John Hurford Stone

Who was John Hurford Stone?

John Hurford Stone was a British radical political reformer and publisher who spent much of his life in France.

Stone was born in Taunton, Somerset. After the death of his father, he went to live with his uncle, William Hurford, who was a coal merchant, in London. Together with his younger brother, William, he took over his uncle's business upon his death.

Stone became friends with Joseph Priestley as a member of Richard Price's church in Hackney; these associations also radicalized him. He was a member of the London Revolution Society and in February 1792 he offered to help Talleyrand secure British neutrality in the European wars involving France. He and his wife moved to Paris in April to open a sal ammoniac factory and established himself as part of the British expatriate community, including Helen Maria Williams with whom he had a subsequent long love affair. Stone, while saddened by the September Massacres, believed they were necessary for the revolutionary to succeed and he and other expatriates celebrated French military victories. In addition to his factory, Stone established a printing house, Imprimerie Anglaise, which printed Joel Barlow's epic, The Vision of Columbus.