Thomas Paine - Thomas Paine Hotel - Thetford, Norfolk - UK Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

A bronze plaque to Thomas Paine on the Thomas Paine Hotel, Thetford.
 

The plaque reads:
Thomas Paine
1737-1809
Journalist, patriot and champion of the rights
of the common man. Thomas Paine son of
an humble THETFORD staymaker was born
near this house.
From his talented pen can the voice for the
democratic aspirations of the American Republic
through such splendid writing as "Common Sense",
"Crisis" an "The age of Reason".
Buried in New York this simple son of England
lives on through the Ideals and Principles of the
democratic world for which we fight today.
In tribute to his memory and to the everlasting
love for freedom embodied in his works
the plaque is gratefully dedicated through the
voluntary contributions of soldiers of an
American Airforce Group.
OCTOBER 21st 1943

"Thomas Paine (or Pain; February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736] – June 8, 1809) was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he authored the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he inspired the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination."

Born in Thetford in the English county of Norfolk, Paine migrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. Virtually every rebel read (or listened to a reading of) his powerful pamphlet Common Sense (1776), proportionally the all-time best-selling American title, which crystallized the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. His The American Crisis (1776–83) was a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."

Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote Rights of Man (1791), in part a defense of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on Anglo-Irish conservative writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy.

In December 1793, he was arrested and was taken to Luxembourg Prison in Paris. While in prison, he continued to work on The Age of Reason (1793–94). Future President James Monroe used his diplomatic connections to get Paine released in November 1794. He became notorious because of his pamphlets The Age of Reason, in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and free thought, and argued against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He also published the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1797), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. In 1802, he returned to the U.S. where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity."

SOURCE & further reading - (Visit Link)

• Thomas Paine Society (UK)
• Thomas Paine Society (US)
• Works by Thomas Paine at Project Gutenberg