Old Fox’s Journal

Introducing 200’s diary, digging out the news of the doings of those who are shaping (or mis-shaping) Georgian Britain

BOROUGH COUNCIL OF KING’S LYNN AND WEST NORFOLK THOMAS WILLIAM COKE MP London society had barely recovered from the shock of finding out that ‘Coke of Norfolk’ was to be married to a woman 50 years his junior, when they learned that the happy couple were expecting a child later this year.

Thomas William Coke, 68, an MP first elected in 1776, and his new wife married suddenly in February after a potential romance between Lady Anne Keppel, 18, and Thomas Coke’s nephew and heir, William, fizzled out. The veteran Norfolk MP, an elder statesmen of the opposition Whigs, is said to have exclaimed, “By God, if you won’t marry her, I will marry her myself!” The news was greeted with astonishment at Westminster and in some sections of the press. The marriage has been called ‘absurd’, the result of a ‘breezy love-fit’ by Mr Coke, pictured left. The couple honeymooned in the rural Middlesex village of Paddington before returning to the family’s stately home, Holkham Hall, and Thomas Coke’s duties as a landowner, agricultural reformer, and Norfolk MP. As we report (p4), Mr Coke is one of those taking Tory ministers to task over the distressed state of rural areas, Rural rider William Cobbett (above) will soon be off on his travels again. The journalist, politician and farmer has twice had to flee to France and the United States, fearing arrest, and did spend two years in Newgate for treasonous libel. After his return from America in late 1819, he stood unsuccessfully in Coventry in the general election of 1820, but hasn’t abandoned hopes of success in the future. For now, William Cobbett is campaigning on an issue close to his heart, and started a series of horseback journeys last October to find out and record the mood of rural communities. These were published in his Weekly Political Register and Mr Cobbett is determined to publish them in book form. Later in June, after five months out of the saddle, he will travel through Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. More trips are planned for later this year.

Our latest intelligence

The Earl of Liverpool’s kindly gesture in letting the ‘heartbroken’ Duke of Clarence and his wife, Adelaide, stay at Walmer Castle in Kent as she recovers from her double miscarriage (p4) has drawn attention to the considerable benefits the prime minister gets from his untaxing second job as lord warden of the Cinque Ports. Apart from a home (his predecessor William Pitt lived there), Lord Liverpool also receives an extremely generous salary of о £3,000 a year. For doing what exactly?

Madame Tussaud clearly knows she is on to a good thing in the north-west of England. Having exhibited her wax historical figures in Wigan, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Warrington for more than a year, Madame Marie (pictured below in 1803 after her arrival in Britain) is set to open this month in Chester’s Assembly Rooms.

The Liverpool and Manchester shows alone are said to have attracted 90,000 paying customers. For о one shilling, visitors in Chester will see a tableau of George IV’s coronation in a venue dressed like the throne room at Carlton House, the King’s London palace. Perhaps curiously, the show will also depict the crowning of Napoleon in 1804.