John Wade

John Wade (1788–1875) was a British journalist and writer, connected with the press throughout his career. He contributed to many periodicals, and was a leader-writer on The Spectator when that journal was under Robert Stephen Rintoul's editorship between 1828 and 1858.

Life In early life Wade worked for at least a decade as a wool-sorter. Encouraged by Francis Place and others, he took up journalism in London, initially from 1818 editing the Gorgon. Writing never made him much money, and his main income in his later years was a civil-list pension of £50, granted to him on 19 June 1862 by Lord Palmerston, mainly on the representations of the publisher Effingham Wilson.

Wade also edited an annotated Junius, including Letters by the same Writer under other signatures, (1850, in Bohn's "Standard Library", 2 vols.). Here he was out of his depth, and the imperfections of his edition, and especially of his introduction, were pointed out by Charles W. Dilke in the ‘Athenæum’ of 2 Feb. et seq.