[taken from Chapter 9 Manx Worthies, A.W.Moore, 1901]

ROBERT FARGHER (b. 1803, d. 1863)

was born in the parish of Maughold. At the age of 14 he left the island and went to London, where he occupied the post of private secretary. Three years later he returned and was apprenticed to his relation, George Jefferson, then the printer and publisher of the "Manks Advertiser " newspaper, an organ with a very strong Tory and Church and State bias. As ROBERT FARGHER grew older, his views became those of an advanced Radical, so that his work in connexion With the "Advertiser" became more and more distasteful to him. He, therefore, in 1833, persuaded William Walls, a fellow printer in the same office, to join with him in starting a newspaper, which they called the " Mona's Herald." They designed it to be the organ of political reform, nonconformity, and temperance. To promote these ends ROBERT FARGHER never spared himself. Passionate and impulsive by nature, nothing would rouse him more speedily than cases of tyranny and oppression. Neither loss of popularity or of business would prevent him from denouncing them, if he thought it his duty to do so. It is not surprising, therefore, that he made enemies He was a true patriot, and his strenuous efforts to improve the political and social conditions of the Isle of Man should not be forgotten

(From an account by Mr. James Cowin.)

see also entry under Methodists.