Politician. He served in the British Parliament in the early 19th century. He was known as John Horne until 1782, when he added the surname of Tooke after becoming an heir of the wealthy estate owner at Purley, William Tooke, who co-owned a Caribbean plantation and enslaved laborers. Originally an Anglican cleric, he became friends with John Wilkes of the Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights. Two years later, he formed the Constitutional Party, promoting Wilkesian policies of reform in Parliament and support for the American colonies' independence. In 1777 he had been sentenced to a seven-month imprisonment for raising a fund to support the American rebels. He was instrumental in organizing the distribution of the American journalist Thomas Paine's "The Rights of Man" in 1791. At the time, his politics were considered radical. Unpopular with the British government, he was briefly imprisoned in 1778 for libel and after being in jail for six months in the Tower of London, he was acquitted of treason in 1794. Tooke gained a seat in Parliament in 1801 at the age of 65. Parliament passed an act forbidding clergy to become Members of Parliament, specifically to keep Tooke from being re-elected. Retiring to Wimbledon, he instigated a custom of holding Sunday parties, where men-of-letters would gather around his table. Born the third of seven children of a chicken farmer, he graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1758, became a lawyer and, in 1760, he became a vicar and did serve some churches. He spent his life-time studying the English language. He published in 1786 "The Diversions of Purley-Part I", yet Part II was published 19 years later in 1805. In 1807 he published "A warning to the electors of Westminster". His portrait, along with a host of drawings and political cartoons of him, are archived at the National Gallery.