Erskine and Gibbs and Trial by Jury
T. Hardy; J.H. Tooke; T. Holcroft; J.A. Bonney; J Joyce;
S. Kid; J. Thelwall; J. Richter; J. Baxter
1794
Counsel for the Defence
Thomas Erskine 1st Baron Erskine (1750 – 1823)
Sir Vicary Gibbs (1751 – 1820)
Defendants
Thomas Hardy - Secretary of the London Corresponding Society (LCS)
John Horne Tooke - Founding member of the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, Society of Constitutional Information (SCI) and LCS
Thomas Holcroft - Novelist and dramatist. Member of the SCI and the liaison committee to work with the LCS. He helped Tom Paine to publish the first part of The Rights of Man.
John Augustus Bonney - Lawyer and radical. As attorney for the SCI he defended Thomas Paine (tried in absentia) and Daniel Isaac Eaton before he was himself arrested for treason
Jeremiah Joyce - Unitarian Minister. Secretary to the Joint Committee between the LCS and SCI
Stewart Kid (Kyd) - Scottish politician and legal writer. In 1797 he defended Thomas Williams, a bookseller, who was indicted for blasphemy in publishing Tom Paine's The Age of Reason.
John Thelwall - Journalist and writer who sought political reforms in Britain, including universal suffrage, annual elections for Parliament and freedom of association. Member of the LCS
John Richter
John Baxter - Author of a book on the History of England which counterposed a more radical interpretation of the British constitution than that portrayed in David Hume’s work on that subject. Thomas Jefferson held Baxter’s work in very high regard over and above Hume’s analysis and wanted to establish it as the main text book on English history in the USA.
Thomas Erskine 1st Baron Erskine (1750 – 1823)
Sir Vicary Gibbs (1751 – 1820)
Defendants
Thomas Hardy - Secretary of the London Corresponding Society (LCS)
John Horne Tooke - Founding member of the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, Society of Constitutional Information (SCI) and LCS
Thomas Holcroft - Novelist and dramatist. Member of the SCI and the liaison committee to work with the LCS. He helped Tom Paine to publish the first part of The Rights of Man.
John Augustus Bonney - Lawyer and radical. As attorney for the SCI he defended Thomas Paine (tried in absentia) and Daniel Isaac Eaton before he was himself arrested for treason
Jeremiah Joyce - Unitarian Minister. Secretary to the Joint Committee between the LCS and SCI
Stewart Kid (Kyd) - Scottish politician and legal writer. In 1797 he defended Thomas Williams, a bookseller, who was indicted for blasphemy in publishing Tom Paine's The Age of Reason.
John Thelwall - Journalist and writer who sought political reforms in Britain, including universal suffrage, annual elections for Parliament and freedom of association. Member of the LCS
John Richter
John Baxter - Author of a book on the History of England which counterposed a more radical interpretation of the British constitution than that portrayed in David Hume’s work on that subject. Thomas Jefferson held Baxter’s work in very high regard over and above Hume’s analysis and wanted to establish it as the main text book on English history in the USA.