English statesman and political economist, best known for his achievement of free trade and his efforts toward international cooperation.
Background
Cobden was born the son of a farmer near Midhurst, Sussex, on June 3, 1804. After early years of poverty and a grim life in a Yorkshire school, he learned the cloth trade in London. By the time he was 28 years old, he had become head of a Manchester manufacturing business so prosperous that he was able to turn to public affairs.
Career
Self-directed study and extensive travel on the Continent, in the United States, and in Egypt provided him with wide knowledge of his own and other societies, stimulated his interest in international affairs, and developed his broad, warm sympathies with other peoples. During these early years, though he was initially defeated for Parliament, he labored to institute national elementary education, worked for Manchester municipal improvement, and began his fight for free trade, which he believed would not only promote prosperity but foster good will among nations.
In 1841 Cobden entered Parliament and became leader of the free-trade crusade, which in 1846 effected abolition of the burdensome Corn Law duties. The repeal signified the end of the old mercantile order and inaugurated the era of free trade under which Britain achieved a new prosperity. In 1860 Cobden performed his second significant piece of work: he negotiated for England the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty, which committed Britain to free trade, reduced French tariffs to reasonable rates, and induced the chief European governments to break down long-standing trade barriers to effect the greatest freedom of trade that the new commercial era had known.
During his years in Parliament, where he served throughout most of his life, Cobden supported many domestic reforms, such as proposals for abolition of the newspaper tax, institution of penny postage, financial retrenchment, and free, universal elementary education. He pressed ceaselessly for disarmament, pleaded for arbitration (and saw an arbitration clause included in the Crimean War Treaty), and urged reform of maritime law. A consistent opponent of the government's foreign policy, he protested against high-handed dealings with weak states, denounced intervention in foreign disputes and opposed the Chinese and Crimean wars. He participated actively in most of the international peace congresses and at one time largely directed the National Peace Society. A loyal friend of America (which he visited in 1835 and 1859), Cobden was influential in preserving British neutrality during the Civil War. He died in London on Apr. 2, 1865.