Editing Thomas Paine (section)

==Early life and education==
Paine was born on January 29, 1736 {{small|([[New Style|NS]] February 9, 1737<!--As consensus since February 20, 2010 see talk page-->),<ref group="Note" name="Conway group=Note" /> }} the son of Joseph Pain (1708–1787), a tenant farmer and [[Corsetmaker|stay-maker]],<ref>{{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-21133|title=Paine, Thomas (1737–1809), author and revolutionary |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/21133 }}</ref> and Frances ({{nee|Cocke}}) Pain, in [[Thetford]], Norfolk, England. Joseph was a [[Quaker]] and Frances an [[Anglican]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=A History of Thetford|edition=1st|last=Crosby|first=Alan|year=1986|publisher=Phillimore & Co|location=Chichester, Sussex|pages=44–84|isbn=978-0850336047}}<!--SEE DISCUSSION PAGE--></ref> Despite claims that Paine changed the spelling of his family name upon his emigration to America in 1774,<ref name=JulesP1/> he was using "Paine" in 1769, while still in [[Lewes]], Sussex.<ref>{{Cite web|title=National Archives|publisher=UK National Archives|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=179-nu&cid=-1&Gsm=2008-06-18#-1|journal=|access-date=April 6, 2009|archive-date=December 15, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191215140321/http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=179-nu&cid=-1&Gsm=2008-06-18#-1}} Acknowledgement dated March 2, 1769, document NU/1/3/3.</ref>
[[File:Old School at Thetford Grammar.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Old School at [[Thetford Grammar School]], where Paine was educated]]
He attended [[Thetford Grammar School]] (1744–1749), at a time when there was no compulsory education.<ref name=Thetford>[http://www.thetgram.norfolk.sch.uk/History.htm School History] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101205004955/http://www.thetgram.norfolk.sch.uk/History.htm|date=December 5, 2010}} Thetford Grammar School; accessed January 3, 2008,</ref> At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to his father.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keane |first1=John |title=Tom Paine, A Political Life |date=1995 |publisher=Bloomsbury |location=London |isbn=0802139647 |page=30 |edition=First}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Bell |first1=J.L. |title=The Evidence for Paine as a Staymaker |url=http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-evidence-for-paine-as-staymaker.html |website=Boston 1775 |access-date=October 3, 2019 |archive-date=October 3, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191003001514/http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-evidence-for-paine-as-staymaker.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Following his apprenticeship, aged 19, Paine enlisted and served as a [[privateer]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keane |first1=John |title=Tom Paine, A Political Life |date=1995 |publisher=Bloomsbury |location=London |isbn=0802139647 |page=38 |edition=First}}</ref> aboard the ship King of Prussia. Upon returning to Britain in 1759, he became a master [[corsetmaker|staymaker]], establishing a shop in [[Sandwich, Kent]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Thomas Paine|publisher=Open Sandwich|work=Sandwich People & History|url=http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk/town_history/scrapbook/thomas_paine.htm|access-date=April 2, 2010|archive-date=April 11, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090411080111/http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk/town_history/scrapbook/thomas_paine.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

On September 27, 1759, Paine married Mary Lambert. His business collapsed soon after. Mary became pregnant; and, after they moved to [[Margate]], she went into early labour, in which she and their child died.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/paine.html|title=Thomas Paine, 1737–1809|website=historyguide.org|access-date=March 28, 2019|archive-date=March 17, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190317031239/http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/paine.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In July 1761, Paine returned to Thetford to work as a [[wikt:supernumerary|supernumerary]] officer. In December 1762, he became an [[HM Customs and Excise|Excise Officer]] in [[Grantham]], Lincolnshire; in August 1764, he was transferred to [[Alford, Lincolnshire|Alford]], also in Lincolnshire, at a salary of £50 per annum. On August 27, 1765, he was dismissed as an Excise Officer for "claiming to have inspected goods he did not inspect". On July 31, 1766, he requested his reinstatement from the Board of Excise, which they granted the next day, upon vacancy. While awaiting that, he worked as a staymaker.<ref>{{Cite web
 |title=The Life of Thomas Paine: With a History of Literary, Political, and Religious Career in America, France, and England
 |author=Conway, Moncure Daniel
 |year=1892
 |publisher=[[Thomas Paine National Historical Association]]
 |page=20, vol. I
 |url=http://www.thomaspaine.org/bio/ConwayLife.html
 |access-date=July 18, 2009 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090418233236/http://www.thomaspaine.org/bio/ConwayLife.html
 |archive-date=April 18, 2009 }}</ref>

[[File:Thomas Paines Lewes home.jpg|thumb|left|Thomas Paine's house in [[Lewes]]]]

In 1767, he was appointed to a position in [[Grampound]], Cornwall. Later he asked to leave this post to await a vacancy, and he became a school teacher in London.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Conway |first1=Moncure Daniel |title=The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. I. (of II) With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37701/37701-h/37701-h.htm |access-date=25 October 2021 |archive-date=March 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220305070904/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37701/37701-h/37701-h.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

On February 19, 1768, he was appointed to [[Lewes]] in [[Sussex]], a town with a tradition of opposition to the monarchy and pro-republican sentiments since the revolutionary decades of the 17th century.<ref name="TP-FR36">{{Cite book
 | title = Thomas Paine: Firebrand of the Revolution
 | last = Kaye | first = Harvey J.
 | year = 2000
 | publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]
 | page = 36
 | isbn = 978-0195116274
}}</ref> Here he lived above the 15th-century Bull House, the tobacco shop of Samuel Ollive and Esther Ollive.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sussexpast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/David-Martin-Bull_HouseLewes.pdf|title=An Archaeological Interpretative Survey of Bull House, 92 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex|last1=Martin|first1=David|last2=Clubb|first2=Jane|date=2009|website=Sussex Archaeological Society|access-date=August 20, 2019|archive-date=March 7, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307222027/https://sussexpast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/David-Martin-Bull_HouseLewes.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Paine first became involved in civic matters when he was based in Lewes. He appears in the Town Book as a member of the Court Leet, the governing body for the town. He was also a member of the [[parish]] [[vestry]], an influential local Anglican church group whose responsibilities for parish business would include collecting taxes and tithes to distribute among the poor. On March 26, 1771, at age 34, Paine married Elizabeth Ollive, the daughter of his recently deceased landlord, whose business as a grocer and tobacconist he then entered into.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MMm_JGPkmLkC&q=Elizabeth%20Ollive%20married%20Thomas%20Paine%20on%20March%2026%201771&pg=PA12|title=The Life of Thomas Paine, Author of "Common Sense," "Rights of Man," "Age of Reason," "Letters to the Addresser[!]," &c., &c|last=Rickman|first=Thomas Clio|author-link=Thomas 'Clio' Rickman|date=1899| oclc=424874|publisher=B.D. Cousins|language=en|access-date=October 29, 2020|archive-date=February 5, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205003103/https://books.google.com/books?id=MMm_JGPkmLkC&q=Elizabeth%20Ollive%20married%20Thomas%20Paine%20on%20March%2026%201771&pg=PA12|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:White Hart Paine plaque.jpg|thumb|Plaque at the White Hart Hotel, [[Lewes]], East Sussex, south east England]]

From 1772 to 1773, Paine joined excise officers asking Parliament for better pay and working conditions, publishing, in summer of 1772, ''The Case of the Officers of Excise'', a 12-page article, and his first political work, spending the London winter distributing the 4,000 copies printed to the Parliament and others. In spring 1774, he was again dismissed from the excise service for being absent from his post without permission. The tobacco shop failed. On April 14, to avoid [[debtors' prison]], he sold his household possessions to pay debts. He formally separated from his wife Elizabeth on June 4, 1774, and moved to London. In September, mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Commissioner of the Excise [[George Lewis Scott]] introduced him to [[Benjamin Franklin]],<ref>"Letter to the Honorable Henry Laurens" in Philip S. Foner's ''The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine'' (New York: Citadel Press, 1945), 2:1160–1165.</ref> who was there as a voice for colonial opposition to British colonial rule, especially as it related to the [[Stamp Act (1765)|Stamp Act]], and the [[Townshend Acts]]. He was publisher and editor of the largest American newspaper, ''[[The Pennsylvania Gazette]]'' and suggested emigration to Philadelphia. He handed out a letter of recommendation to Paine, who emigrated in October to the American colonies, arriving in [[Philadelphia]] on November 30, 1774.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Paine|title=Thomas Paine {{!}} British-American author|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=September 15, 2017|date=|archive-date=September 15, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170915162723/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Paine|url-status=live}}</ref>

===In ''Pennsylvania Magazine''===
Paine barely survived the transatlantic voyage. The ship's water supplies were bad and [[typhoid fever]] killed five passengers. On arriving at Philadelphia, he was too sick to disembark. Benjamin Franklin's physician, there to welcome Paine to America, had him carried off ship; Paine took six weeks to recover. He became a citizen of Pennsylvania "by taking the oath of allegiance at a very early period".<ref>Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1892. ''The Life of Thomas Paine'' vol. 1, p. 209.</ref> In March 1775, he became editor of the ''Pennsylvania Magazine'', a position he conducted with considerable ability.<ref name="larkin3140">{{cite book |last1=Larkin |first1=Edward |title=Thomas Paine and the Literature of Revolution |date=2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=31–40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u5z2iRUemxMC |access-date=December 1, 2018 |isbn=978-1139445986 |archive-date=February 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204235328/https://books.google.com/books?id=u5z2iRUemxMC |url-status=live }}</ref>

Before Paine's arrival in America, sixteen magazines had been founded in the colonies and ultimately failed, each featuring substantial content and reprints from England. In late 1774, Philadelphia printer [[Robert Aitken (publisher)|Robert Aitken]] announced his plan to create what he called an "American Magazine" with content derived from the colonies.<ref name="larkin3140" /> Paine contributed two pieces to the magazine's inaugural issue dated January 1775, and Aitken hired Paine as the Magazine's editor one month later. Under Paine's leadership, the magazine's readership rapidly expanded, achieving a greater circulation in the colonies than any American magazine up until that point.<ref name="larkin3140" /> While Aitken had conceived of the magazine as nonpolitical, Paine brought a strong political perspective to its content, writing in its first issue that "every heart and hand seem to be engaged in the interesting struggle for ''American Liberty.''"<ref name="larkin3140" />

Paine wrote in the ''Pennsylvania Magazine'' that such a publication should become a "nursery of genius" for a nation that had "now outgrown the state of infancy," exercising and educating American minds, and shaping American morality.<ref name="larkin3140" /> On March 8, 1775, the ''Pennsylvania Magazine'' published an unsigned abolitionist essay titled ''African Slavery in America''.<ref name="LoA" /> The essay is often attributed to Paine on the basis of a letter by [[Benjamin Rush]], recalling Paine's claim of authorship to the essay.<ref name="LoA">{{cite book |title=American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation |date=2012 |publisher=Library of America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JuG3IKMYdIYC |access-date=December 1, 2018 |isbn=978-1598532142 |archive-date=August 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819133421/https://books.google.com/books?id=JuG3IKMYdIYC |url-status=live }}</ref> The essay attacked slavery as an "execrable commerce" and "outrage against Humanity and Justice."<ref name="LoA" />

Consciously appealing to a broader and more working-class audience, Paine also used the magazine to discuss worker rights to production. This shift in the conceptualization of politics has been described as a part of "the 'modernization' of political consciousness," and the mobilization of ever greater sections of society into political life.<ref name="larkin3140" /><ref name="jpgreen">{{cite journal |last1=Green |first1=Jack |title=Paine, America, and the "Modernization" of Political Consciousness |journal=Political Science Quarterly |date=1978 |volume=93 |issue=1 |pages=73–92 |doi=10.2307/2149051 |jstor=2149051  |issn = 0032-3195}}</ref>