Richard Champion and the Rockingham Whigs: The Aristocratic Politics of a Bristolian Quaker Merchant in the Age of the American Revolution

Abstract This article explores the political career and writings of Richard Champion (1743–1791), a Bristolian Quaker merchant who acted as local supporter agent Rockingham Whigs. It aims to recover forgotten aspect Lewis Namier’s original ambition understand eighteenth-century politics through perspective relatively ordinary people such merchants civil servants. However, against old Namierite assumptions, well much recent historiography on post-1760 period in British which focuses dichotomous conflict between ‘radical Whigs’ ‘new Tories’, this restores importance Importantly, it shows that commercial Dissenter could be fully attuned aristocratic party-centred interpretation associated with Rockinghamites Edmund Burke, thus encourages us consider idea ‘aristocratic government’ inclusive eclectic ways. The case-study demonstrates close reading correspondence from can confirm, destabilise, Whig history party.