John Trenchard

JOHN TRENCHARD (1662-1723), erroneously referred to by Macaulay as a son of Sir John Trenchard. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Trenchard inherited considerable wealth and was thus able to devote the greater part of his life to writing on political subjects, his point of view being that of a Whig and an opponent of the High Church party. His chief works are A Short History of Standing Armies in England (1698 and 1731) and The Natural History of Superstition (^og). With Thomas Gordon (d. 1750) he produced a weekly periodical, The Independent Whig, and with the same colleague he wrote a number of letters to the London Journal and to the British Journal under the pseudonym of Cato. These letters were published in four volumes in 1724 and the collection has often been reprinted. Trenchard died on the i7th of December 1723.