The Remembrancer (1747 periodical)

The Remembrancer was a London weekly political periodical published from 12 December 1747 to 1 June 1751. Edited by James Ralph—who wrote under the byline “By George Cadwallader, gent.”—it was launched under Leicester House patronage as George Bubb Dodington moved into the opposition around Frederick, Prince of Wales. The paper took an oppositional line toward the Pelham ministry, arguing for a blue-water strategy in the closing stages of the War of the Austrian Succession and, in 1749, mounting a prominent critique of the Navy Bill’s extension of military discipline in peacetime.

Contemporaries noticed its bite: Horace Walpole called it “the Craftsman of the present age,” aimed at the Duke of Cumberland, and credited it with having “written down” General Henry Hawley. The editor was briefly detained after publishing a report of a Commons debate (11 May 1749), and in November 1749 the paper was suppressed, though publication resumed and the final five issues appeared under the retitled masthead The Remembrancer, or, National advocate, concluding on 1 June 1751. After a hiatus, Ralph returned to opposition journalism with The Protester (June–November 1753).