Joseph Gerrald
| Joseph Gerrald | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
February 9, 1763 St. Kitts, West Indies |
| Died | March 16, 1796 (aged 33) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Cause of death | Tuberculosis |
| Occupation | Political reformer |
| Notable work | A Convention the Only Means of Saving Us from Ruin |
Joseph Gerrald (9 February 1763 – 16 March 1796) was a political reformer, one of the "Scottish Martyrs". He worked with the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information and also wrote an influential letter, A Convention the Only Means of Saving Us from Ruin. He was arrested for his radical views and convicted of sedition in 1794. Subsequently, he was deported to Sydney, where he died from tuberculosis in 1796.
Gerrald was born in St. Kitts, West Indies to Joseph Gerrald, a wealthy Irish planter, and Ann Rogers. In 1765, Gerrald and his family moved to London, where he attended a boarding school in Hammersmith until he was 11. Gerrald's mother died when he was very young – shortly after his family moved to England, and his father died when he was just 12 years old. After his father died in 1775, Gerrald was sent to study at Stanmore school under Dr. Samuel Parr. While at Stanmore, Gerrald performed very well in several subjects, such as Greek, Latin, and art, and became very close with Parr. Despite these successes, Parr needed to expel Gerrald because of 'extreme indiscretion'. In 1780, Gerrald moved back to the West Indies to tend to matters of the family fortune. Unfortunately, his father had been lavishly spending and had reduced the family estate considerably. During his stay, he brashly married a woman and they had a son and daughter together. Gerrald's wife died soon after the birth of the second child and he was left to raise two young children without much money. He then decided to move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he was a lawyer for several years. In 1785, he was listed in the muster roll for the City of Philadelphia, in the 3rd company 6th battalion of the Philadelphia militia. Gerrald returned to London in 1788, but in 1789 he moved to Bath due to his declining health.
After Gerrald's return to England, he began writing anonymous letters about politics and joined the Society for Constitutional Information and the more radical London Corresponding Society. He became popular among radical reform groups due to his eloquence and pleasant demeanor. These groups were under continuous observation by royal authorities due to their promulgation of radical ideas; these ideas, in conjunction with eruption of war all over Europe during the 1790s, raised fears of a similar revolution in Britain. Gerrald was mostly concerned with parliamentary reform and was a large proponent of a national convention, alongside Thomas Paine. The convention would be democratically elected and would focus on sorting out the laws of England. Gerrald drew his ideas from the successful precedent of the Saxons' Convention, and outlined his plans in his pamphlet, A Convention the Only Means of Saving Us from Ruin (1793).
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