Abstract
John Thelwall was born in 1764 in Covent Garden, London. The son of a silk mercer, he was unsuccessfully apprenticed to his father after leaving school at 13, and then successively, an apprenticed tailor, and an articled legal clerk; but he failed to impress at any of these, apparently reading during working hours. Turning to his pen, he published two volumes of poems and became literary editor of the Biographical and Imperial Magazine. Speaking at the Coachmakers' Hall, he caught the attention of John Home Tooke, who offered to send him to university. But by this time he was already enthusing about the revolution in France and had joined both the whiggish Society of the Friends of the People, and the more down-market London Corresponding Society. In the midst of all of this, and getting married, he attended some courses on anatomy and medicine at one of the London medical colleges.
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