The Laughter of Triumph

Satirist William Hone is the forgotten hero of the British press. In 1817 he was forced to defend himself against a censorious government, in what amounted to a show trial pitting a self-educated Fleet Street journalist against the Lord Chief Justice and a hand-picked jury. Hone's crime was to ridicule the powers that be. Through Hone's life, Ben Wilson looks at the history of the struggle for free expression against repressive law. Ben Wilson was born in 1980, and studied history at Pembroke College, Cambridge as an undergraduate and graduate. He has worked as a researcher for Professor David Starkey's TV series The Monarchy. He lives in East London