Catalogue Number
NMLH.1993.67
Object Name
Table
Title
'This plate is inscribed by Thos. Clio Rickman in Remembrance of his dear friend Thomas Paine, who on this Table in the year 1792 wrote several of his invaluable Works.'
Place
London, England, UK, USA, France
People
Thomas Paine, Thomas Clio Rickman
Events
American War Of Independence, French Revolution
Description
A dark brown wooden table bears the dedication 'This plate is inscribed by Thos. Clio Rickman in remembrance of his dear friend Thomas Paine, who on this table in the year 1792 wrote several of his invaluable works'.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) used this table for writing the second part of his famous work, The Rights of Man. In the book he argued that all men over 21 should have the right to vote. It also proposed the abolition of the House of Lords. The outraged government immediately banned the book. Despite this, affordable editions were printed and by Paine's death in 1809, 1½ million copies had been sold in Europe. Paine stayed with his biographer, Clio Rickman, in 1792 and left the table when he fled to France. Rickman would proudly show visitors to his house the table, now sanctified by his plaque. The size of the table indicates that Paine needed little room for notes. This type of small, tilting table was known as a 'candle stand' or tilt-top table.
Paine has been seen as the classic, rootless free-thinker or revolutionary, one lionised at first, but rejected in due course as simply too radical or 'atheistical' for the time. While in the American Colonies he wrote political pamphlets advocating for the end of colonialism and the abolition of slavery. Political thinking including Paine's, contributed to the American Revolutionary War and ultimately the founding of the United States of America. In the course of a turbulent political life, Paine lived in Thetford, Norfolk, London, Cornwall, Lewes in Sussex, Philadelphia, New York, Paris briefly, and died in New York, in Greenwich Village.
**ON DISPLAY**
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