In 1849 John Arkell, founder of the Kingsdown brewery, was writing to the local papers with some very modern and interesting ideas. He supported universal suffrage (although it is not clear whether he included votes for women in this recommendation) and a fairer society. His arguments resonate today, 168 years later. To the Editor of the Wiltshire Independent Sir, - As it appears from a letter in the Devizes Gazette, of Thursday last, dated from Swindon that the time has fairly arrived when some persons can be allowed sufficient space to inform the thinking world how we are going on in this neighbourhood; and as nothing but universal suffrage, or near approaching to it, and an equitable adjustment of all our national burdens, will ever stay the general ruin and confiscation of property which is now going on; I have thought it my duty again to call your particular attention to those facts which I have set before the public in your journal many times before, namely, the extension t...