PLANS to celebrate the 200th anniversary of a famous book have been abandoned because of the author’s anti-Semitism.

Politician and journalist William Cobbett wrote Rural Rides, a collection of commentaries on the state of Hampshire and Southern England.

A group of enthusiasts planned to mark the anniversary but have abandoned the plans after discovering the depth of his hatred of Jews.

Cobbett, who lived in Botley, wrote with compassion and anger about the state of the poor and the many injustices which they faced as well as about the area’s landscape, country houses and agriculture. But he also blamed Jewish bankers for creating rural poverty and this spilled into virulent hatred in other writing.

There had been a plan by an informal committee of individuals to hold a festival of commemorative events.

One, Edward Fennell, founder of Hyde900, said: “However, within Rural Rides there were a number of gratuitous anti-Semitic and racist comments which seemed at odds with Cobbett’s generally ‘progressive’ opinions. Given current sensitivities around these issues the organisers thought that they needed to be investigated further.”

Mr Fennell added that research showed that in several of Cobbett’s other works – which have been largely forgotten and are no longer in print – he consistently expressed extreme views of the same kind. At a time - around 1820-30 - when English society was slowly starting to become more liberal, Cobbett was adopting a highly reactionary position.

Mr Fennell said: “As a result, it was decided that it could not be justified to hold an event which, as one person observed, ‘put him on a pedestal’. Nonetheless the decision was taken with considerable disappointment. As an activist, Cobbett exposed corruption, stood up for justice for ordinary people, suffered imprisonment for challenging oppressive authorities and was a champion of the poor. His observations about life in Hampshire in the 1820s still has much value and is worth study. But his extreme (and truly vile) attitudes mean that a celebration of his life would now be completely inappropriate.”

Mr Fennell added: “I have to say his anti-Semitism was quite a revelation, and extremely disappointing, to see how extreme it was even for the time.”