from the register after being restored in 2019, as a result of a £79,000 grant from Historic England.
John Cartwright House, built in 1976 on the Mansford Estate in Bethnal Green, was named in his honour. The housing estate was built by Tower Hamlets Council and a number of the blocks were named after social and political reformers. In 2006, the estate transferred to Tower Hamlets Community Housing, a local housing association.