Wilkes, John 1727-97
English politician

Born in Clerkenwell, London, he was the son of a distiller. A member of the Hell-fire Club which indulged in orgies at Medmenham Abbey, the home of Sir Francis Dashwood, he entered parliament in 1757 and became fiercely critical of George III's Chief Minister, Lord Bute. He established a weekly newspaper The North Briton, in which he alleged that ministers were putting lies into the King's mouth. Acquitted of a libel charge, on the ground of parliamentary privilege, he fought a duel after readings from his Essay on Women in the House of Lords were claimed to be obscene. Wilkes took refuge in France and when he returned to England in 1768 he was imprisoned for 22 months and not allowed to resume his seat in parliament. However, he was elected Sheriff of Middlesex in 1771, Lord Mayor of London in 1774, and returned to parliament. Despite his apparently outrageous private behaviour, he became a symbol of free speech with the epitaph, which he composed himself, 'a friend of liberty'.

Bibliography: H W Bleakley, Life of John Wilkes (1917)