Lord Brougham, Charles Knight, and The Rights of Industry

Abstract

In at least two places in the literature of economics attention has been called to the value and importance of a little book entitled The Rights of Industry published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in 1831.1 In both places it is incorrectly stated that the author of The Rights of Industry is unknown but that Lord Brougham is usually assumed to have written it. The author is clearly Charles Knight, whose name appeared on the cover of the book as publisher. The error over authorship originated with Thomas Hodgskin whose economic ideas were attacked in the book. The paper cover of this well-printed book, which sold for a shilling, identified the author only as the author of The Results of Machinery. The latter was written by Knight and published in January, 1831 by the Society as part of its efforts to calm agricultural unrest spreading through England from its starting point of machine-breaking that followed the harvest of 1830 in the South. In 1845 Knight wrote: That little book had a most extensive sale, and is still in constant demand. Fifty thousand copies have been sold since its first publication.2 A good yardstick of sales is provided by a similar work of the next year, Illustrations of Political Economy, the author of which, Harriet Martineau, was sky-rocketed to fame by sales that eventually reached 10,000. The Society had even greater success with a penny pamphlet on the subject of machine-breaking. Webb reports that 20,000 of these were sold in a few days and 120,000 more were sold later.3 This propaganda success is attributable in large part to the Society's network of local committees that Knight had helped organize on a trip around England. Knight noted that within a month of publication he received the formal thanks of the Committee of the Society and that some portion of its original popularity may be ascribed to the circumstance of its having been attributed, without the slightest foundation, to the pen of Lord Brougham.4 This erroneous attribution was easily transferred within the year to the second book by the same author, The Rights of