Humours of an Election

Last updated

The Humours of an Election is a series of four oil paintings and later engravings by William Hogarth that illustrate the election of a member of parliament in Oxfordshire in 1754. The oil paintings were created in 1755. The first three paintings, An Election Entertainment, Canvassing for Votes and The Polling, demonstrate the corruption endemic in parliamentary elections in the 18th century, before the Great Reform Act. The last painting, Chairing the Member, shows the celebrations of the victorious Tory candidates and their supporters.

Contents

At this time each constituency elected two MPs, and there was a property qualification for voters, so only a minority of the male population was enfranchised. There was no secret ballot, so bribery and intimidation were rife. However, this traditional view has been questioned by recent historians who observed lively local political participation in this time.

The originals are held by Sir John Soane's Museum, London. The works were also reproduced as a series of prints.

An Election Entertainment

An Election Entertainment from The Humours of an Election series, 1755 William Hogarth 028.jpg
An Election Entertainment from The Humours of an Election series, 1755

The painting depicts a tavern dinner organised by the Whig candidates, while the Tories protest outside. The Tories are carrying an antisemitic caricature of a Jew, a reference to Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753 recently passed by the Whig government. A Tory banner containing the words "Give us our Eleven days", a protest against the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, is on the tavern floor.

In the tavern the two Whig candidates are ingratiating themselves with supporters. One candidate is kissing a conventionally unattractive woman, while a girl tries to steal his ring; the other is listening to a drunken bore. At the other end of the table the mayor is collapsing from over indulgence in oysters, while the election agent is knocked out by a brick thrown through the window by the Tory mob. Other supporters throw furniture at the Tories. An Orange banner containing the words "Liberty and Loyalty" stands in the corner, while outside the window the Tories carry a banner with the word "Liberty". In an engraved version of the image, the words "and Property" have been appended [below "Liberty"]; the words "Marry and multiply in spite of the Devil" (referring to the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 [1] ) have been added to the second banner. [2] [lower-alpha 1]

In the foreground a maimed soldier sits on the floor whilst a patron pours gin into his head wound.

Sir John Parnell, 1st Baronet is seen seated below the window, using his hand and a napkin as a puppet. [3]

The composition of the scene parodies traditional images of the Last Supper and other Biblical feasts.

Canvassing for Votes

Canvassing for Votes from The Humours of an Election series, 1755 William Hogarth 032.jpg
Canvassing for Votes from The Humours of an Election series, 1755

This scene depicts Tory and Whig agents, both attempting to bribe an innkeeper to vote for them. The crowd outside the tavern is visible in the background. In a reference to the antisemitism of the crowd behind, a Jewish peddler is being employed by another agent who is offering jewels and ribbons to the wives of voters.

On the margins of the composition a soldier (left) and two old sailors (right) represent uncorrupted patriotism. The soldier peeps out from behind a now-impotently decorative figurehead depicting the British lion devouring the French fleur-de-lis. A woman sits on it looking at her bribes. The sailors on the right are re-enacting a naval victory using pieces of broken clay pipe.

The Polling

The Polling from The Humours of an Election series, 1755 An Election III, The Polling, by William Hogarth.jpg
The Polling from The Humours of an Election series, 1755

Voters are shown declaring their support for the Whigs (orange) or Tories (blue). Agents from both sides are using unscrupulous tactics to increase their votes or challenge opposing voters. A Whig voter with a hook instead of his amputated hand is being challenged because he is placing his hook, rather than his hand, as legally prescribed, on the book as he swears to his voter identity.

Meanwhile, the Tories are bringing a mentally disabled man to vote. A dying man is being carried in behind him. In the background a woman in a carriage with a broken axle stands for Britannia. Her coachmen are gambling, ignoring the fact that the carriage is broken.

Chairing the Member

Chairing the Member, from The Humours of an Election series, 1755 William Hogarth 029.jpg
Chairing the Member, from The Humours of an Election series, 1755

One of the victorious Tory candidates is being carried through the streets on a chair in a traditional ceremony. He is about to tumble down because one of his carriers has just been accidentally hit on the head by a flail carried by a Tory-supporting rural labourer who is attempting to fight off a Whig supporter (an old sailor with a bear). The Whig supporters can be seen wearing orange cockades.

A group of frightened pigs run across the scene in a reference to the story of the Gadarene swine. The Whig leaders watch from a nearby house. At the right two young chimney sweeps urinate on the bear. A black Briton, somewhat aghast, holds her passed-out mistress who is being given smelling salts by another attendant.

See also

Notes

  1. Another version extends the slogan on the second banner to say "Marry and multiply in spite of the Devil and the ____" (the Court). [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1840 United States presidential election</span> 14th quadrennial U.S. presidential election

The 1840 United States presidential election was the 14th quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, October 30 to Wednesday, December 2, 1840. Economic recovery from the Panic of 1837 was incomplete, and Whig nominee William Henry Harrison defeated incumbent President Martin Van Buren of the Democratic Party. The election marked the first of two Whig victories in presidential elections, but was the only one where they won a majority of the popular vote. This was the third rematch in American history, which would not occur again until 1892.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1860 United States presidential election</span> 19th quadrennial U.S. presidential election

The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, absent from the ballot in ten slave states, won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states already had abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the states that would become the Confederacy seceding from the Union. This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Thornhill</span> British painter (1675–1734)

Sir James Thornhill was an English painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition. He was responsible for some large-scale schemes of murals, including the "Painted Hall" at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, the paintings on the inside of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, and works at Chatsworth House and Wimpole Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free Soil Party</span> Precursor to the US Republican Party

The Free Soil Party was a short-lived coalition political party in the United States active from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party. The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unionist Party (Scotland)</span> Former centre-right political party in Scotland

The Unionist Party was the main centre-right political party in Scotland between 1912 and 1965.

The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed Whig efforts to exclude James, Duke of York from the succession on the grounds of his Catholicism. Despite their fervent opposition to state-sponsored Catholicism, Tories opposed exclusion in the belief inheritance based on birth was the foundation of a stable society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canvassing</span> Systematic initiation of direct contact with individuals

Canvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with individuals, commonly used during political campaigns. Canvassing can be done for many reasons: political campaigning, grassroots fundraising, community awareness, membership drives, and more. Campaigners knock on doors to contact people personally. Canvassing is used by political parties and issue groups to identify supporters, persuade the undecided, and add voters to the voters list through voter registration, and it is central to get out the vote operations. It is the core element of what political campaigns call the ground game or field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1784 British general election</span> Election in Great Britain

The 1784 British general election resulted in William Pitt the Younger securing an overall majority of about 120 in the House of Commons of Great Britain, having previously had to survive in a House which was dominated by his opponents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American election campaigns in the 19th century</span>

In the 19th century, a number of new methods for conducting American election campaigns developed in the United States. For the most part the techniques were original, not copied from Europe or anywhere else. The campaigns were also changed by a general enlargement of the voting franchise—the states began removing or reducing property and tax qualifications for suffrage and by the early 19th century the great majority of free adult white males could vote. During the Reconstruction Era, Republicans in Congress used the military to create a biracial electorate, but when the troops were removed in 1877, blacks steadily lost political power in the increasingly one-party Southern United States. After 1890 blacks generally lost the vote in the South.

Buckinghamshire is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westminster (UK Parliament constituency)</span> UK parliamentary constituency in England, 1545-1918

Westminster was a parliamentary constituency in the Parliament of England to 1707, the Parliament of Great Britain 1707–1800 and the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801. It returned two members to 1885 and one thereafter.

The 1768 British general election returned members to serve in the House of Commons of the 13th Parliament of Great Britain to be held, after the merger of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707.

East Retford was a parliamentary constituency in Nottinghamshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons for the first time in 1316, and continuously from 1571 until 1885, when the constituency was abolished. Although East Retford was technically a parliamentary borough for the whole of its existence, in 1830 its franchise had been widened and its boundaries had been extended to include the whole Wapentake of Bassetlaw as a remedy for corruption among the voters, and from that point onward it resembled a county constituency in most respects.

Wootton Bassett was a parliamentary borough in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1447 until 1832, when the rotten borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act.

George Evans, 1st Baron Carbery PC (Ire) was an Anglo-Irish politician and peer. A member of a County Limerick family of Whigs, he entered the Irish House of Commons and was created a peer in 1715 as a reward for his father's support of the Hanoverian succession, after his father declined the offer. At the same time, he was returned to the British House of Commons for Westbury. He contested control of the borough with the Tories led by the Earl of Abingdon until 1727, when he stood down.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mock election</span>

A mock election is an election for educational demonstration, amusement, or political protest reasons to call for free and fair elections. Less precisely it can refer to a real election purely for advisory committees or forums such as some student councils, particularly those that chiefly emulate a real legislative body.

Norfolk was a County constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. It was represented by two Members of Parliament. In 1832 the county was divided for parliamentary purposes into two new two member divisions – East Norfolk and West Norfolk.

The Oxfordshire Election of 1754, part of the British general election of that year and involving the selection of two Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent the Oxfordshire constituency, was probably the most notorious English county election of the 18th century. It was depicted in Hogarth's famous series of paintings and engravings, The Humours of an Election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 1st Baronet, of Brayton</span>

Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 1st Baronet, of Brayton, was an English landowner, businessman and investor in the new industrial age. He was of the Lawson baronets.

Robert Monckton was an English landowner and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1695 and 1713. He took an active part supporting William of Orange in the Glorious Revolution, and was notable for his involvement in a number of exceptionally bitter and prolonged electoral disputes.

References

  1. 1 2 O'Connell, Lisa (2019). The Origins of the English Marriage Plot. Cambridge University Press. p. 81. ISBN   9781108485685.
  2. "An Election Entertainment Plate I." The British Museum.
  3. "Four Prints of an Election 1758, in honor of upcoming elections". University of Princeton, Graphic Arts Collection.