It was on this date, December 9, 1790, that rebel publisher and Freethought fighter Richard Carlile was born in Ashburton, Devon, the son of a shoemaker who abandoned the family four years later. He received some education at a Church of England school, then took to work, marrying and starting a family in London. Hard economic times prompted Carlile to attend political meetings and read Thomas Paine: he soon became an advocate of government reform.

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Originally published December 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer.