Richard Cobden and the Press During His European Tour

Although Richard Cobden (1804-1865) is probably best known nowadays as the political agitator behind the introduction of free trade in England and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, he was also an experienced traveller. Fostering his career in politics thanks to his remarkable popularity among middle and lower classes, he toured Europe several times and met intellectuals, diplomats, and politicians abroad. In this paper I focus on his experiences as a traveller across Europe by studying two main set of sources: his travel diaries and the chronicles published by local and national newspapers in the countries he visited. My aim is to study the link, and possible mismatch, between how he was depicted in newspapers and how he described himself in his diaries. Ultimately, I ask about the epistemological relevance of this lack of correspondence when examining how political ideas, and Cobden’s liberalism in particular travel.