Joseph Hume was a champion of free-trade principles and radical reform. He was in the forefront of nearly every major reform endeavor in the first half of the nineteenth century and, though he never held office, his name was a household word in England for over thirty years. He rose to popularity on the basis of his attack on government spending, and he remained a favorite of "the people" because he seemed unencumbered by personal avarice. Hume's personal life largely remains a mystery, because his private papers were destoryed by fire. The authors have gone though many manuscript collections of those who were close to Hume in order to put his life together. The most useful of these collections were the papers of Francis Place, John Cam Hobhouse, and Richard Cobden.