Collet Dobson Collet, History of the Taxes on Knowledge: their Origin and Repeal, vol. ii (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1899), 4—8, 16—19, 24—5

Abstract The newspaper stamp tax was made optional in 1855 partly through the efforts of the Association of the Repeal of the Stamp Tax (founded in 1851, its president T. Milner-Gibson, a Liberal MP), partly through the commitment of the Whig Chancellor Gladstone in a coalition government led by Tories, and partly because of a massive increase in demand for news caused by the Crimean War (1854—6). Another reason was revenge on The Times. The Stamp had secured the supremacy of The Times in exchange for general support of the government. However, The Times provoked the Roebuck enquiry by exposing military and administrative incompetence in the Crimea. This undermined the trust the government had held in the paper. Collet (1813—98) was a newspaper editor and activist in the Association, and a friend of Karl Marx.