Politics personified: Portraiture, caricature and visual culture in Britain, c.1830–80 9781526111715

Table of contents :
Front matter
Contents
List of tables and figures
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
The visual culture of reform, 1830–32
Party politics and portraiture, 1832–46
Radical visual culture:from caricature to portraiture
Reforming pantheons: political groupportraiture and history painting
Representing the representatives:MPs and portraiture
Palmerston and his rivals
Disraeli, Gladstone and the personificationof party, 1868–80
Conclusion
Select bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Politics Personified Portr aitur e, car icatur e a nd visual cultur e in Br itain, c. 1830 –80

HENRY MILLER

Politics personified

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 1

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 2

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified Portraiture, caricature and visual culture in Britain, c. 1830–80 henry miller

Manchester University Press

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 3

23/09/2014 11:54

Copyright © Henry Miller 2015 The right of Henry Miller to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA, UK www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for isbn 978 0 7190 9084 4 hardback First published 2015 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or any third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or a­ ppropriate.

Typeset in Minion by Koinonia, Manchester

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 4

23/09/2014 11:54

Contents

List of tables and figures page vii Acknowledgements x Abbreviations xii

Introduction 1 1 The visual culture of reform, 1830–32 21 2 Party politics and portraiture, 1832–46 52 3 Radical visual culture: from caricature to portraiture 79 4 Reforming pantheons: political group portraiture and history painting 114 5 Representing the representatives: MPs and portraiture 140 6 Palmerston and his rivals 167 7 Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party, 1868–80 198 Conclusion 225 Select bibliography 234 Index 240

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 5

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 6

23/09/2014 11:54

Tables and figures

Table 3.1 Radical portrait galleries, 1837–78

page 94

Figures 1.1 Brougham reform cordial bottle, c. 1832. Salt-glaze stoneware flask. 7 x 3⅜ inches. © People’s History Museum, NMLH.1992.1073. 1.2 G. Cruikshank, The “System” that “Works so Well” – or the Boroughmongers Grinding Machine, 21 Mar. 1831, BMC 16610. Coloured etching. 8½ x 12 7⅞ inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 1.3 Anon., The Reformers’ Attack on the Old Rotten Tree, c. Apr. 1831, BMC 16650. Coloured etching. 9¾ x 14⅛ inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 1.4 HB (John Doyle), Brissot’s Ghost, Political Sketches, no. 132, 30 May 1831. BMC 16688. Crayon lithograph. 13¼ x 10 inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 2.1 H.T. Ryall after Sir T. Lawrence, Sir Robert Peel, 1837. Line and stipple engraving. 12¾ x 9¾ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 2.2 F. Holl after E.U. Eddis, Sir Henry Hardinge, 1836. Stipple engraving. 12⅞ x 10¼ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 2.3 E. Scriven after B.E. Duppa, Charles Buller, 1840. Line and stipple engraving. 11 x 7½ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 2.4 W. Holl, after G.P.A. Healy, Joseph Hume, 1840. Line and stipple engraving. 11 x 7½ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 3.1 Detail of ‘Not for Jo(hn Stuart Mill); or, a Smith for Westminster’, Tomahawk, 3 (1868), 203. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark: PP5272.b. 3.2 Tree of Taxation, given away with the Northern Liberator, 13 Aug. 1838. Wood engraving. 14⅝ x 7 inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 3.3 C.J. Grant, Political Drama, no. 13 [1833]. Wood engraving. 14⅜ x 8⅞ inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 3.4 C.J. Grant, Political Drama, no. 57 [1834]. Wood engraving. 14 x 9⅜ inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 7

30 32 34 43 60 65 69 72 80 83 85 88

23/09/2014 11:54

viii

Tables and figures

3.5 S.W. Reynolds after C.A. Duval, Charles Pelham Villiers, 1 Feb. 1844. Line and stipple engraving. 14 x 11 inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 3.6 Portrait of Alexander MacDonald, Bee-Hive, 29 Mar. 1873, p. 1. Wood engraving. 7 x 6¼ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. Shelfmark: Burns Oversize 3898. 3.7. Unknown artist, Thomas Attwood, given away with Northern Star, Nov. 1838. Stipple engraving. 8⅞ x 5¾ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 3.8 Portrait of Charles Darwin, Secular Chronicle, 9 (1878), 133. Wood engraving. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark: PP638.b. 4.1 J. Bromley after B.R. Haydon, The Reform Banquet, 1832, 1 July 1837. Mezzotint. 21 x 26½ inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 4.2 Sir G. Hayter, The House of Commons, 1833 (1833–43). Oil painting. 17 ft 8⅜ inches x 11 ft 4¼ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 4.3 S. Bellin after J.R. Herbert, Meeting of the Council of the Anti-Corn Law League, 1850. Line and stipple engraving. 20⅞ x 36⅜ inches. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. 5.1 Portrait of Baillie Cochrane. Illustrated London News, 4 (1844), 156. Wood engraving. 4 x 3¼ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. 5.2 Portrait of Joseph Hume. Illustrated London News, 2 (1843), 108. Wood engraving. 4½ x 3¼ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. 5.3 R. Barton (designer) and J. Caldicott (manufacturer) after Sir F. Grant, Rt. Hon. Edward Ellice, 1858. Woven silk. 9½ x 7 inches. Reproduced with the permission of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry. 5.4 Maull and Polyblank, Michael Thomas Bass [c. 1866–69]. Albumen print. 7¾ x 5¾ inches. Reproduced with the permission of the Parliamentary Archives, London, PHO /2/2/97. 6.1 J. Bromley after G. Hayter, Lord John Russell, 1836. Mezzotint. 13½ x 8⅞ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 6.2 J. Mayall, The Earl of Derby, 1861. Albumen carte de visite. 3½ x 2⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 6.3 Portrait of Lord Palmerston after J. Partridge, Illustrated London News, 16 (1850), 457. Wood engraving. 9¼ x 5⅞ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. 6.4 ‘Viscount Palmerston’, Reynolds’s Miscellany, 8 (1852), 141. Wood engraving. 5 x 5 inches. © The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Shelfmark: Per. 256 c. 12. 6.5 Herbert Watkins, Lord Palmerston, in H. Fry, National Gallery of Photographic Portraits (1857). Albumen print. 7⅜ x 5¾ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 6.6 Cartoon of Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel, Punch, 10 (1846), 6. Wood engraving. 9⅝ x 7¼ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. Shelfmark: PR Z.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 8

93 98 101 102 119 122 130 148 150 153 160 171 174 177 179 182 186

23/09/2014 11:54

Tables and figures 6.7 Cartoon of Palmerston and Lord Aberdeen, Punch, 28 (1855), 5. Wood engraving. 9¾ x 7⅜ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. Shelfmark: PR Z. 6.8 Cartoon of Lord Palmerston as a boxer, Punch, 28 (1855), 65. Wood engraving. 9¾ x 7 inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. Shelfmark: PR Z. 6.9 Cartoon of Lord Derby, Punch, 51 (1866), 17. Wood engraving. 9¾ x 7 inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. Shelfmark: PR Z. 7.1 Cartoon of Disraeli, Will-o’-th’-Wisp, 10 Oct. 1868, pp. 50–1. Wood engraving. 14½ x 10¼ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. Shelfmark: PR Z. 7.2 Cartoon of Gladstone, Fun, 10 (1870), 229. Wood engraving. 9½ x 7⅜ inches. Reproduced with permission from images produced by ProQuest LLC for its online product, British Periodicals, 1681–1920. www.proquest. com. 7.3 Disraeli at Conservative meeting in Manchester, Illustrated London News, 60 (1872), 357. Wood engraving. 13⅜ x 9½ inches. Reproduced with the permission of Senate House Library, University of London. 7.4 J.H. Robinson after A.E. Chalon, Benjamin Disraeli, 1840. Stipple engraving. 9 x 7⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 7.5 J. Mayall, Earl of Beaconsfield [c. 1870s]. Albumen cabinet card. 5⅞ x 4 inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 7.6 W.H. Mote, after J. Severn, W.E. Gladstone, 1840. Line engraving. 13⅜ x 10⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 7.7 W. Currey, W.E. Gladstone, 6 Aug. 1877. Carbon cabinet card photograph. 5⅝ x 3⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London. 7.8 Cartoon of Disraeli, Fun, 27 (1878), 55. Wood engraving. 9½ x 7¾. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark: PP5273.c.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 9

ix

188 189 191 203

204 206 210 212 215 216 218

23/09/2014 11:54

Acknowledgements

I have accrued many debts producing my book, which I acknowledge with pleasure now, even if repayment in full may take a while. The book’s publication has been made possible by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical Research. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art through its Publication Grants (Author) Award scheme. This book bears little resemblance to the 2009 University of London PhD thesis from which it originated, and has been largely researched and almost entirely written from scratch. Yet my doctoral research was crucial for setting me on this road, immersing me in a period which I knew little about beforehand and shaping my interest in this topic. Special thanks go to James Ellison, who lobbied for a Queen Mary University of London studentship without which none of what followed would have been possible; my supervisor Peter Catterall, whose broad knowledge and constructive criticism were stimulating; and my academic advisers, the late John Ramsden and Thomas Dixon. My examiners, Miles Taylor and Aled Jones, offered incisive comments that I have tried to follow in converting the thesis into a book. I benefited greatly from the vibrant research community at Queen Mary and the friendship of my fellow history postgraduates, especially Rob Dale, Daniel Furby, Bob Henderson, Jack MacGowan, Tsela Rubel and Reto Speck. Karl and Izzy Surmacz, Hamed and Sarah Bastan-Hagh and Glenis Llewellyn offered generous hospitality while I conducted research in Oxford, Manchester and Birmingham, respectively. Research trips were supported by two grants from the University of London’s Central Research Fund (summer 2006 and 2007). Between 2009 and 2013 the History of Parliament Trust provided a stimulating environment to work in and I am grateful to Paul Seaward, the Director, who gave me the opportunity, and to my former colleagues in the 1832–1945 section, Stephen Ball, James Owen, Kathryn Rix and Philip Salmon, for sharing their ideas and being so pleasant to work with. Seth Thévoz kindly shared his knowledge of political clubs and put me in touch with the Reform Club. What follows has been much improved by the comments of a number of readers, and I hope they

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 10

23/09/2014 11:54

Acknowledgements

xi

can see the impact of their patient criticism and suggestions. I am indebted to David Brown, Peter Catterall, Joe Coohill, Simon Morgan, Gordon Pentland, Kathryn Rix and Philip Salmon, as well as the two anonymous referees who reviewed the sample chapter. I would also like to thank Malcolm Chase and Matthew Cragoe for their encouragement and insights and others from whom I have learnt a lot in conversation at conferences and seminars. I have benefited greatly from the kind assistance of librarians and archivists in a number of repositories, which I am happy to acknowledge here: University of Birmingham Special Collections; Julie Ann Lambert of the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, Bodleian Library, Oxford; British Library manuscripts reading room and British Newspaper Library; Huw Jones of the Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry; the British Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics; the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester; Manchester Central Library; Heinz Library, National Portrait Gallery; Parliamentary Archives; Senate House Library, University of London, Special Collections; Staffordshire Record Office; West Sussex Record Office. Above all I owe a great deal to my family and friends, for their love, support and friendship, both before and during the writing of this book. My extended in-laws, the Oslers, Breeds and Graham-Moores, have provided great hospitality on many occasions that offered much needed respite. The greatest debt, however, must be to my own family, especially my mum, my brother Charlie and my sister Grace, my dad and his wife Julia. I would like to thank them for their love and encouragement over three decades. My late grandparents helped to nurture my interest in history, in their different ways, as did numerous history teachers. Lastly, but by no means least, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my wife Caroline, without whom I could not have finished this book. Her humour and love have sustained me during this project. This book is for her.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 11

23/09/2014 11:54

Abbreviations

BL, Add. MS BM BMC

British Library, Additional Manuscripts Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum F.G. Stephens, E. Hawkins and M.D. George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (11 vols. in 12 parts, London, 1870–1954) cdv Carte de visite EHR English Historical Review GMCRO Greater Manchester County Records Office HP, Commons, 1832–1868 The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1832–1868 (draft entries) HJ Historical Journal ILN Illustrated London News Journal of British Studies JBS JJC John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, Bodleian Library NPG, London National Portrait Gallery, London PHM: LHASC People’s History Museum, Labour History and Archives Study Centre TNA: PRO The National Archives: Public Record Office

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 12

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

The political likeness attained a remarkable popularity and cultural resonance between 1830 and 1880. Portraits and political cartoons were produced commercially on an ever-increasing scale. The proliferation of likenesses was not simply due to the exploitation of new visual technologies, but clearly answered a very real demand. This book examines the role of political likenesses in a halfcentury that was crucial for the political modernisation of Britain, in which the electorate gradually expanded, a two-party system began to take shape and politicians became increasingly accountable and responsive to public opinion. Political likenesses allowed historical and contemporary narratives of politics to be told; political identities to be shaped and reaffirmed; the public image of politicians to be communicated to broad and discrete audiences, nationally and locally; and finally, catered for a popular desire to ‘see’ those individuals who aspired to political leadership both in Parliament and out of doors. Analysing these likenesses, the debates around them and their production, circulation, distribution and reception offers new insights into politics, media and culture in the pre-democratic heyday of the Victorian political system. A critical study of this visual and material culture not only helps to explain the emergence of what has been called ‘the golden age of the private MP’, with its mass veneration of politicians and statesmen, but can also account for cultural shifts in the public perception of politics and the emergence of new political identities in an age of electoral expansion.1 Such a study is necessary and long overdue. Since the 1990s, historians of popular and electoral politics in the long nineteenth century have revised and discarded earlier interpretations that were grounded in social class. Rather than being seen as passive beneficiaries of social trends, politicians are now credited with considerable agency in shaping their own fortunes through language. Much of this ‘linguistic turn’ or ‘new political history’, as it has been called, followed from Gareth Stedman Jones’s ground-breaking 1982 essay which argued that Chartism was best understood as a continuation of an older eighteenth-century radical critique of exclusive state power rather than a social movement of the organised working class.2 Political language, especially

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 1

23/09/2014 11:54

2

Politics personified

electoral rhetoric, has been accorded considerable weight by recent studies in building broad coalitions of political support in popular and electoral politics. Language has been studied as a means of political representation. A study of language led some historians to emphasise the continuities between the popular Liberalism that emerged in the 1860s and earlier radicalism, by stressing the shared veneration of the constitution, support for cheap government, free trade and European liberal nationalism.3 Other studies of political language in the later nineteenth century have highlighted how the Conservatives crafted a popular appeal to male electors by acting as defenders of traditional workingclass male leisure pursuits, such as drinking, from Liberal moral reformers.4 The Conservatives’ ability to harness the appeal of empire to their cause has also been shown to have been among their formidable rhetorical armoury in the later Victorian period.5 Most of these accounts have been based on a close attention to the detail, meaning and context of political rhetoric. These analyses have not been limited to printed texts, but also include oral speech, which was a vital form of political communication in this period, as work on platform and itinerant oratory and election meetings has made clear.6 Despite the attention given to language by political historians, until recently they have been slow to integrate visual culture into their analyses and there remains no comprehensive account of the role of the image in nineteenthcentury politics. There is, however, a growing interest in the visual and material dimension of politics, both within and either side of the 1830–80 period, all of which makes this study timely. For the preceding era there is a large literature on the role of political caricature in the 1760–1830 period. John Brewer’s classic account of the Wilkesite agitation of the 1760s highlighted how tradesmen produced and circulated Wilkesite material culture, including ceramic products, showing their commitment to the political and commercial principles that John Wilkes stood for.7 Katrina Navickas’s 2010 article highlighted the role of political clothing and adornment in expressing political opinions and identities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Ribbons and other items of clothing provided a conveniently ambiguous means to convey political opinions during a period when freedom of assembly and the press were often subject to government curbs.8 After 1880, James Thompson, Frank Trentmann and Jon Lawrence have shown how political parties and their affiliated auxiliaries exploited new technologies to mass-produce colourful posters and visual propaganda to appeal to a mass electorate in an era of permanent campaigning.9 Work that partially or mostly focuses on the visual dimension of politics for the 1830 to 1880 period falls into three categories. Firstly, historians of popular radicalism, notably James Epstein and Paul Pickering, have stressed the role of ‘non-verbal’ communication – chiefly symbolism, ritual, ceremony and performance – in forging and maintaining political allegiance and identity.10

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 2

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

3

For Epstein, these cultural practices should be seen as ‘readable texts’ that can be analysed using tools borrowed from cultural anthropology.11 There has also been an increasing awareness of the way in which radicals and reformers made use of material culture, including monuments and banners to express political opinions, commemorate radical heroes and publicly display their political identity.12 Malcolm Chase has shown how the Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor used engraved portraits to attract, retain and reward subscribers to the Northern Star newspaper in the 1840s, building circulation and identity at the same time.13 It was no coincidence that radicals were the most innovative in their use of visual and material culture, for they were often marginalised in mainstream culture and suffered from negative depictions in contemporary cartoons. Yet such radical innovations need to be placed in a wider context that includes Liberals, Conservatives and political culture more broadly. Secondly, a number of studies have included portraits, statues and other forms of likenesses, alongside biographies and other textual material, as part of broader studies about the public reputation or popular representation of key politicians. Donald Read’s 1987 study of Sir Robert Peel was ground-breaking in this respect, particularly in its attention to the extraordinary proliferation of statues, monuments, popular biographies and likenesses, both printed and ceramic, that followed Peel’s death in 1850.14 Anthony Howe has shown the development of a posthumous cult of Richard Cobden that elevated him into the personification of free trade.15 Simon Morgan’s perceptive analyses of Cobden’s transformation into a celebrity, represented through printed, visual and material culture including Staffordshire figurines, has illuminated the way in which politicians could gain widespread recognition in mainstream contemporary culture.16 The Victorian politician who scholars have most frequently studied through his iconography, image and public reputation is, unsurprisingly, William Gladstone. Like John Bright, Gladstone has been portrayed as one of the charismatic individual politicians who helped make Liberalism a popular movement in the 1860s and after, particularly through his appeal to working men.17 The understandable importance of Gladstone’s reputation and popular imagery also reflects the fact that he served as prime minister on four occasions (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886 and 1892–94). A number of essays have addressed Gladstone’s visual image, including the extent to which he actively negotiated and helped construct his own image in painted and photographic portraiture.18 However, there is a danger in focusing on individuals such as Gladstone or other politicians. It can give the impression that the proliferation of iconography or images of them was unique or abnormal. What is missing is a broader account of how such politicians, their reputations and images fitted into a political culture that was heavily individualised, with an increasing number of political likenesses in circulation, from lowly MPs to party leaders. This would not only give a necessary context to the popularity of Gladstone

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 3

23/09/2014 11:54

4

Politics personified

or other figures, but also make it seem less unusual or new, except perhaps in its scale. Thirdly, studies of Victorian visual culture from a literary studies perspective have largely neglected the political dimension. The general approach has been intensive, interpretative and theoretical analyses of images, which are generally regarded as having no simple, fixed, stable meaning.19 Such an approach was adopted by James Vernon in his seminal Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815–1867 (1993). He offered intensive readings of visual and material culture associated with the five constituencies he studied. In Picturing Reform in Victorian Britain (2012), Janice Carlisle studied the reform debate of the 1860s through visual representations of working men in the illustrated press.20 Such studies suffer from being rather decontextualised, theoretical readings of particular images, when, as shall be shown, visual culture in this period was distinguished by its seriality. Furthermore, as Peter Mandler has noted, not all texts or representations carry equal weight.21 To assess the contemporary significance of such works we have to ask questions of their role, circulation and reception. Yet such questions have usually been neglected, and questions of audience only addressed insofar as to invoke an imagined reader. This circular method of inferring the response to a text from the text itself has memorably been described by Jonathan Rose as the ‘receptive fallacy’.22 However, other work from literary studies scholars has innovatively shown how visual culture and the print media could construct popular opinion. Building on his study of the Illustrated London News (ILN), Peter Sinnema used the Duke of Wellington’s funeral, and particularly representations of the man and the event, to shed light on the nature of Englishness in 1852.23 John Plunkett’s superb account of Queen Victoria and the media highlights how public figures could harness the expanding media to build and project a public image.24 Commercially produced comic art, available in a diverse range of formats, such as scraps, albums, serials and prints, was the focus of Brian Maidment’s examination of humour, caricature and visual culture in the late Regency and early Victorian period. The vibrant visual culture not only reflected changing tastes, but the constantly shifting demands of a ferociously competitive publishing marketplace, with innovative publishers and artists frantically trying to cater for an ever-expanding audience for comic art.25 While acknowledging all this existing work, it is fair to say that to date the visual dimension of politics in the period between 1830 and 1880 has received insufficient attention, despite its importance. This study aims to rectify this neglect and break new ground by focusing on the role of political likenesses in Victorian politics. Such an account not only illuminates our understanding of contemporary political communication, but can offer new insights into old historical debates, for example, by showing how contemporaries ‘saw’ the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 4

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

5

political system both before and after the 1832 Reform Act. The emergence of a two-party system after 1832 and its limitations has been a key theme in recent scholarship, yet we know relatively little about how such political and party identities were refashioned and communicated through the media. A study of portraits of MPs can tell us much about how they were perceived, individually and collectively, and illuminate the nature of the relationship between parliamentarians and constituents that was recast after 1832. This book studies political likenesses, the key mode of visual politics at this time, as part of a nuanced analysis of contemporary political culture and the nature of the representative system. However, it also places these images in context, not studying them as decontextualised visual texts, but as visual media that were produced, distributed, consumed and used as material objects. To this end, a brief overview of the new technologies that transformed access to images is necessary. Visual media after 1830: an overview The Victorians tended to view developments in media and communications as transformative and revolutionary. The development of the railways, the expansion of the newspaper press, the electric telegraph and the penny post all seemed to shrink the world and speed up time as news and information could be relayed more rapidly across larger distances. The growth of newspapers was taken by many observers in the 1820s as evidence of intellectual progress: by spreading knowledge, newspapers created an enlightened public opinion and acted as a force for reform.26 The emergence of new visual technologies was greeted with similar fanfare. In the 1830s, wood engraving was hailed as providing a means to communicate Utilitarian knowledge cheaply to the poor and self-improving artisan, through publications such as the Penny Magazine (1832–45), published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.27 Although paeans to new technologies were commonplace, the reality was usually more complicated and messy. We should be sceptical of technological determinism and assumptions that technologies were inherently progressive or harboured other qualities.28 New visual media had the potential to spread information cheaply, but the realisation of that potential depended upon human agency and structural factors. Furthermore, such media always had their own limitations and they did not supersede each other in waves: they often co-existed and complemented each other. The period from the 1820s to the 1840s was an era of transition in visual technologies (see chapter 1). Copper-plate intaglio printing, which had been commonly used for single-sheet prints including fine art reproductions and caricatures, declined. Print-sellers and publishers increasingly preferred steel engraving for its higher print runs which enabled them to exploit the large middle-class demand for fine art prints (see chapter 2). The cost and slowness

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 5

23/09/2014 11:54

6

Politics personified

of steel engraving meant that lithography and wood engraving were superior for producing topical images cheaply. Lithography was a planar process that involved reproducing an image drawn on to stone. Lithography was cheaper, quicker and yielded larger print runs than copper plates.29 Wood engraving was a relief method: the engraver cut away from the surface to leave the image standing in relief. It had two advantages. Firstly, the extremely durable boxwood yielded huge print runs. Some 80–100,000 impressions could be produced from a single block.30 Secondly, wood engravings could be printed with the letterpress, whereas lithographic or intaglio images had to be printed separately and then inserted. Wood engraving therefore made possible illustrated weekly periodicals like Punch and the ILN that were founded in the early 1840s.31 One commentator described wood engraving as ‘a distinctly democratic art’ due to its simplicity and productive capacity, but it remained expensive and labour-intensive enough to limit cheap or daily illustrated newspapers.32 For instance, Edward Lloyd abandoned his attempt at a twopenny illustrated newspaper after barely a month in 1842.33 Most of the cheap competitors to the ILN were short-lived, in part because the proprietor, Herbert Ingram, ruthlessly bought out and forced out his rivals,34 but it was also due to the costs involved. Tellingly, the relatively enduring 2d Illustrated Times (1855–72) was founded after the abolition of newspaper stamp duty in 1855. The geographical spread of wood engraving outside London, particularly before the mid-1850s, was also slow and uneven. One Glasgow printer recalled that in the 1830s woodblocks had to be sent up from London as there was ‘no wood engraver in the West of Scotland’.35 As this example shows, there is always unequal access to cultural resources, including media and technologies.36 Portraits in the pictorial press were increasingly based on photographs from the late 1840s. Photography complemented rather than superseded existing visual media. By the late 1850s cartes de visite, photographic portraits mounted on card 2⅛ by 3½ inches in size, had become a cultural phenomenon. Millions of cartes were published, not just of contemporary celebrities but also commissioned by ordinary middle-class people. Although cartes seemed to render traditional likenesses obsolete they were a highly conservative form that borrowed heavily from long-established portrait conventions.37 Photographic likenesses had the potential to offer an authentic warts-and-all picture of subjects. But in practice the composition and lens used meant that the sitter was set back in the distance, avoiding potentially unflattering close-ups.38 To maximise the number of sittings, photographers sought to limit variables by using standardised settings, props and compositions.39 This is one reason why cartes are so formulaic. Long exposure times also contributed to the stilted appearance of many sitters. Important as photographic likenesses were from the 1860s, they did not

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 6

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

7

supplant other visual media at this time. Indeed, the cartes boom co-existed with the ‘golden age’ of wood engraving and illustrated periodicals in the 1860s and 1870s.40 J.B. Groves, a wood engraver employed by Punch, recalled that after the Crimean War (1854–56) the ‘demand for wood-blocks increased enormously, engraving establishments were opened in Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester and other provincial towns’. ‘No skilled wood engraver wanted for work, for the supply was not equal to the demand’, he commented.41 On the supply side, the abolition of the last of the ‘taxes on knowledge’ (the newspaper stamp, advertisement and paper duty) between 1853 and 1861, the fall in paper prices, more productive printing technology and the growth of advertising significantly reduced the costs of publication and increased the commercial viability of cheap periodicals, including newspapers.42 The ‘industrialisation’ of wood engraving allowed more intensive production by reducing the autonomy of individual artisans.43 A division of labour was introduced for larger images, which were broken up into smaller segments for engravers to work on simultaneously. They were then bolted together to form a composite block. Steam presses also contributed to the industrialisation process. One printer, writing in 1875, admitted that the ‘finest’ wood engravings were printed off a hand press, but added, ‘when you come to our mammoth pictorials, issued by the hundred thousand weekly, machines are absolutely indispensible’.44 The complementary co-existence of these visual technologies was eventually undermined by the development of photo-chemical and photo-mechanical techniques in the 1870s and 1880s. These allowed photographic images to be reproduced in the letterpress of newspapers and books.45 Steel engraving’s raison d’être was economic rather than artistic and it was obsolete once cheaper media that effectively produced facsimiles of original art became available.46 Wood engraving endured longer, but rapidly declined in the 1890s.47 New visual technologies meant that images could be produced in increasing quantities and more cheaply throughout the century. Assessing the qualitative impact of this proliferation of images is more difficult. New visual media were conditioned by their limits and the forms they took. Most significantly, images were frequently published or issued in serial form, that is, in sequential publications, which were often continuously issued. The best-known serials containing images were illustrated periodicals, but the serial format was dominant across a wide range of media.48 In the early 1830s caricature increasingly came in serial formats such as continuously numbered series of prints like HB (John Doyle)’s Political Sketches, lithographic caricature magazines, or as woodcuts in political-satirical unstamped publications such as Figaro in London.49 Portrait prints in the 1830s and 1840s were frequently published as series, often called portrait galleries. Cartes de visite were not simply massproduced images of individuals but were parts of series of photographs taken of the same sitter, which were collected and grouped together.50

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 7

23/09/2014 11:54

8

Politics personified

The serial nature of much of visual culture is important for three reasons. Firstly, as images were published or produced as part of larger series they should not be studied in isolation, but should be analysed comparatively. Secondly, in commercial terms serials or series aimed to attract and maintain a steady circulation. This made them a good medium for strengthening the bond between leaders and political supporters, or reiterating the image of politicians to an audience over time. Thirdly, serials were issued sequentially at regular intervals, but they could nevertheless be repackaged and sold in different formats. For example, Punch could be purchased in weekly issues, monthly parts or half-yearly bound volumes. Series of prints could be bought individually, in parts or as bound volumes. Hence, understanding the material nature and seriality of visual culture is essential to this study. Although this book is mostly concerned with printed or photographic images, there was a considerable fluidity between visual, print and material culture in this period. Transfer printing allowed two-dimensional images to be reproduced on ceramics and Staffordshire figurines were often based upon likenesses published in the ILN.51 To give another example, Punch’s cartoons of Sir Robert Peel were apparently so ‘consistently good’ that they were used by one sculptor as the basis for the head of one posthumous statue.52 Ceramic likenesses were an important component of the Victorian material culture of politics. As Rohan McWilliam has suggested, Staffordshire figurines combined ‘narrative and portraiture’.53 These portrait figures often linked public figures to a particularly significant moment in their career. In the case of Richard Cobden or Sir Robert Peel, this was the repeal of the corn laws. At the same time, the figures detached Cobden from the Anti-Corn Law League and Peel from the Conservative party, personalising the issue of repeal for a popular audience.54 The theatricality of Staffordshire figurines, which gave a sense of pose, manner and gesture, was also particularly appropriate for an age in which many politicians and statesmen were public performers and were often compared to actors by parliamentary reporters. In this sense, rather like many statues of the time, politicians were presented in ceramic likenesses as public figures performing their public role as orators or rhetoricians rather than as desk-bound administrators. Details regarding the production, sale and consumption of portrait figures are hard to come by. However, the structure of the industry does suggest that pottery was common, widely available and accessible to many people. Due to the relatively late mechanisation of the pottery industry, the sector had very low barriers to entry. While the best-known Staffordshire pottery firms such as Wedgwood, Davenport and Spode/Copeland (all these family firms, incidentally, furnished Stoke-on-Trent with MPs after 1832) catered for the luxury or more expensive end of the market, overall small and medium firms predomin­ ated in the sector, supplying ordinary people with cheap pottery.55

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 8

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

9

As the focus of this study is the political likeness it examines a diverse range of material including woven silk portraiture, oil paintings, numismatics and medals, banners, ceramics, statuary and memorials as well as items printed on paper or card. The purposes of political likenesses Understanding visual technologies provides an essential context for this study. New visual media allowed more images to be circulated, to larger audiences, more cheaply than ever before. They were crucial for communicating political likenesses and for creating new audiences, but technologies on their own do not explain why such images were in demand. For that, we have to appreciate the utility and value of political likenesses in this period and the roles they fulfilled. There were four broad reasons for the popularity of political likenesses in this period. Firstly, national narratives and histories could be created through depictions of the great statesmen and politicians who shaped landmark events. Secondly, portraiture was crucial in forming and reaffirming political identities. Thirdly, the proliferation of political likenesses reflected a demand to see and critically scrutinise the faces of those who aspired to political leadership, whether in Parliament or out of doors. Fourthly, in familiarising local and national audiences with their likenesses, portraits and political cartoons were important factors in shaping the public image and reputation of politicians, both individually and collectively. The painter Benjamin Robert Haydon had a strong dislike of portraitpainters, who he believed were well-connected sycophants who exploited their influence with policy-makers to frustrate his dream of a state-funded school of English history painting. Haydon bemoaned the national obsession with portraiture, which he attributed to an unimaginative empiricism. Writing in 1834, Haydon reflected: The reason of the propensity of the English to Portrait is their relish for a fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant heroism, yet the English would prefer his Portrait to a Picture of this great deed – the likeness they can judge of – his existence is a fact – but the truth of the Picture of his deeds they cannot judge of – they have no criterion for they have no imagination.56

Haydon had a considerable axe to grind, yet even he was forced to acknow­ ledge the power of portraiture to convey themes that were traditionally the province of history painting. His paintings The Reform Banquet (1834) and the Anti-Slavery Convention (1841) were among a genre of heroic group portraiture that sought to present national narratives of progress through depictions of the men (and women) who passed or campaigned for historic reforms.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 9

23/09/2014 11:54

10

Politics personified

Haydon was a reluctant and unwilling convert to portraiture, but nevertheless recognised that groups or collections of likenesses could be used to present narratives. The notion that portraiture was a medium well suited to the creation of national narratives was given added impetus by Thomas Carlyle’s conception of history as the work of a succession of great men, outlined in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841). Carlyle believed that portraits offered unique insights into the character of great men. In 1854 he wrote ‘often I have found a portrait superior in real instruction to half-a-dozen written Biographies’.57 He became an early campaigner for a gallery of historic portraits, which he argued, ‘far transcend in worth all other kinds of National Collections of Pictures whatsoever’.58 The contemporary belief in the power of portraiture to convey national histories and narratives was converted into institutional form by the foundation of the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in 1856.59 The NPG has been described as a ‘Whig invention’, reflecting a confident and progressive view of history shaped through historic figures and with a view to educating the public about their national past.60 In speaking in favour of the £2,000 vote to establish the NPG in 1856, Lord Palmerston, the Liberal prime minister, declared that it was a ‘great gratification to see the likenesses of men whose actions have excited our admiration’. Portraits engaged the public’s historical imagination, bringing alive the individuals in a way that a mere list of names did not.61 Echoing a widespread Victorian belief, Palmerston added that a collection of portraits would have an exemplary purpose, inspiring viewers ‘to mental exertion, to noble actions, [and] to good conduct’.62 From 1856 to 1869 the gallery’s location and limited opening hours implied that its key audience was an elite, including politicians, rather than a broader public. Situated on Great George Street, the gallery was in close proximity to the New Palace of Westminster, reflecting its close links to political life and that the notion of national history it sought to project was indissolubly connected to Parliament.63 The NPG provides an excellent example of the contemporary assumptions about the ability of collections of likenesses to convey national narratives about the past and present. Political likenesses were a crucial means of representing, forming and reaffirming political identities. Displaying a likeness on the wall was an unmistakable statement of political identity. One journalist investigating the poor Irish district of Leeds in the late 1840s was astonished ‘at the frequency with which pictures of the “Liberator” [Daniel O’Connell] hung upon the walls’.64 Thirty years later, pictures of Gladstone or Disraeli on the wall denoted Liberal or Conservative politics. In this way, individual portraits stood for broader political identities, parties or movements. Portrait series allowed movements such as Chartism to build up a positive sense of identity and to maintain a ­reciprocal relationship between the rank and file and the leader, Feargus

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 10

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

11

O’Connor, who commissioned and distributed the engravings through the Northern Star newspaper.65 By excluding or including individuals, portrait series allowed movements or parties to project broad, coherent identities through individual likenesses. Likenesses also acted as commemoratives or souvenirs that could stimulate memory.66 The Chartist series aimed to keep ‘alive the memory of their political supporters’.67 Radicals could respond to portraits in this way. For example, in his memoirs the working-class radical W.E. Adams fondly recalled his print of John Frost, one of the Chartist Newport rebels transported to Australia, as ‘a memento of stirring times’.68 The power of likenesses to create a positive sense of political identity meant that they could be used negatively and destructively to make political statements. The iconoclastic use of likenesses meant symbolically destroying a person through their image.69 Divisive political figures or those perceived as traitors to a cause could be treated in this way. After the firebrand radical Joseph Rayner Stephens renounced Chartism in December 1839, former supporters publicly destroyed his portrait.70 As proxies for political figures, likenesses could evoke powerful positive and negative emotions. Most of the images discussed in this book were produced commercially in response to a real or perceived demand.71 With the important exception of radicals, politicians and political organisations did not generally produce their own visual material in this period. It was only in the post-1880 era of mass politics that political parties began to systematically and aggressively use posters and other visual material. Thus the increasing pervasiveness of political likenesses between 1830 and 1880 was the result of a genuine demand, and not simply the mass production and distribution of unsolicited material. As all this suggests, there was a third factor that explains the popularity and growth of political likenesses: they catered for a widespread demand to ‘see’ those who aspired to political leadership and sought to represent the public, whether in Parliament or out of doors. Reflecting on the the growth of illustration in 1844, Catherine Gore wrote that one of the chief benefits would be that people could ‘see’ who spoke in parliamentary debates and put names to faces.72 Fifteen years later, a series of engravings based on photographic likenesses proclaimed that ‘It must prove an advantage … to the public to have in their possession the real portraiture of the persons whose words and actions influence the destinies of the nation’.73 Parliamentary debates would carry new meanings for audiences when they could ‘look upon the very features of the orators’ who shaped the fortunes of the nation and empire.74 Throughout this period advertisements for political portraits were at pains to emphasise that they were ‘most striking’, ‘accurate’ or ‘correct’ likenesses. At one level this was marketing puff, but it also provided necessary reassurance that such portraits truly represented the likeness and character of these political figures. Even in the 1880s, when Gladstone’s

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 11

23/09/2014 11:54

12

Politics personified

­ hotographic image was ubiquitous, advertisements stressed the quality of p their likenesses.75 These protestations were revealing because people did not passively consume political portraiture, but subjected them to critical scrutiny. When John Phillips’s painting of the House of Commons, 1860 was displayed at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1863, a crowd gathered round it to assess the truthfulness of the likenesses.76 Physiognomy, the practice of judging of people’s character and personality from their appearance and especially their facial features, was culturally pervasive in this period.77 Physiognomy was a widely understood visual language that was instinctive and required no formal expertise.78 Artists responded to pressure from audiences not to simply flatter their sitters but to show their character.79 Armed with physiognomical instincts, and with their own knowledge or sense of what individuals should look like, the press and public could be opinionated judges of the quality of likenesses. For example, in 1875 one labour leader had his portrait redone after members of his trade union complained to the Bee-Hive that the first attempt was not ‘a faithful likeness’.80 To a considerable degree, the quality of likenesses was subjective. A portrait might accurately convey the physical features of the individual but not capture their inner character. The question of how to judge the accuracy of a likeness reflected a tension in contemporary portraiture that forms a recurring theme in this book. Traditionally, portraits had often presented a fixed, atemporal, iconic view of individuals that seemed to offer a definitive portrait for posterity.81 Some portraits continued to serve this purpose, but there was a tension between timelessness and topicality, between portraits as fixed icons and more current likenesses that better reflected changes of appearance during the course of political careers that were often measured in decades. Finally, political likenesses made politicians identifiable to large and new audiences and were crucial in shaping their public image and reputation. Historically, portraiture had often been used by rulers or patrons to display their power.82 The value of political likenesses in this period was rather more subtle. Political psychologists have shown that subtly distorting photographs of modern American presidents to make them look older or younger affects people’s perception of their authority and compassion.83 Victorian portraits could also shape people’s view of politicians. The growth of commercial illustrated newspapers led to a shift from iconic, fixed portraiture to dynamic images after 1850. Instead of giving away prints to commemorate events, illustrated newspapers needed to produce and picture a constant stream of news events. A key theme of later chapters is that after 1850 the picture of contemporary figures was not fixed, but dynamic, their image changing over time and presented in different ways through different media.84 The growth of visual culture also speeded up the traditional delay between a politician making their

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 12

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

13

name and a recognisable likeness being produced.85 The dominance of serial formats meant that images of politicians were reiterated, helping to shape their image over time. Cartoons were especially important in this respect. There is a huge literature on political cartoons, particularly those in Punch, which have often have been studied as providing some special insight into how the Victorians ‘saw’ particular issues or demonised particular groups.86 What has received less attention is that Punch cartoons had a crucial role in making leading politicians recognisable to large audiences. This was why visual identifiers were important. For example, in Punch John Bright ‘was always drawn as wearing a broad-brimmed Quaker’s hat and an eyeglass, neither of which he ever wore’.87 Cartoons could function as likenesses due to the convergence with portraiture in this period. Caricature and portraiture both rely on the notion of likeness.88 Indeed, the Whig MP and connoisseur of caricature Grantley Berkeley regarded caricature as merely ‘burlesque portraiture’.89 The two forms have sometimes been regarded as antipathetic. Eighteenth-century scholars, unimpressed with the flattering images of conventional portraiture, have often regarded caricature as providing a more truthful representation of what individuals were like.90 By the early 1830s there was an increasing shift away from the perceived excesses of earlier caricature and graphic satire. This is not to say that the use of the grotesque or caricature disappeared. As Brian Maidment has shown, the comic prints of the 1820 to 1850 period, which have been ill served by the traditional focus on Georgian caricature and the development of Punch cartoons, frequently deployed, adapted and reworked caricature idioms.91 However, it is fair to say that Punch’s political cartoons, which, it should not be forgotten, were influential, widely admired and imitated, sought to avoid excessive physical distortion and ‘personality’, that is, personal abuse and scurrility.92 Accordingly, political cartoons in middle-class periodicals such as Punch had a greater overlap with portraiture than hitherto as they focused on the public character of politicians and, shorn of physical caricature, were valued as likenesses. Although political likenesses were generally commercial publications, politicians could nevertheless exert a degree of control and influence over their image. Firstly, likenesses were the result of what art historians have termed the portrait transaction, the negotiated relationship between artist and sitter.93 Many portraits, whether cartes de visite, paintings or drawings, depended on formal sittings. Controlling access and availabilty for such sittings was one way that politicians could manage those who sought to reproduce and mediate their image to a wider public. Printed portraits were often based on paintings in the possession of the sitters, who thereby controlled access to the original. Secondly, art historians have noted that portraits offer the opportunity for self-fashioning, that is, for individuals to project or perform a particular image

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 13

23/09/2014 11:54

14

Politics personified

of themselves. In the case of photography, sitters for cartes de visite could rehearse their pose before a sitting. Portrait sittings offered opportunities for ‘performative self-presentation’.94 Approach and outline This book explores the role of likenesses in a crucial period of political modernisation, in which new party identities emerged, the electorate expanded and increasing demands were made on politicians and Parliament to be more responsive to popular opinion. Chapter 1 starts by analysing the visual culture spawned by the reform bills of 1831–32. In prints, caricatures and material culture, the reform bills were seen as a means to destroy a corrupt, parasitic state funded by heavy taxes. This explains why Grey’s ministry were portrayed as heroes, why the redistribution but not the franchise clauses attracted most attention and why the popular enthusiasm for the measure quickly turned to disappointment so soon after its passing. However, the 1832 Reform Act stimulated the development of a two-party system and the second chapter shows how Conservative and Liberal/Reformer identities were visualised through semi-official series of portrait prints published in the post-reform decade. These portrait galleries stressed broad ideological coherence, but underplayed tensions within both parties. Radicals had a greater need for portraiture than the two mainstream political parties, as chapter 3 demonstrates. Long mocked by their critics, radicals turned away from their own tradition of scathing caricature to portraiture, which allowed them to project a positive image to supporters. While series of portraits were an important way of visualising and reinforcing party and political identities, chapter 4 highlights how early Victorian group portrait paintings were used to create national reforming narratives. These works, most famously Sir George Hayter’s painting of the reformed House of Commons, presented a celebratory Whig or Liberal narrative, which depicted landmark reforms through the collected likenesses of the men who passed them. There was, however, a tension between currency and posterity. While such paintings aimed to capitalise on the market generated by popular interest in these landmark reforms, this had often dissipated by the time they were eventually completed, one reason why the genre declined after the 1840s. The popularity of political likenesses in this period is testimony to the cultural prestige of politicians generally. As chapter 5 demonstrates, in the pictorial press, photographs and portrait testimonials, statues and memorials, MPs were venerated as independent representatives and champions of particular localities, trades, interests or issues, and not party hacks. This sheds important light on the culture of representation in the Victorian era, and highlights how loose party ties were compatible with depictions of parliamentarians as individual political actors of significant weight. The last two chapters return to a more

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 14

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

15

chronological perspective and focus on the leading politicians of the 1850 to 1880 period, when dynamic imagery became a crucial medium for projecting politicians’ character and public image to ever-larger audiences. Chapter 6 focuses on the depictions of Lord Palmerston and his rivals, including Lord John Russell and Lord Derby, in the 1850s and 1860s. Palmerston’s age was frequently underplayed in pictorial representations to emphasise his physical and political vigour as a manly defender of British liberal values. The onset of photography had the potential to undermine this image by presenting a more accurate likeness, but ultimately served to reinforce his visual persona. Finally, chapter 7 discusses the role of political portraits and cartoons in the decade after the passing of the 1867 Representation of the People Act. In an era with a larger urban electorate and more clear-cut party divisions than in the 1850s, party identities were personified through Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal parties. The increasingly critical cartoons in partisan periodicals offered a foretaste of the greater use of visual propaganda by the political parties after 1880. This book examines political likenesses as part of a nuanced analysis of contemporary political culture, which is grounded in a thorough understanding of the Victorian representative system and the visual technologies of the time. Prints, photographs and other forms of visual culture are studied in context, as media that were produced, distributed, consumed and used as material objects. In retrospect, the 1832 Reform Act marked a watershed not only in terms of British political development, but also as a starting point for a different kind of political imagery. While elements of the Georgian caricature tradition continued into the 1830s and beyond, by reforming and purifying the representative system, purging it of its most rotten elements and making Parliament and politicians more responsive, the Reform Act laid the ground for a more respectful, sober and positive portrayal of politicians and, through them, the wider political system. For all these reasons, it makes sense to begin this book by examining the visual culture surrounding reform. Notes 1 G. Cox, The Efficient Secret: The Cabinet and the Development of Political Parties in Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 21. 2 G. Stedman Jones, ‘The Language of Chartism’, in J.A. Epstein and D. Thompson (eds), The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and Culture, 1830–60 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 3–58; expanded and reprinted as ‘Rethinking Chartism’, in G. Stedman Jones, The Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 90–178. 3 E.F. Biagini and A. Reid, ‘Currents of Radicalism, 1850–1914’, in Biagini and Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour and Party

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 15

23/09/2014 11:54

16

Politics personified

Politics, 1850–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 1–19; E. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 41–50, 93–119; P. Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 173–9; P. Joyce, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 192–204; M. Finn, After Chartism: Class and Nation in English Radical Politics, 1848–1874 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 4 J. Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 99–127; J. Lawrence, ‘Class and Gender in the Making of Urban Toryism’, English Historical Review, 108 (1993), 629–52. 5 A. Windscheffel, Popular Conservatism in Imperial London, 1868–1906 (Wood­­ bridge: Boydell, 2007). 6 J. Lawrence, Electing Our Masters: The Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); J.L. Martin, ‘Popular Political Oratory and Itinerant Lecturing in Yorkshire and the North East in the Age of Chartism, 1837–60’, PhD thesis, University of York, 2010; J.L. Martin, ‘Oratory, Itinerant Lecturing, and Victorian Popular Politics: A Case Study of James Acland (1799–1876)’, Historical Research, 86 (2013), 30–52; J. Meisel, Public Speech and the Culture of Public Life in the Age of Gladstone (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 7 J. Brewer, ‘Commercialisation and Politics’, in J. Brewer, N. McKendrick and J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of EighteenthCentury England (London: Europa, 1982), pp. 197–262. 8 K. Navickas, ‘“That Sash Will Hang You”: Political Clothing and Adornment in England, 1780–1840’, Journal of British Studies, 49 (2010), 540–65. 9 F. Trentmann, Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption and Civil Society in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 81–133; Lawrence, Speaking for the People, pp. 217–19; J. Thompson, ‘“Pictorial lies?”: Posters and Politics in Britain, c. 1880–1914’, Past & Present, 197 (2007), 177–210. 10 J. Epstein, Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual and Symbol in England, 1790–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); J. Epstein, In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003); P. Pickering, ‘Class Without Words: Symbolic Communication in the Chartist Movement’, Past & Present, 112 (1986), 144–62. 11 Epstein, In Practice, p. 84. 12 P. Pickering and A. Tyrrell, Contested Sites: Commemoration, Memorials and Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); P. Pickering, Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford (London: Routledge, 1995), ch. 9 and appendix C; M. Nixon, G. Pentland and M. Roberts, ‘The Material Culture of Scottish Reform Politics, c. 1820–c. 1884’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 32 (2012), 28–49; D. Thompson and S. Roberts, Images of Chartism (London: Merlin, 1998). 13 M. Chase, ‘Building Identity, Building Circulation: Engraved Portraiture and the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 16

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

17

Northern Star’, in J. Allen and O. Ashton (eds), Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press (London: Merlin, 2005), pp. 25–54. 14 D. Read, Peel and the Victorians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987). See also R. Gaunt, Sir Robert Peel: The Life and Legacy (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010) on Peel’s reputation. 15 A. Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846–1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 143–50. 16 S. Morgan, ‘Material Culture and the Politics of Personality in Early Victorian England’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 17 (2012), 127–46; S. Morgan, ‘From Warehouse Clerk to Corn Law Celebrity: The Making of a National Hero’, in A. Howe and S. Morgan (eds), Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 39–58. 17 Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment, and Reform, ch. 7; Joyce, Visions of the People, pp. 49–50. 18 R.C. Windscheffel, ‘Politics, Portraiture and Power: Reassessing the Public Image of William Ewart Gladstone’, in M. McCormack (ed.), Public Men: Masculinities and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007), pp. 93–122; J. Meisel, ‘Gladstone’s Visage: Problem and Performance’ and M. Nixon, ‘Material Gladstones’, in R. Quinault, R. Swift and R.C. Windscheffel (eds), William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 73–98, 99–125; A. Briggs, ‘Victorian Images of Gladstone’, in P. Jagger (ed.), Gladstone (London: Hambledon, 1998), pp. 33–50. 19 P. Sinnema, Dynamics of the Pictured Page: Representing the Nation in the Illustrated London News (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), p. 208; J. Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 114. 20 J. Carlisle, Picturing Reform in Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 21 P. Mandler, ‘The Problem with Cultural History’, Cultural and Social History, 1 (2003), 94–117 (at 113). See also R. Grassby, ‘Material Culture and Cultural History’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 35 (2005), 591–603 on the limitations of overly theoretical interpretations of material and visual culture. 22 J. Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 4. 23 P. Sinnema, The Wake of Wellington: Englishness in 1852 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006). 24 J. Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 25 B. Maidment, Comedy, Caricature and the Social Order, 1820–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). 26 [W. Coulson], ‘Newspapers’, Westminster Review, 2 (1824), 194–212; [W. Stevens], ‘On the Reciprocal Influence of Periodical Publications and the Intellectual Progress of this Country’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 16 (1824), 518–28. 27 [H. Cole], ‘Modern Wood Engraving’, London and Westminster Review, 31 (1838), 265–80; C. Knight, Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century (3 vols., London: Bradbury and Evans, 1864–65), II, p. 115. 28 For a stimulating critique of the teleological assumptions in twentieth-century

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 17

23/09/2014 11:54

18

Politics personified

histories of technology, see D. Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 29 M. Twyman, Lithography, 1800–1850 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 81. 30 W. Chatto, Gems of Wood Engraving from the Illustrated London News (London: W. Little, 1849), p. 26; M.H. Spielmann, History of “Punch” (London: Cassell, 1895), p. 251; W. Chatto and J. Jackson, Treatise on Wood Engraving (London: Bohn, 1861), pp. 651–2. 31 M. Jackson, The Pictorial Press (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1885), p. 315. 32 G. Woodberry, A History of Wood Engraving (New York: Harper & Bros., 1883), p.  179. 33 Lloyd’s Illustrated London Newspaper, 27 Nov. 1842–1 Jan. 1843. 34 I. Bailey, Herbert Ingram, MP, of Boston (Boston: R. Kay, 1996), pp. 88, 94–6, 98–107. 35 J. Urie, Reminiscences of Eighty Years (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1908), p. 42. 36 Epstein, In Practice, p. 9. 37 S. West, Portraiture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 188–91; L. Perry, ‘The Carte de Visite in the 1860s and the Serial Dynamic of Photographic Likeness’, Art History, 35 (2012), 728–49 (at 729); G.M. Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography: Portrait Publications in Great Britain, 1856–1900’, PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1985, pp. 4–5, 73. 38 J. Plunkett, ‘Celebrity and Community: The Poetics of the Carte-de-Visite’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 8 (2003), 55–79 (at 59). 39 Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, pp. 79–81, 99. 40 ‘Illustrated Periodical Literature’, Bookseller, 30 Nov. 1861, pp. 681–9; ‘Illustrated Periodicals’, Bookseller, 6 Dec. 1862, pp. 751–64; S. Cooke, Illustrated Periodicals of the 1860s: Contexts and Collaborators (London: British Library, 2010). 41 BL, Add. MS 88937, Punch Archives, [J.B. Groves], ‘Rambling Recollections and Modern Thoughts of an Old Engraver’, manuscript, 1916, p. 15. 42 D.C. Coleman, The British Paper Industry, 1495–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958), ch. 13; A.H. Shorter, Paper Making in the British Isles (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1971), pp. 113–16, 139–46; R.D. Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800–1900 (2nd edn, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998), pp. 354–6; L. Brown, Victorian News and Newspapers (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), pp. 4–24; A. Lee, The Origins of the Popular Press in England, 1855–1914 (London: Croom Helm, 1976), pp. 46–9, 67–72, 85–91. 43 G. Beegan, The Mass Image: A Social History of Photomechanical Reproduction in Victorian London (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), pp. 56–62. 44 W.F. Crisp, The Printers’ Universal Book of Reference (London: J. Haddon, [1875]), p. 62. 45 J.S. Hodson, An Historical and Practical Guide to Art Illustration (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1884), pp. 162–206; H.W. Singer and W. Strang, Etching, Engraving and the Other Methods of Printing Pictures (London: Kegan Paul, 1897), pp. 165–80. 46 H. Herkomer, Etching and Mezzotint Engraving (London: Macmillan, 1892), p. 97; A. Dyson, Pictures to Prints: The Nineteenth-Century Engraving Trade (London: Farrand, 1984), pp. 24–5.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 18

23/09/2014 11:54

Introduction

19

47 C.K. Shorter, ‘Illustrated Journalism: Its Past and Future’, Contemporary Review, 75 (1899), 481–94 (at 491–2); Beegan, The Mass Image, pp. 64–70. 48 On seriality, see L. Brake, Print in Transition, 1850–1910: Studies in Media and Book History (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pt. I. 49 R.J. Pound, ‘Serial Journalism and the Transformation of English Graphic Satire, 1830–36’, PhD thesis, University of London, 2 vols., 2002. 50 Perry, ‘Carte de Visite’, p. 747. 51 A. Briggs, Victorian Things (London: B.T. Batsford, 1988), pp. 149–50, 153. See also P.D. Gordon Pugh, Staffordshire Portrait Figures of the Victorian Era (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1981), p. 25. 52 Spielmann, History of “Punch”, pp. 202–3. 53 R. McWilliam, ‘The Theatricality of the Staffordshire Figurine’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 10 (2005), 107–14 (at 112). 54 Morgan, ‘Politics of Personality’, pp. 136–41. 55 A. Popp, Business Structure, Business Culture and the Industrial District: The Potteries, c. 1850–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 41, 45, 50, 89, 118; T. Logan, The Victorian Parlour: A Cultural Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 127–8. 56 B.R. Haydon, The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. W.B. Pope (5 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960–63), IV, p. 159. 57 T. Carlyle, ‘Project of a National Exhibition of Scottish Portraits’, reprinted in The Works of Thomas Carlyle (30 vols., London: Chapman and Hall, 1899), XXIX, p. 405. 58 Ibid., p. 406. 59 West, Portraiture, pp. 46–8; M. Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 9. 60 Ibid., p. 239. 61 Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, 6 June 1856, vol. 142, col. 1119. 62 Ibid., col. 1120. 63 L. Perry, ‘The National Portrait Gallery and Its Constituencies’, in P. Barlow and C. Trodd (eds), Governing Cultures: Art Institutions in Victorian London (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 145–55. 64 J. Ginswick, Labour and the Poor in England and Wales, 1849–1851: The Letters of the Morning Chronicle in the Manufacturing and Mining Districts, the Towns of Liverpool and Birmingham, and the Rural Districts (3 vols., London: Frank Cass, 1983), I, p. 201. 65 Chase, ‘Building Identity’. 66 West, Portraiture, pp. 62–3. 67 Northern Star, 16 July 1842, p. 5. 68 W.E. Adams, Memoirs of a Social Atom (2 vols., London: Hutchinson, 1903), I, pp. 163–4. 69 D. Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 271–4, 392. 70 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, p. 39; J. Epstein, ‘Some Organisational and Cultural Aspects of the Chartist Movement in Nottingham’, in Epstein and Thompson (eds), The Chartist Experience, pp. 221–68 (at 241).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 19

23/09/2014 11:54

20

Politics personified

71 Morgan, ‘Politics of Personality’, p. 130. 72 [C. Gore], ‘The New Art of Printing’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 55 (1844), 45–9 (at 47–8). 73 ‘Preface’, The Drawing Room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages (1st series, 1859), p. iii. 74 Ibid. 75 Glasgow Herald, 29 Aug. 1884, p. 10. 76 Manchester Guardian, qu. in Belfast News-Letter, 7 May 1863, p. 4. 77 M. Cowling, The Artist as Anthropologist: The Representation of Type and Character in Victorian Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 1–53. 78 S. Pearl, About Faces: Physiognomy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 5, 7. 79 Ibid., pp. 85–91. 80 Bee-Hive, 4 Dec. 1875, p. 1. 81 R. Brilliant, Portraiture (London: Reaktion, 1991), p. 129. 82 West, Portraiture, pp. 71–9. 83 C.F. Keating, D. Randall and T. Kendrick, ‘Presidential Physiognomies: Altered Images, Altered Perceptions’, Political Psychology, 20 (1999), 593–610. 84 Plunkett, Queen Victoria, p. 98. 85 Morgan, ‘Politics of Personality’, p. 131. 86 For a critique of this literature, see H. Miller, ‘The Problem with Punch’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), 285–302. 87 Sir A. West, Recollections 1832 to 1886 (2 vols., London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1899), II, p. 196. 88 Brilliant, Portraiture, pp. 70–2; Pointon, Hanging the Head, p. 96. 89 G. Berkeley, My Life (4 vols., London: Hurst and Blackett, 1865–66), IV, p. 131. 90 E. Nicholson, ‘English Political Prints and Pictorial Political Argument, c. 1640–c. 1832: A Study in Historiography and Methodology’, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 3 vols., 1994, I, pp. 133-4. 91 Maidment, Comedy, p. 80. 92 H. Miller, ‘John Leech and the Shaping of the Victorian Cartoon: The Context of Respectability’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 42 (2009), 267–91. 93 West, Portraiture, pp. 11–12, 37–41. 94 Perry, ‘Carte de Visite’, p. 737.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 20

23/09/2014 11:54

1

The visual culture of reform, 1830–32

This chapter examines the visual culture stimulated by the popular fervour for reform, and sheds new light on the making of the 1832 Reform Act and how it was perceived at the time. Prints and other forms of material culture presented reform as revitalising and restoring balance to a moribund constitution. Just as significantly, reform of the electoral system was linked to long-demanded calls for retrenchment in the state and reduced taxation. Reform would lead to the breaking up of the ‘Old Corruption’, the web of state patronage, place and sinecures funded by the long-suffering and heavily burdened taxpayer, by transforming the representative system that had underpinned it. This was to be achieved through electoral redistribution, especially the disenfranchisement of the rotten boroughs controlled by the hated borough-mongers. Studying the visual culture of reform offers fresh insights into popular understandings of reform, and explains the apparent anomaly of huge popular support for a measure that was, in many respects, moderate, conservative and limited. Furthermore, this popular understanding of reform not only explains the massive public support but also the iconic status of the reform leaders, the lack of public debate about the franchise clauses and the huge disappointment that followed so soon after its passing. While this chapter focuses on the extraordinarily diverse range of material and visual commodities, including prints, caricatures, ceramics, medals and banners, stimulated by reform, there was not unanimous or uncritical approval. A significant minority, including the lithographic artist HB (John Doyle), argued that reform would fatally undermine the constitution. With its focus on caricature and political satire, this chapter may appear to be slightly removed from the central theme of this book: the political likeness. However, this chapter provides an essential context for what follows and it is worth briefly stating what it is and is not intended to do. This chapter does not intend to be the last word on the decline and transformation of caricature in the 1830s, a subject to which Brian Maidment offers a much more comprehensive guide.1 Rather, it aims, firstly, to highlight important changes in visual media that began in this period, which provide a technological context for the rest of the study. Secondly, it provides an overview of the Reform Act and the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 21

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

22

reformed political system, which forms the political context to the rest of the book. Thirdly, it offers a short overview of the extensive literature on Georgian caricature. The Georgian legacy and the decline of the single-sheet print The cultural legacy of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century graphic satire and the technological changes that led to the decline of the single-sheet print form the necessary context to any consideration of the visual culture of reform between 1830 and 1832. The visual print culture of the long eighteenth century was an extraordinarily diverse phenomenon that has been the subject of a number of distinguished studies.2 It is not the intention to offer a lengthy recapitulation of that work here. Rather, the aim is to briefly consider the cultural legacy of Georgian political print, while also questioning some of the teleologies about the ‘Golden Age’ of the political print, conventionally dated from 1760 to the 1830s. This will provide a brief overview of the techniques and styles used, the popularity or audience for these prints and the question of the decline of this tradition of satire and caricature. The technological changes that undermined the single-sheet print format will then be considered. Firstly, it is important to note that even after 1760, not everyone employed caricature, humour or satire to make their point, some preferring emblematic or iconographic designs. Instead of seeing a linear progression from the emblematic tradition to one based on physical caricature it is probably best to see them both as part of the visual repertoire available to artists in the long eighteenth century.3 That said, excessive physical distortion, particularly of the facial features, was a strong component of the graphic satire of artists such as James Gillray and George Cruikshank. Another important feature was the personifications of national identities, both of Britain or England in the form of Britannia and John Bull, and of rival powers, above all revolutionary and Napoleonic France.4 Gillray contrasted the poverty of ‘French liberty’ with ‘English slavery’, a plump John Bull eating a hearty joint of beef while grumbling about taxes.5 Secondly, the audience for the prints remains hotly debated. They have been described as ‘both a reflector and shaper of public opinion’, but Eirwen Nicholson has criticised the assumption that prints were inherently a popular medium.6 The increasingly sophisticated prints of James Gillray and others appealed to the aristocratic clientele of the West End print shops, not least because the prints were expensive and required a high level of ‘political intelligence and knowledge’.7 The use of copper plate also meant that the print runs were limited. Nicholson has drawn a distinction between the consumers of prints, who were mostly upper class, and a wider audience of spectators, who had limited opportunities to view the prints in shop windows or elsewhere.8

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 22

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

23

Other scholars have argued that the prints were widely disseminated among all classes and were ‘a regularly encountered and widely discussed product of urban culture’, experienced in print-shop windows, coffee houses and taverns, displayed in exhibitions and posted to collectors and shops outside London.9 There has been an over-reliance on the print-shop window as evidence for prints’ ‘popularity’ and further illumination will probably only be provided by more focused research into specific periods rather generalising across the whole ‘Golden Age’.10 For example, Vic Gatrell has shown that the growth of print shops in the City of London after 1800 created a new market for caricatures among a middle-class and lower middle-class audience distinct from the aristocratic consumers of the West End, a market that was more receptive to radical or reforming imagery.11 Regardless of how visible down the social spectrum such prints were, it is fair to say that all the evidence points to them being an essentially metropolitan phenomenon, with the overwhelming majority published and consumed in the capital. Finally, the extent to which prints were inherently radical or subversive remains a key question. There was no shortage of anti-radical and conservative defences of the political system, particularly in the 1790s when contrasts were regularly drawn between the English constitution and the revolutionary regime in France. The British constitution was represented as an oak, a natural, organic, sturdy edifice with deep roots in the nation’s past, a metaphor that echoed the ideas of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).12 The French constitution, supposedly based on abstract reasoning and natural rights, was an inflexible, dogmatic system, or a rigid corset.13 However, prints could be ambiguous in their political message and this was embodied in the figure of John Bull. In representing the national character, John Bull allowed artists to maintain their loyal and anti-French credentials while criticising the government for infringing English liberties, excessive taxation and corruption. His latent radical potential became more apparent after 1800 and coincided with the growth of the city print shops.14 In the radical iconography of George Cruikshank and others, John Bull was drawn as a gaunt individual, with his padlocked mouth symbolising the repression of freedom of expression, assembly and the press.15 Gatrell has argued that the rise of Evangelical and secular notions of ‘improvement’ was fundamentally opposed to the principles of the old tradition of caricature and reflected a wider cultural shift in which moral reformation became increasingly important in public and private life.16 Instead of physical caricature and personal attacks there was a tendency towards respectability and more gentlemanly depictions of public figures in graphic satire. However, caricature as a visual technique did not disappear, as will be shown in chapter 3, and this undoubted shift in cultural attitudes needs to be separated from the decline of the single-sheet print.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 23

23/09/2014 11:54

24

Politics personified

As discussed in the Introduction, between the 1820s and the 1840s, new graphic technologies such as lithography and wood engraving superseded copper-plate etching and engraving as the medium for topical pictorial satire. The same period was also one of experimentation in new graphic formats and a shift from political caricature to socio-comic prints and visual culture. The context for this was not only a change in tastes, but also the opening up of a new mass market for comic art, one which publishers were eager to exploit.17 A wider, more popular market for comic art created opportunities for graphic artists, providing new avenues for their talents that allowed them to diversify and shift away from political caricature.18 At the same time, however, the economic position of graphic artists was precarious, dependent upon the success or failure of experimental formats in a ferociously competitive publishing environment. This precariousness and insecurity was why employment for Punch (founded in 1841) was so attractive for illustrators and graphic artists like John Leech: the periodical’s success and profitability meant that it provided regular income and job security that was rare at this time.19 Another consequence of these technological changes, the rise of seriality and the creation of a new, mass market for comic art was that the independence and autonomy of graphic artists was eroded as they became more reliant on commissions or employment from publishers and periodicals. Robert Seymour, like many of his peers, forged a career as a jobbing artist, with the diversity of his work – including single-sheet prints, work for lithographic magazines, wood engravings for Figaro in London, sporting prints and book illustrations – not only testifying to his inventiveness but also financial necessity.20 Returning to political satires, the shift from copper-plate to new visual media was remarkably rapid. Most of the flood of prints about Catholic emancipation in 1829 were engraved or etched on copper plates, that is to say, using intaglio techniques. However, lithography and wood engraving proved increasingly attractive media for political prints and graphic satires. The first of John Doyle’s pioneering lithographic Political Sketches were published in 1829, under his pseudonym of ‘HB’. As was noted in the Introduction, lithography had the advantages of being cheaper, quicker and yielding larger print runs than copper plates.21 Some sources suggest that ‘hundreds of thousands’ of impressions could be printed from one lithographic stone, although this was probably exceptional.22 Even more important in the longer term was the development of wood engraving, which is usually credited to Thomas Bewick (1766–1828), who engraved a number of nature books and whose pupils popularised the method. Wood engraving was a relief technique: the engraver cut away from the surface leaving the design standing in relief. Wood engraving was much cheaper than intaglio methods and enabled images to be printed with the letterpress in a steam press. Wood engraving also had huge print runs due to the use of the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 24

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

25

extremely durable boxwood.23 Bewick recorded one block producing 900,000 impressions, though an average seems to have been about 80,000–100,000.24 A third new technology, steel engraving, was too expensive and slow for graphic satire, a genre that thrived on topicality, but did become extremely important for fine art reproductions and portraits. Although lithographs could be purchased hand-coloured, they were usually uncoloured. As wood engravings were typically black and white, this meant that in the half century after 1830, unlike the preceding fifty years, popular printed images were generally in black and white. A second important shift was the development of serial formats. Instead of being issued as single-sheet prints, caricatures, graphic satires and non-satirical political images increasingly came in a variety of formats that were published continually at regular intervals.25 This was a harbinger of the dominance of serial formats in Victorian print culture.26 Publishers found serials increasingly attractive as they would yield a steady predictable income if they secured a sufficient circulation and could be discontinued if they were unprofitable.27 The late 1820s and early 1830s was a time of experimentation with different formats. Single-sheet prints were still published, some still etched or engraved on copper, but increasingly satire took serial form. Coarsely executed wood engravings were the staple of broadsheet caricatures, often sold at a penny, the most important of which was C.J. Grant’s Political Drama (1833–35).28 Doyle’s Political Sketches lithographic prints were numbered continuously like a serial, and published by Thomas McLean, of Haymarket, for 2s 6d a print. McLean was also responsible for another important publication, The LookingGlass (1830–36), which had originated in Glasgow but was later moved to London and renamed as McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures. William Heath illustrated the magazine both in Glasgow and London, until issue no. 8 in August 1830 when Seymour replaced him.29 The Looking-Glass was a four-page lithographic magazine of caricatures, which Seymour sketched in the style of HB. The political excitement created by reform stimulated a plethora of political-satirical weeklies, the most important of which was Figaro in London (1832–39). The Figaro was a four-page 1d weekly that featured a small wood engraving on the front page by the versatile Seymour. Numerous other Figaros, mostly ephemeral, were established around the country. Figaro in London’s significance came not only from its longevity, but because it was a precursor to Punch: the Figaro editor Gilbert à Beckett became a major contributor to Punch. To summarise, in the early 1820s political caricatures, satires or non-political images were typically prints made from copper-plate engravings or etchings, published as single sheets; a decade later they came in a diverse range of formats and visual media. There was a dynamic interplay between publishers, artists and the assumed audience. Prints did not simply reflect or

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 25

23/09/2014 11:54

26

Politics personified

shape opinion, but were a product of these different factors. As Maidment has shown, the print culture of comic art and caricature was published in a fiercely competitive marketplace.30 In this respect, popular or much-imitated formats or tropes should be seen as attempts to supply an identifiable demand or market rather than reflecting the opinions of the artists in question, although they nevertheless had some agency. There is also a danger in conflating the decline of the single-sheet print with the decline of caricature as a technique or idiom. Because the British Museum catalogue of political and personal satires finishes in 1832, that date has often been a convenient terminus for studies of the ‘Golden Age’ of Georgian caricature, which is usually assumed to have lasted from 1760 to the 1830s.31 However, if the single-sheet print was in decline due to the emergence of other media, this did not render caricature or radical satire obsolete. As we shall see in chapter 3, some of Grant’s work from the mid-1830s was as ferocious and radical as any of his predecessors, and arguably more popular as it sold for 1d rather than the expensive prices commanded by many West End print shops in the ‘Golden Age’.32 The historiography of reform The intentions of the framers of 1832 English Reform Act (2 & 3 Will. IV, c. 45) and its impact have remained an enduring source of historical debate. For Whig and Liberal historians, the Reform Act was part of a longer, teleological narrative about the gradual extension of popular rights.33 By enfranchising the £10 householder, the Act gave the hitherto unrepresented middle class political power. The Act was a timely concession to public opinion that updated the constitution to preserve it and spared the country the revolutionary upheaval that affected European states. As the vote was successively extended to all men and women in the early twentieth century, the Reform Act was presented as the first instalment of democracy. This view was attacked by revisionist conservative historians in the 1950s and 1960s. Norman Gash’s influential study of the post-1832 electoral system argued that there were striking continuities with the unreformed period. The survival of aristocratic patronage and influence, election compromises and bribery and corruption were all signs that the Act had made little impact.34 Even more controversially, D.C. Moore suggested that the Whigs intended the Reform Act to strengthen aristocratic influence by redrawing boundaries and reducing urban influences in county constituencies.35 Adding a postmodern twist to this revisionism, James Vernon argued that the Reform Act actually reduced and narrowed the scope for participation in the political process as, for example, women were explicitly excluded from voting in parliamentary elections for the first time.36 This was part of the long process whereby the franchise was gradually extended, but a vibrant, participatory political culture was closed down.37

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 26

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

27

The positive view of the impact of the Reform Act has also been undercut by studies of the unreformed electoral system which suggest that it was much more dynamic and open than previously thought. Some constituencies had large enough electorates to be immune to the influence of patrons, while in others, patrons had to be responsive to maintain their influence and control. The lack of contested elections was the result of local negotiation and compromise and not simply the imposition of the will of mighty patrons.38 Indeed, one of the themes of the History of Parliament’s House of Commons 1820–1832 volumes, published in 2009, is that the electoral authority of the political elite was increasingly unstable even before reform. This was the result of a variety of factors such as expensive legal challenges to corporations and their power to create freemen; the spiralling cost of elections, especially of bringing out-voters to poll; incremental increases in many borough electorates; and the growing independence of county freeholders.39 The impact of the English Reform Act has been restated, but historians now downplay the traditional emphasis on the enfranchisement of £10 householders in the boroughs. The middle class was too diverse and divided by various cultural, religious and economic cleavages to be straightforwardly enfranchised by the Reform Act.40 Furthermore, the Reform Act’s enfranchisement of householders was counterbalanced by the extensive disenfranchisement of non-resident freemen. For this reason the electorates of Preston and Leicester actually fell by up to 40 per cent as a result of the Reform Act.41 Even the aggregate increase in the English electorate as a result of the Act was only in line with the trend of expansion of the previous decade.42 The most important extension of the county electorate, the clause giving the vote to £50 occupying tenants, was proposed by the ultra-Tory Marquess of Chandos and passed in the teeth of opposition from the Grey ministry. The Reform Act, then, was never intended to simply expand the franchise, but to purify and, to a degree, standardise it. The residency and rate-paying clauses were intended to ensure that electors had genuine connections and interests in the constituencies in which they were registered to vote. The reforms to the freemen franchise sought to prevent the creation of votes by patrons or corporations to swamp the locally based independent electors. The Act aimed to reshape the political system through redistribution to make it more representative and responsive, and thereby reinvigorate parliamentary government.43 Fifty-five double-member boroughs and one single-member borough were disenfranchised and another thirty boroughs were stripped of one MP. This freed up seats to be granted for twenty-two new double-member boroughs and twentyone single-member boroughs. In a similar way, the redistribution of constituencies was not designed to remove legitimate landed influence, but rather illegitimate influence. New interests were to be represented for the first time, but these were not simply industrial towns such as Birmingham, Manchester

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 27

23/09/2014 11:54

28

Politics personified

or Leeds, but places such as Cheltenham and Brighton, which were more akin to Regency spa or leisure towns. The Act significantly increased the English county representation from 82 to 144 seats. Although this chapter focuses largely on the English reform legislation, there was of course a Scottish and Irish dimension. In terms of increasing the electorate, the Scottish Reform Act (2 & 3 Will. IV, c. 65) was of greater significance than the English measure. As a result of this, the Scottish electorate expanded from just 4,500 to over 60,000. Scotland’s representation at Westminster was boosted from forty-five to fifty-three MPs, thirty sitting for single-member counties and twenty-three for burghs.44 The impact of the Irish Reform Act (2 & 3 Will. IV, c. 88) was less extensive, largely because it did not reverse the substantial disenfranchisement of the Irish county electorate imposed by Wellington’s government in 1829 as a quid pro quo for Catholic emancipation. It increased the number of Irish MPs to 105, and, in line with the English reform bill, the Irish Act created new copyhold and leasehold franchises for the counties and gave the vote to £10 householders in the boroughs, which led to a 30 per cent increase in the borough electorate.45 Returning to the English Reform Act, Philip Salmon has suggested that rather than being viewed as a concession or cure, reform should be viewed as a ‘consultation’, the product of an unprecedented negotiated process between Parliament and people, centre and locality.46 The role of political unions, such as Thomas Attwood’s Birmingham Political Union (BPU), in rallying extraparliamentary support for reform has long been recognised.47 Other important mediums of communication between centre and locality included petitions, often the product of public meetings, and the 1831 general election. Equally significant, but often overlooked, were the local consultations of the boundary commissioners who were charged with defining the boundaries and political geography of the reformed representative system. For all these reasons, the 1832 Reform Act was the product of a much broader public debate and process than the 1867 Representation of the People Act that was largely settled in the House of Commons, or the 1884–85 reforms that resulted from negotiations between the Conservative and Liberal party leaderships.48 In the longer term, the most important consequence of the Reform Act was the development of a two-party system, in which voters and electoral politics were increasingly polarised along partisan lines. This will be explored in the next chapter. The visual culture of reform, 1830–32 Studying visual culture offers important and fresh insights into this landmark event by revealing how reform was conceptualised by its supporters and enemies, and how the political system was understood at this time. There was a huge market for reform material and visual culture, which publishers,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 28

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

29

manufacturers, entrepreneurs and artists sought to satisfy. The enthusiasm for reform was reflected in the diverse and abundant range of material, visual and print culture, including banners, medals, coins, tokens and ceramics, that was produced for this market. Political ceramics came to be known as ‘reformware’ in the 1830s after the profusion of reform-jugs and other items produced in 1830–32. Salt-glazed stoneware half-pint bottles in the shape of William IV and Lord Brougham were produced in Derbyshire and London (figure 1.1).49 One Lambeth pottery workshop received an order for ‘several thousands’ of the Brougham bottles.50 Reform mania also stimulated a torrent of political prints and satires. According to the British Museum catalogue there were 314 political satires produced in 1831, and 431 in 1832.51 Publishers and artists, many of whom, as we have seen, were drifting away from political caricature into socio-comic work, were tempted back to political subjects to exploit this huge surge in political excitement created by reform. These totals do not include the many portraits and likenesses published of reformers, nor do they capture the proliferation of more ephemeral forms of print, such as broadside ballads with woodcuts, which normally cost a penny or less. Between 1831 and 1832, James Catnach of Seven Dials, the leading ballad-monger, worked ‘almost daily’ to produce a flood of anti-Tory broadside ballads.52 These would have reached a very large audience; indeed it was not unknown for most popular broadside ballads of the time (usually reporting the executions and fabricated confessions of infamous murderers) to sell over a million copies.53 The fact that Catnach, the most successful ballad-monger of his time, produced so many reform broadsides is a revealing indication of how entrepreneurial publishers exploited the popularity of reform in 1831–32. Many towns had local equivalents of Catnach.54 That said, most of the political satires under discussion were produced in the capital, and a certain London bias is detectable. For example, Thomas Attwood, leader of the BPU, the most important of the popular movements for reform, barely featured at all. The anti-reform case was also well represented, indeed perhaps over-represented, in the prints. Again, this suggests that the publishing context is critical to analysing printed visual culture. The reform prints were not entirely representative of the national debate, but publishers and artists refracted it through a metropolitan lens. What was novel about many of the pro-reform prints produced between 1830 and 1832 was the direct connection made between a corrupt political system, which had long been attacked, and the abuses of the electoral system.55 Artists and publishers reprised many of the traditional themes of political caricature, but also adapted them. Although elections, particularly for Middlesex and Westminster, had long been a popular subject for caricaturists, satirical prints had rarely dwelt on electoral abuses, even in the radical satires of the post-war era. Typically the focus had been on imbalances in the constitution such as

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 29

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

30

Figure 1.1  Brougham reform cordial bottle, c. 1832. Salt-glaze stoneware flask. 7 x 3⅜ inches. © People’s History Museum, NMLH.1992.1073.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 30

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

31

the excessive influence of the Crown, corruption in the state, the burden of taxation, government repression and personal abuses of power. However, the pro-reform prints presented these as rooted in imbalances and abuses of the electoral system. The crucial link that connected the two was the rotten boroughs. As these constituencies were controlled by patrons or corporations, their MPs were unrepresentative of and unresponsive to public opinion and the grievances of the people. These MPs provided the parliamentary support for the network of place and patronage that radicals called the ‘Old Corruption’. The parliamentary vote in favour of Catholic emancipation in 1829 also highlighted the unrepresentative nature of the Commons to many opponents of that measure, including some Tories. In the ensuing visual debate, the ‘borough-mongers’ who controlled rotten boroughs, their nominees and their defenders were singled out for unprecedented vilification by caricaturists and publishers. Visual culture and caricature were also well suited to personifying the reform debate through the heroic presentation of the reform ministers and the demonisation of the borough-mongers. As we shall see, the more technical and nuanced elements of the debate, such as the franchise clauses, were harder to express in a visually striking way. A good example of the linkage between rotten boroughs and ‘Old Corruption’ was George Cruikshank’s The “System” that “Works so Well” (figure 1.2). The popular excitement over the introduction of the first reform bill in March 1831 tempted Cruikshank into briefly resuming the career as a political caricaturist that he had abandoned in 1824.56 This is yet a further indication that artists and publishers clearly recognised that there was a large market for political imagery created by reform. Cruikshank targeted the self-interest of those who defended the constitution from any reform. The metaphor of a water mill showed the pervasiveness of political corruption. Parliament, or St Stephen’s mill, pours forth gold from a spout marked ‘Borough-Bridge’, a reference to one of the Duke of Newcastle’s pocket boroughs. Other infamous constituencies form the turbine that drives the whole system. The gold represents the innumerable forms of place and patronage that bought the allegiance of the greedy recipients. The gold is yielded by grinding the people, represented by a number of bodies that litter the space beneath the mill. Cruikshank’s assault was not on individuals but on the system, which is shown as a ruthlessly efficient machine for exploiting the many for the profit of the few. A direct link is made between the representative system, above all the rotten boroughs, and ‘Old Corruption’ in the state. A different tone was struck by The Reformers’ Attack on the Old Rotten Tree, which drew a Manichean contrast between reformers and anti-reformers (figure 1.3).57 The etching reprised and inverted a long-standing trope, which had been frequently deployed in loyalist and conservative prints in the 1790s. Instead of portraying the British constitution as a sturdy, strong, organic edifice,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 31

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 32

23/09/2014 11:54

Figure 1.2  G. Cruikshank, The “System” that “Works so Well” – or the Boroughmongers Grinding Machine, 21 Mar. 1831, BMC 16610. Coloured etching. 8½ x 12⅞ inches.

The visual culture of reform

33

the tree is rotten.58 The print suggests that by the 1830s the constitution – as it worked in practice – was no longer subject to the same veneration. The tree was decadent and Burkean pruning was inadequate: a more drastic solution was necessary. A troupe of reformers, led by Lord Brougham and Lord John Russell, take axes to the tree, the branches and birds’ nests representing rotten boroughs. Despite its positive portrayal of the reformers, Earl Grey is accused of nepotism and stands back from the assault on the tree. In the background personifications of Scotland, Ireland and England bask in the sun on constitution hill with the king and queen. Catnach produced a simplified woodcut version of the design for one of his broadside ballads, transmitting the themes of the print to a cheaper and almost certainly much larger market.59 The borough-mongers who featured regularly in this demonology included the Duke of Newcastle, the ultra-Tory patron of Boroughbridge, Newark and East Retford; Sir Charles Wetherell, MP for Boroughbridge and the main parliamentary opponent of reform; Lord Eldon, the former lord chancellor; the Duke of Cumberland, the king’s ultra-Tory brother; the Duke of Wellington; and Sir Robert Peel. Opponents of reform were likened to mythical monsters such as the seven-headed hydra.60 They were frequently portrayed as rats or other vermin, being savaged by the famous fighting dog Billy.61 In Sweeping Measure, or Making a Clean House (23 March 1831), George Cruikshank’s only other known print on reform, Russell sweeps away vermin and detritus representing anti-reformers and rotten boroughs. A large number of scrolls inscribed with ‘Reform’ represent the petitions that showed public support for the measure.62 The borough-mongers are portrayed as thieves, picking the pocket of John Bull, a long-standing trope of caricature.63 The cheaper woodcuts often featured the devil carrying the borough-mongers and antireformers off to hell.64 The demonisation of the borough-mongers and anti-reformers had similarities to earlier radical satires. Yet there were also important differences. Unlike in the 1790s, or 1820s, the government was committed to political reform, even if it did not go far enough for some. Furthermore, the most recalcitrant opponents of reform were in opposition, no longer with the ability to pass repressive laws or mobilise the coercive apparatus of the state. To a degree, the borough-mongers cut absurd, pathetic figures in the prints, without the sense of menace that had underlain earlier radical visual critiques. They were joined by the Anglican bishops, or spiritual peers, who voted against the second reform bill in the House of Lords by a 19 to 2 margin in October 1831. The bishops, generally portrayed as obese grotesques, had danced to the devil’s tune.65 Thereafter the gang of borough-mongers usually featured a bishop in their company. Radical publications such as Figaro in London made the connection between the bishops’ opposition to reform and the decadent state of the Church. Again parliamentary reform was linked to wider root

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 33

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 34

23/09/2014 11:54

Figure 1.3 Anon., The Reformers’ Attack on the Old Rotten Tree, c. Apr. 1831, BMC 16650. Coloured etching. 9¾ x 14⅛ inches.

The visual culture of reform

35

and branch reform of the institutions of Church and state. The spiritual peers’ rejection of reform would necessitate a more radical reform that would not only reform Parliament but the Church as well. Ministers would also have to purge the Church, conduct a stomach pump on the typically obese bishop and force out the ‘tithes, pluralities’ jealously guarded by the bloated Church.66 The Glasgow-based Loyal Reformers’ Gazette published a caricature of a grotesque bishop being carried off by Grey and Brougham, implying that the bishops’ privileged position in the legislature might be in jeopardy.67 In some prints the tithe was represented by a pig.68 In radical prints, bishops were no better than the other pensioners and placemen who leeched money from the public purse and John Bull.69 The borough-mongers were frequently contrasted with the heroic champions of reform. Sometimes, as in The Reformers’ Attack on the Old Rotten Tree, the contrast was drawn in the same image. Another example was A Memento of the Great Public Question of Reform, an engraving given away free on 15 April 1832 with Bell’s New Weekly Messenger, a newspaper with an average weekly circulation of around 10,000, although the readership would have been larger.70 This allegorical print featured portraits of William IV, and reformers including Grey, Russell, Brougham and Lord Althorp set in the clouds, below which the British lion hurled lightning bolts at the borough-mongers. Behind the lion were documents representing the Bill of Rights and Magna Carta, presenting reform as part of a longer historical narrative of constitutional liberty. In the bottom right-hand corner Britannia, standing alongside the king and queen, spears a serpent representing rotten boroughs, while a crowd cheers.71 The leading reformers were portrayed favourably as never before not just in political prints but in portraits, medals, banners and other forms of material culture. The market for such representations was undoubtedly testament to the popularity of reform and reformers at this time and stemmed not only from the bill itself but from broader expectations about the changes it would usher in. Whig ministers were portrayed heroically in political prints, assailing monsters or rotten trees or driving out vermin. They were presented equally favourably in other media. Between 1830 and 1832 many engraved or lithographed portraits of leading ministers were published, often reproductions of earlier images designed to cash in on the excitement surrounding reform and the popularity of prominent reformers. For example, the public image of Henry Brougham, Lord Chancellor 1830–34, was never more positive than at this time. Later he was caricatured with a cuboid nose (which photographs suggest he did not possess) by radical satirists like Grant and Punch cartoonists. But during 1830–32, Brougham was commonly depicted as the scourge of borough-mongers in political prints and the subject of a spate of printed portraits. Likenesses of Brougham were available in wax seal, as cheap

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 35

23/09/2014 11:54

36

Politics personified

woodcuts on pink paper, as silhouettes, and there was even a German engraved portrait of him published at this time.72 Brougham was strongly associated with reform, and was often pictured holding papers representing the reform bill. One portrait reused Wivell’s sketch of him defending Queen Caroline in 1821 but with a caption from one of his famous speeches in favour of reform: ‘I beseech you, I solemnly adjure you, yea, even on bended knees, my Lords I implore you not to reject this Bill.’73 The material culture spawned by reform included a diverse range of metal coins, tokens and medals, many of them produced in Birmingham, which was famed for the diversity of its metal trades during this period. These provided a different perspective on reform and gave greater prominence to Attwood and the political unions than many of the London-centric political prints. The tropes employed by the metallic culture of reform were more allegorical or emblematical. Attwood featured on a number of medals, in one case below a British lion, with Grey on the reverse.74 One commemorative medal marking the passing of the reform bill included Attwood alongside Brougham, Grey and Russell as ‘The True Friends of the People’.75 One medal featured Attwood in profile on one side, describing him as the ‘founder of political unions’ and ‘the uncompromising enemy of corruption, and unwearied supporter of parliamentary reform’.76 Political unions were represented by symbols that emphasised their strength in unity such as fasces.77 Another token crossed the union flag with the cap of liberty.78 Medals and tokens shared the prints’ interpretation of reform. Reform was presented as Britannia and Justice driving ‘corruption’ from the constitution in one medal, while on the reverse were listed the main features of the reform, particularly the new categories of electors and the redistribution clauses.79 Another medal featured a barren wasteland that represented Old Sarum, long regarded as the most notorious rotten borough.80 A reform watch fob portrayed the House of Commons and recorded the majorities for the third bill in Lords and Commons, while on the reverse were likenesses of the ‘invincible champions of the reform bill’: Grey, Brougham and Russell.81 Medals, like prints, personified the reform debate. Indeed, so favourable was the image presented of Whig ministers that Henry Hunt, MP for Preston and a radical critic of the bill, produced a Birmingham medal in the Commons chamber as evidence of the ‘popular delusion’ about reform. A gold version had been sent to the king, and others to Grey and Brougham, who all featured on one side of the medal. Hunt observed that the obverse recorded a long list of radical reforms that Whig ministers were unlikely to countenance.82 The popularity of the reform ministers was evident in an array of visual and material culture, not simply prints and medals produced in London and Birmingham, but in other places around the country. For example, a number of Scottish towns and cities celebrated the first English reform bill passing its

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 36

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

37

second reading by a single vote on 23 March 1831 with illuminations. These were transparencies placed over windows and lit up by gaslights to project an illuminated design on to the street. In Glasgow, the stationer James Lumsden illuminated ten windows in his Queen Street house with ‘elegant’ transparencies. These included likenesses of the king, Brougham, Russell and also the Lord Advocate, Francis Jeffrey, who was the minister responsible for Scottish business and subsequently piloted the Scottish reform legislation through Parliament. Outside the houses of Lumsden and the Lord Provost (the Scottish equivalent of a mayor) ‘great crowds were collected during the greater part of the day’ to see the spectacle.83 Engraved portraits of Grey, Brougham, the king and Jeffrey were also given away to readers of the Glasgow-based Loyal Reformers’ Gazette in 1831 and 1832.84 Referring to the print of William IV, the newspaper hoped that it would reach ‘the possession of every Reformer in Scotland’.85 Jeffrey’s inclusion, like Attwood’s prominence in the Birmingham medals, is indicative of the way in which other politicians were integrated into the pantheon of reform by different localities and nations. The visual culture of reform, then, was subject to local variations that reflected distinctive political cultures. Likenesses of leading reformers also featured on banners carried at meetings and demonstrations in favour of reform. Russell, Brougham and Grey were depicted on one Wakefield banner as the ‘conquering heroes’.86 Reform and the franchise Most satirical or political prints were pro-reform, but they reflected a range of opinion. A number of political prints presented the debate through politicians representing different parts of a spectrum of views on the issue. For example, William Heath’s etching Opinions on Reform (8 March 1831) associated radical reform with a threatening ruffian, ‘moderate reform’ with a small timid man and ‘no reform’ with an obese man who was content with the status quo.87 If this print unenthusiastically presented moderate reform as the best of the three options, other prints gave a clearer steer. C.J. Grant’s lithograph Four Weighty Authorities on Reform (31 March 1831) associated the different political positions with politicians. The Whig Grey maintains that ‘Reform is absolutely necessary to prevent Revolution’, while the Tory Wellington argued that reform was tantamount to revolution. A Liberal favoured a ‘lee-tle Reform’ while William Cobbett asserted that ‘if we don’t have a Real Radical Reform we’ll have a Revolution’.88 McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures personified radical reform as a white-hatted supporter of Henry Hunt who wished to sweep away the Church, law, king, Commons and Lords.89 By presenting political opinions on reform as part of a spectrum of opinion, prints gave an admittedly simplified sense of the debate and distinguished their preference for a moderate reform bill from more radical measures. Thomas McLean, who was one of the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 37

23/09/2014 11:54

38

Politics personified

leading publishers of prints at this time, seems to have had moderate opinions. Indeed, it has been suggested that the use of serial formats such as McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures or HB’s Political Sketches (both published by McLean) encouraged publishers, and through them artists, to adopt a safer, blander political line. To maintain the steady circulation demanded by the business model of serial publishing, one had to avoid giving offence to the assumed readership.90 This careful, nuanced approach to reform is also evident in the way political unions were portrayed in the prints. Indeed it is telling that they featured so little in the first place. Moderate critics of reform such as HB portrayed them negatively, but even in pro-reform prints political unions and their leaders like Attwood were treated ambivalently. In December 1831 McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures featured a lithographic icon representing the political unions. A classical pillar and fasces embody the motto ‘Union is Strength’, above which is a cap of liberty inscribed with Reform. The icon is attacked by Wellington, bishops and a number of ruffians.91 Once reform had been passed, the political unions were judged unnecessary and threatening by McLean’s publication. In a travesty of Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare, a common trope used by caricaturists since the 1790s, Attwood was pictured sitting on Britannia’s chest while she sleeps.92 McLean’s periodical had taken up reform late, supported the bill and, once that was on the statute book, resisted any further reforms. By contrast, it is notable that the few positive references to Attwood and the BPU came from the cheaper caricature publications such as the wood engravings in the 1d Figaro in London or the cheap radical caricature series published by J.L. Marks.93 It seems fair to suggest that these different portrayals of Attwood reflected the different audiences the publishers were appealing to. McLean’s more expensive periodical sought to avoid a radicalism that could alienate its audience, while such views were a staple of other cheaper prints or series. Rotten boroughs, their patrons and defenders received much of the opprobrium in the pro-reform prints because they were seen as the mechanism by which the ‘Old Corruption’ was sustained. A debased constitution, with an unrepresentative House of Commons at its centre, made it possible for the people to be heavily burdened with taxes to pay for the parasitic network of patronage, sinecures and unmerited pensions in the state. This focus explains why so little consideration was given to the changes to the franchise. Indeed, even anti-reformers gave little thought to what the newly enfranchised electors might look like. This was in marked contrast to the visual debate around the Second Reform Act or Representation of the People Act in 1867, which was the culmination of a two-decades’ long debate about how the franchise could be extended to popularise the constitution without bringing democracy with it.94 Much of the debate of the 1860s revolved around whether a proportion of working-class men possessed sufficient moral fitness to qualify for the right to

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 38

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

39

vote, a theme reflected in numerous cartoons differentiating the respectable working man from his rough other.95 Punch cartoons reflected the anxieties of its staff that an extension in the franchise would swamp the educated classes.96 The problem was how to include the respectable artisan while excluding the disreputable and preventing the propertied and educated classes from becoming a minority. The potential new electors were frequently imagined in the 1860s. The working men who should be admitted to the franchise were portrayed as manly, respectable artisans. A bag of tools symbolised their distinctive trade or craft, economic independence and work ethic.97 The moral qualities necessary to qualify for the franchise were further underlined by contrasting the respectable working man with the ‘rough’, who was held responsible for the public disorder that accompanied the reform meetings in Hyde Park in 1866.98 This allowed middle-class periodicals like Punch to endorse a limited enfranchisement of working men while strongly condemning breaches in public order. There was no equivalent attempt to imagine the new electors in 1830–32. In many respects this was surprising as conservative graphic artists had long associated radicalism with the lower classes, the politically ignorant and the mob. Neither did pro-reform prints make much of the issue. Reform was not portrayed as giving political power to the middle classes, or any particular social group. This omission is unsurprising if we remember how reform was conceptualised. Reform was generally portrayed as a means of breaking the power of the hated borough-mongers, principally through the disenfranchisement of rotten boroughs. This would transform the political system, opening the way for other measures long demanded by the John Bull of radical satirists, such as reduced taxation, retrenchment of the pensioners and placemen who leeched off the public purse and a reform of the tithe to effect a similar change in the ecclesiastical branch of the ‘Old Corruption’.99 Although pro-reform prints used John Bull to represent public opinion, he was not envisaged as a new elector. He threw out the Wellington administration in November 1830 and encouraged Grey and his ministers to stick to their plans during times of trial.100 During the early reform excitement, when the king was widely and misleadingly perceived as being a staunch reformer, John Bull was personified as the monarch.101 John Bull’s and the public’s support for reform came about not only because of the popular hatred of the boroughmongers, but because reform was seen as producing material benefits, and even as a panacea for the country’s ills. Reform would sweep away the taxes that still burdened John Bull.102 A Tax Payer, an 1830 print, implied that reform was the solution to the economic distress and poverty of the title character.103 For radical satirists like Marks, reform would produce a ‘land of promise’, the material benefits represented by a frothing tankard of beer, a large loaf, roast beef and a plum pudding. There would be no corn laws or window tax.104 Another print contrasted John Bull before and after the passing of the Reform

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 39

23/09/2014 11:54

40

Politics personified

Act. Formerly he is shown as an emaciated individual sitting in a bare hovel, with the taxes on different articles of consumption represented by padlocks on soap, a loaf of bread and a beer barrel. In the other half of the print, the taxes have been removed, with pieces of paper representing the various different taxes burning on a roaring fire, while a stout John Bull smokes a pipe, reads a newspaper and drinks beer.105 Tellingly, such visual arguments for reform were made in penny caricature serials such as Figaro in London and other cheap woodcuts that were at the cheaper and more popular end of the market for political imagery, and would have been seen by large numbers of people. The Figaro apparently had a circulation of 70,000, while John Bull’s Picture Gallery, a series of radical caricature broadsheets, claimed a circulation of 100,000.106 It is legitimate to suggest that such arguments stoked as well as perhaps reflected popular expectations about the material benefits of reform among the audience. The strong belief in the material benefits of reform explains why radical prints quickly became disillusioned with the Reform Act, even only a few months after its passing. Prints were a poor medium for considering the details of the bill, such as the complicated franchise clauses, and focused on redistribution and schedules A and B as a means to transform the political system. Reform would certainly improve the lot of John Bull, or so they predicted. After expressing their disillusionment with the fruits of the Reform Act, political prints reverted to earlier themes about the ‘Old Corruption’ continuing to burden John Bull. They did not appreciate or consider deeply the profound changes to the political system that the Reform Act effected. HB and the moderate critique of reform The contemporary importance, popularity and influence of John Doyle (1797–1868), or ‘HB’, is hard to overstate. His modern reputation has suffered as he has usually been unfavourably compared with earlier graphic artists of the ‘Golden Age’ such as Gillray or Cruikshank. His work has too often been dismissed for lacking either the radical bite or use of caricature of his predecessors.107 Yet his work is rarely assessed on its own merits. His lithographic series Political Sketches (1829–51) was published in continuous numbers, like a serial, by Thomas McLean of Haymarket, and its style and format was much copied. HB was regarded as a ‘reformer of caricatures’ by contemporaries. He avoided coarseness and his ‘satire pricks; it never wounds’.108 Indeed, HB was not really a caricaturist at all as, apart from Brougham, he generally avoided physical exaggeration.109 It was sometimes said that his wit and invention were inferior to those of his predecessors, and one MP and connoisseur of caricature later wrote that the Political Sketches were elegant but ‘never funny’.110 Even so, in the 1830s HB’s combination of amiable humour and well-drawn likenesses of

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 40

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

41

politicians was a winning formula. Unlike painted or engraved portraits that dated as the sitter’s appearance altered with time, HB’s lithographs captured the changing faces of leading politicians. As portraits, the Political Sketches were the ‘truest and the cheapest to be had’.111 HB’s contemporary popularity was reflected in the fact that The Times often eagerly reviewed a new number of the Political Sketches. HB’s style was also influential. Both Robert Seymour and Henry Heath published prints in a similar style to HB’s crayon lithographs, the latter as ‘HH’, and the Looking-Glass, later McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, owed an obvious debt to Doyle’s work. Doyle was never much of a caricaturist or a satirist, but if he is seen as a pioneer of lifelike sketches of politicians, his contemporary fame and appeal becomes much more understandable. Doyle’s personal politics were unusual. He was an Irish Catholic and had supported Catholic emancipation in 1829, but parted company with the Whigs over reform. He later wrote to Sir Robert Peel that, ‘with my regard to my political opinions, they may in a great degree be traced in the Sketches themselves’. Upon the question of Reform I found myself again at variance with old & esteemed friends. I was a Reformer as the term used to be understood, and certainly thought the so-called tory party resisted too long those ameliorations in the representation which time had deemed expedient. I could not however approve of the new & sweeping measure of their adversaries. It appeared to me to be as imprudent as it was unnecessary, and that no amount of probable or possible good to be derived from it, justified the means by which alone it could be carried. From that time my suite of influence has been opposed to popular innovation.112

Doyle seems to have inclined to moderate conservatism and occupied a distinctive position on reform. He was critical of the Whigs’ reform plans, but was unsympathetic towards staunch anti-reformers like the Dukes of Newcastle and Cumberland as he believed that some middle way of mild, moderate reform was possible and preferable. As we have already seen, Doyle’s publisher, Thomas McLean, seems to have inclined towards a moderate position on reform, at least in McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures. Doyle’s position therefore coincided with that of his publisher, but unlike McLean he found the reform proposed by the Whigs to be too radical. While the views of publishers, or their sense of what their audience would tolerate, was important in shaping the visual message, artists still had some agency. However, Doyle’s style, avoidance of physical caricature and habit of shrouding his position in light humour meant that his politics was hard for contemporaries to discern. As the Tatler remarked in 1831, ‘What the artist’s principles are, if he has any … it is difficult to gather from his works.’113 His apparent even-handedness, lack of a strongly partisan line and the observational quality of his prints meant his work had a general appeal not limited to either side of the political spectrum. This was an important consideration given that, as a serial, the Political Sketches needed a steady readership.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 41

23/09/2014 11:54

42

Politics personified

Doyle offered a sophisticated critique of reform, although his subtle style meant that his attacks were rarely personally wounding for the leading reformers in the Grey ministry. HB initially regarded the issue of reform as impractical politics. In a print published in March 1830, he presented it as a policy only supported by an unholy alliance of ultra-Tories, like the Marquess of Blandford, and radicals such as Daniel O’Connell and Thomas Attwood, although the latter was mentioned but not depicted.114 The Looking-Glass, published by McLean and illustrated by William Heath at this time, offered a similar perspective: reform was only of interest to O’Connell, Henry Hunt and a stupid mob.115 HB reserved judgement on the new Grey ministry’s plans until the announcement of the first reform bill in March 1831, although he had already signalled his dislike of the ballot, which after some debate was not included in the bill.116 Despite his scepticism towards the Whigs, HB was unimpressed with the ultra-Tories’ conduct. Lord Chandos’s proposal to enfranchise Birmingham at the expense of Evesham, a piecemeal measure to forestall a more general reform, was dismissed as ‘all-sham’.117 Robert Seymour, another leading artist in this period, was the first to suggest that reform could lead to revolution. His lithograph invoked the traditional French revolutionary iconography of the Cap of Liberty and tricolour cockade and associated both with reform. A fire-breathing devil prophesied that reform would result in the ballot, universal suffrage and an end to tithes, the House of Lords and the monarchy.118 The fact that Seymour was responsible for this anti-reform print and drew lithographs for the moderate reforming Looking-Glass/McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, and later wood engravings for the radical Figaro in London, suggests that some leading artists were politically unaligned and produced work to satisfy different markets at the behest of their publishers.119 While many pro-reform prints expected and hoped that reform would facilitate further changes, anti-reformers found this deeply alarming. However, there was surprisingly little use of tropes associating reformers with the French Revolution.120 HB did attempt to reprise this theme in one lithograph published in May 1831 in which the headless spectre of Brissot, leader of the Girondin party in the French Revolution, warns Grey of the unintended consequences of political change (figure 1.4). HB, as well as others more stridently critical of reform, presented the bill as a threat to the British constitution. Far from being an extension of the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, reform would lead to a bonfire of these long-established and much-cherished laws and customs.121 Seizing on Sir Charles Wetherell’s description of the first reform bill as ‘Russell’s purge’, HB likened the disenfranchisement schedules to a laxative that would undermine the ‘constitution’ of its patients.122 The destruction of the constitution would be the ultimate result of reform.123 Pro-reform prints presented reform as an irresistible tide or torrent, but this was given a more threatening meaning by

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 42

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

43

anti-reform prints. Using an allusion made by Lord Lyndhurst in a speech in the Lords on 7 October 1831, HB presented reform as a deluge that threatened to sweep away Britain’s cherished institutions of Church and state, including the monarchy and the tree of liberty.124 Reform was a new fashion that would not suit or fit John Bull.125 This drew the traditional contrast between the flexible English constitution and rigid continental systems based on abstract thought. In a few prints, reform was a monstrous whale that threatened to overwhelm the ship of state.126 HB’s preference for moderate reform was hinted at in a number of prints. In one print HB used the classic trope of John Bull attended by quack doctors, including Grey, Russell and Althorp. Wellington thought there was no problem with the constitution of the patient, but Peel thought that a ‘gentle alternative course’ was perhaps necessary.127 Ministers were attempting to appease a sea monster (public opinion) by throwing away ballast such as ‘traditional rights and interests’. Wellington was again portrayed as an anti-reformer, but Peel thought the monster might have been sated ‘for a long time with a very small keg’.128 About the same time, another print speculated that Peel might come out in favour of reform, just as he had helped pass Catholic relief in 1829 having long been publicly opposed to it.129 Towards the end of the reform saga,

Figure 1.4  HB (John Doyle), Brissot’s Ghost, Political Sketches, no. 132, 30 May 1831. BMC 16688. Crayon lithograph. 13¼ x 10 inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 43

23/09/2014 11:54

44

Politics personified

HB emphasised, and indeed exaggerated, the importance of the ‘Waverers’, peers who sought to act as intermediaries between the government and its opponents and secure the passage of a compromise reform measure. This would prevent the creation of a large number of new peers to pass the bill, which the government was pressing the king to do if the Lords rejected the third bill. HB suggested that the ‘Waverers’ were the government’s only hope of passing the bill.130 However, the Waverers’ attempt collapsed and the government resigned after being defeated in the Lords on an amendment that was designed to wreck the whole reform bill by postponing the disenfranchisement clauses. For HB, the king had narrowly avoided plunging into a chasm on the ‘Reform’ horse by clinging on to the oak of the constitution at the last moment, with the Lords represented as the decisive branch.131 Yet it quickly became apparent that no alternative ministry could be formed to pass the bill, and amid massive popular unrest, Grey and his late ministers returned to office in May 1832 and the bill subsequently passed the Lords. After the passing of reform, HB predicted that it would not simply ruin the constitution but also undermine the leadership of Grey and other aristocratic Whigs as radicals like Joseph Hume, William Cobbett and Daniel O’Connell would be emboldened to press for further radical reforms and would use the political unions to intimidate the government.132 If HB’s subtle warnings about the consequences of reform were not shared by others, there was nonetheless widespread disappointment only a few months after the passing of the Act. One caricature broadsheet series pictured a bull burdened by taxes, tithes, the national debt and sinecures as well as the padlocked mouth. On the bull’s back sat both the Whig ministers and their Tory opponents, indicating disgust with both.133 The radical Marks presented an impoverished taxpayer as no better off materially for having the vote.134 Although the tree of corruption had been cut down, the ministers had not cut deep enough and the roots had spread.135 Again this reveals the assumption that reform was to be the catalyst for destroying the ‘Old Corruption’ in the state through transforming the representative system. Conclusion The visual culture of reform proved in retrospect to be the last major outpouring of single-sheet satirical prints, even though many of these were now published in serial formats. Many artists and publishers were already shifting away from political caricature into comic art and other forms of visual culture, but the huge market for reforming imagery proved to be irresistible. The extraordinary material culture of reform was in many respects unprecedented, only the Wilkesite agitation of the 1760s perhaps bearing comparison in terms of scale and diversity.136 Like the material culture produced by the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 44

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

45

Wilkesite agitation, much of it seems to have been produced by sympathetic tradesmen, artists or manufacturers, partly to cash in on the popularity of reform. It was qualitatively different from the material cultures that were produced and mobilised by other agitations such as anti-slavery and the Anti-Corn Law League, which were primary aimed at supporters and activists rather than general consumption.137 Crucially, parliamentary reform was linked to wider reforms in the state. It would transform the unrepresentative and unresponsive political system that underpinned the ‘Old Corruption’ and the heavy taxes required to sustain it. This understanding of reform explains why a measure that was in many respects conservative, for example in its limited expansion of the English electorate, could become so popular. It also explains the iconic status in popular culture of Grey’s ministry even though they were the most a­ristocratic cabinet of the nineteenth century and hardly radicals or democrats. They were portrayed as opponents of the hated borough-mongers, whose electoral patronage propped up the status quo. Anti-aristocratic rhetoric, in both visual and verbal forms, remained a key feature of radical and reforming politics in the long nineteenth century, but the borough-monger did not reappear, even though some constituencies continued to be controlled by patrons even after the 1832 Reform Act.138 Another consequence of the focus on borough-mongering, disenfranchisement of rotten boroughs and redistribution was that the franchise itself was neglected, especially by comparison with later reforms. Even so, radicals and moderate reformers were able to agree with the general thrust of the debate. However, radicals were quickly disappointed with the Act, while moderates were alarmed at the prospect of continuing agitation. Such instant judgements were formed before the longer term significance of the Act became apparent. As the next chapter shows, the Reform Act stimulated the development of a two-party system, which in turn required the construction of new party identities. Notes 1 B. Maidment, Comedy, Caricature and the Social Order, 1820–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). 2 C. McCreery, The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon, 2004); T. Hunt, Defining John Bull: Political Caricature and National Identity in Late Georgian England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003); D. Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996); V. Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London (London: Atlantic, 2006). 3 E. Nicholson, ‘English Political Prints and Pictorial Political Argument, c. 1640–c. 1832: A Study in Historiography and Methodology’, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 3 vols., 1994, I, pp. 87–122, 132–67, 177–90.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 45

23/09/2014 11:54

46

Politics personified

4 M. Duffy, The Englishman and the Foreigner (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1986), pp. 25–9. 5 BMC 8145: J. Gillray, French Liberty. English Slavery, hand-coloured etching, pub. H. Humphrey, 21 Dec. 1792. 6 Dickinson, Caricatures and the Constitution, pp. 11–15; Nicholson, ‘English Political Prints’, I, pp. 224–60. 7 R. Godfrey, James Gillray: The Art of Caricature (London: Tate, 2001), p. 17. 8 E. Nicholson, ‘Consumers and Spectators: The Public of the Political Print in Eighteenth-Century England’, History, 81 (1996), 5–21. 9 M. Hallett, ‘James Gillray and the Language of Graphic Satire’, in R. Godfrey, James Gillray: The Art of Caricature (London: Tate, 2001), pp. 23–39 (at 27); McCreery, Satirical Gaze, pp. 14, 26–7, 37–8; Donald, Age of Caricature, pp. 19–21; Hunt, Defining John Bull, pp. 14–18; Gatrell, City of Laughter, pp. 235–47. 10 T. Porterfield, ‘The Efflorescence of Caricature’, in T. Porterfield (ed.), The Efflorescence of Caricature, 1759–1838 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 1–10 (at 6). 11 Gatrell, City of Laughter, pp. 247–51, 504–8. 12 H.M. Atherton, ‘The English Defend their Constitution in Political Cartoons and Literature’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 11 (1982), 3–31. 13 BMC 8287a: J. Gillray, Britannia in French Stays, or - Re-Form, at the Expence of the Constitution, hand-coloured etching, pub. H. Humphrey, 2 Jan. 1793. 14 Hunt, Defining John Bull, pp. 162–4, 248–91; Gatrell, City of Laughter, pp. 508–20. 15 R. Patten, George Cruikshank’s Life, Times and Art (2 vols., London: Lutterworth, 1992–96), I, pp. 153–4; M. Wood, Radical Satire and Print Culture, 1790–1822 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). 16 Gatrell, City of Laughter, pp. 574–95. 17 Maidment, Comedy, p. 21. 18 Ibid., pp. 82–3. 19 H. Miller, ‘John Leech and the Victorian Cartoon: The Context of Respectability’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 42 (2009), 267–91 (at 275–82). 20 Maidment, Comedy, pp. 147, 162, 172. 21 M. Twyman, Lithography, 1800–1850 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p.  81. 22 W. Nicol, ‘Lithographic Printing’, (n.d.), pp. 220–1, bound with T.C. Hansard, Treatises on Printing and Type-Founding (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1841), British Library. 23 [H. Cole], ‘Modern Wood Engraving’, London and Westminster Review, 31 (1838), 265–80 (at 272–3). 24 T. Bewick, A Memoir of Thomas Bewick [1862] (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 190–1; W. Chatto, Gems of Wood Engraving from the Illustrated London News (London: W. Little, 1849), p. 26; M.H. Spielmann, History of “Punch” (London: Cassell, 1895), p. 251; W. Chatto and J. Jackson, Treatise on Wood Engraving (London: Bohn, 1861), pp. 651–2. 25 R. Pound, ‘Serial Journalism and the Transformation of English Graphic Satire, 1830–36’, PhD thesis., University of London, 2 vols., 2002. 26 L. Brake, Print in Transition, 1850–1910: Studies in Media and Book History (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pt. I. 27 Maidment, Comedy, p. 147.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 46

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

47

28 D. Kunzle, ‘Between Broadsheet Caricature and “Punch”: Cheap Newspaper Cuts for the Lower Classes in the 1830s’, Art Journal, 43 (1983), 339–46. 29 Maidment, Comedy, p. 159. 30 Ibid., pp. 47, 147. 31 Nicholson, ‘English Political Prints’, I, pp. 65–6, 76. 32 Ibid., pp. 272, 328. 33 G.M. Trevelyan, British History in the Nineteenth Century and After, 1782–1919 [1922] (London: Pelican, 1965), pp. 240–1. 34 N. Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel: A Study in the Technique of Parliamentary Representation, 1830–1850 (London: Longmans, 1953), p. x. 35 D.C. Moore, ‘The Other Face of Reform’, Victorian Studies, 5 (1961), 7–34; D.C. Moore, ‘Concession or Cure: The Sociological Premises of the Reform Act’, Historical Journal, 9 (1966), 39–59; D.C. Moore, The Politics of Deference: A Study of the Mid-Nineteenth Century English Political System (Hassocks: Harvester, 1976). 36 J. Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 36, 305. 37 Ibid., pp. 105–60. 38 F. O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons, and Parties: The Unreformed Electoral System of Hanoverian England, 1734–1832 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 39 D.R. Fisher, ‘England’, in D.R. Fisher (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832 (7 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), I, pp. 6–8, 28, 58–60; D.R. Fisher, ‘General Elections’, in ibid., p. 230. 40 B. Hilton, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People? England, 1783–1846 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006), p. 434. 41 P. Salmon, ‘The English Reform Legislation, 1831–32’, in Fisher (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832, I, pp. 372–412 (at 389–92). 42 Ibid., pp. 393–4. 43 J.P. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 72–3. 44 D.R. Fisher, ‘Scotland’, in Fisher (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Com­­­­­­­­­ mons, 1820–1832, I, pp. 97–146 (at 97, 107–9, 141–6); G. Pentland, Radicalism, Reform and National Identity in Scotland, 1820-1833 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008), pp. 201–10. 45 S.M. Farrell, ‘Ireland’, in Fisher (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832, I, pp. 211–15; Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel, pp. 50–64; K.T. Hoppen, Elections, Politics and Society in Ireland, 1832–1885 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), pp. 1–10. 46 Salmon, ‘English Reform Legislation’, p. 411. 47 N. LoPatin, Political Unions, Popular Politics and the Great Reform Act of 1832 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999); C. Flick, The Birmingham Political Union and the Movements for Reform, 1830–1839 (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1978). 48 Salmon, ‘English Reform Legislation’, p. 411; R. Saunders, Democracy and the Vote in British Politics, 1848–1867 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 23, 227–30. 49 E. Marx and M. Lambert, English Popular and Traditional Art (London: Collins, 1946), p. 27; ‘Brougham’s Reform Cordial’ figure, People’s History Museum: Pump House, NMLH.1992.1073; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, English Pottery, c. 1800–50 cabinet, ceramics gallery.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 47

23/09/2014 11:54

48

Politics personified

50 Morning Chronicle, 23 Oct. 1832, p. 3. 51 BMC, XI, pp. xxxiii, xxxvii. 52 C. Hindley, The History of the Catnach Press (London: Charles Hindley, 1887), p.  87. 53 R.D. Altick, The English Common Reader (2nd edn, Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 1998), p. 288. 54 C. Hindley, The Life and Times of James Catnach (London: Reeves and Turner, 1878), p. 50; W.E. Adams, Memoirs of a Social Atom (2 vols., London: Hutchinson, 1903), I, p. 142. 55 Dickinson, Caricatures and the Constitution, pp. 29–30, 39. 56 Patten, George Cruikshank, I, pp. 217, 342–3. 57 See also BMC 16676 for a similar motif. 58 Atherton, ‘The British Defend their Constitution’, pp. 12–13. 59 BMC 16651: The Reformers’ Attack on the Old Rotten Tree, broadside, pub. J. Catnach, c. Apr. 1831. 60 BMC 16606: The Champions of Reform Destroying the Monster of Corruption, etching, pub. G. Humphrey, 12 Mar. 1831; BMC 16597: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 15 (1 Mar. 1831), p. 2: Ancient Knights attacking a Hydra; BMC 17084: A Nation’s Pride. The Triumph of Unity, woodcut, pub. G. Drake [n.d.]. 61 BMC 16644: The Royal Dog Billy, at the Westminster Pit, lithograph, pub. T. McLean, c. Apr. 1831; BMC 16647: Reform Yourselves – Leave it Not for Me to Do – My Method May Not Suit You, etching, pub. J. Moore, c. Apr. 1831; BMC 16689: The Rat Hunt; or John Bull and his Master Turning Out the Vermin, hand-coloured etching, pub. J. Fairburn, c. May 1831. 62 BMC 16612: G. Cruikshank, Sweeping Measure, or Making a Clean-House, handcoloured etching, pub. S. Knight, 23 Mar. 1831. 63 BMC 16620-1: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 16 (1 Apr. 1831), p. 1: Mr Bull Asleep & Mr Bull Wide Awake. 64 BMC 17086: School for Boro’mongers (n.d.), wood engraving, pub. G. Drake; BMC 17087: The Welcome Home of the Boroughmongers (n.d.), wood engraving, pub. B.D. Cousins; BMC 17092: A Family Party (1832), hand-coloured lithograph, pub. by O. Hodgson . 65 BMC 16813: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 23 (1 Nov. 1831), p. 4: The Bill is Dead, Sing Hey Diddle Ho Diddle. 66 BMC 16926: Figaro in London, 1 (14 Jan. 1832), 2: Case of Surfeit in a Bishop. 67 Loyal Reformers’ Gazette, 1 (1831), 472. 68 BMC 16940: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 26 (1 Feb. 1832), p. 3: The Dernier Resort; BMC 17055: This is the Bishop, wood engraving, in The House of Reform that Jack Built (1832). 69 BMC 16934: Figaro in London, 1 (28 Jan. 1832), 2: John Bull and his Burdens. 70 Calculated from Parliamentary Papers 1833 (758), Amended Return of the Number of Stamps Issued for London Newspapers, 1 Jan. 1832–30 June 1833, XXXII, p. 610. 71 BMC 16924: A Memento of the Great Public Question of Reform, etching, pub. 15 Apr. 1832. 72 The wax seal is in NPG Archive Sculpture Collection, D7025; the other items are in NPG, London, Brougham sitter box.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 48

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

49

73 Lord Brougham and Vaux, Lord High Chancellor of England, pub. T. Kelly, July 1832, NPG, London, Brougham sitter box. 74 People’s History Museum, Labour History Archive and Study Centre (PHM: LHASC): NMLH.1993.371.75, 76, 77. 75 PHM: LHASC: NMLH.1993.371.81. Attwood was missing from other similar medals, however: NMLH.1993.371.85, 86; NMLH.1995.91.60. 76 PHM: LHASC: NMLH.1993.371.75. 77 PHM: LHASC: NMLH.1993.371.77; NMLH.1993.371.79. 78 PHM: LHASC: NMLH.1991.91.38. 79 PHM: LHASC: NMLH.1993.371.84. 80 PHM: LHASC: NMLH.1993.371.82. 81 PHM: LHASC: NMLH.1995.91.59. 82 Hansard, 14 July 1831, vol. 4, cols 1300–1. 83 Morning Chronicle, 2 Apr. 1831, p. 3. 84 Loyal Reformers’ Gazette, 1–2 (1831–32). 85 Ibid., 2 (1831), 303. 86 ‘See the Conquering heroes! Russell, Brougham and Grey’, Wakefield ­Metropolitan District Council Museum, National Banner Survey, catalogue number 1986.32. 87 BMC 16604: W. Heath, Opinions on Reform, etching, 8 Mar. 1831. 88 BMC 16618: C.J. Grant, Four Weighty Authorities on Reform, lithograph, pub. G. Humphrey, 31 Mar. 1831. 89 BMC 16756: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 18 (1 Aug. 1831), p. 4: Four Specimens of the Political Publick. 90 Pound, ‘Serial Journalism’, I, pp. 51–2, 70, 139. 91 BMC 16825: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 24 (1 Dec. 1831), p. 3: Political Union Pillar. 92 BMC 17177: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 31 (1 July 1832), p. 4: The Birmingham Night Mare. 93 BMC 17088: The Chronologist, no. 3: The Union or the Scotch Greys at B ­ irmingham, etching pub. J.L. Marks, (May 1832); BMC 17180: Figaro in London, 1 (7 July 1832), 1. 94 Saunders, Democracy and the Vote, p. 9. 95 K. McClelland, ‘“England’s Greatness, the Working Man”’, in C. Hall, K. McClelland and J. Rendall, Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race and Gender and the Reform Act of 1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 71–118. 96 BL, Add. MS 88937, Punch Archives, Henry Silver Diary, 2 vols., 1858–70, I, 19 Jan. 1859, 14 Mar. 1860; II, 14 Mar. 1866, 17 Oct. 1866. 97 Punch, 48 (1865), 47; 49 (1865), 229; 50 (1866), 155; 51 (1866), 6; Fun, 6 (old series, 1864), 97, 137; 3 (new series, 1866), 35. 98 Punch, 51 (1866), 51, 243. 99 BMC 16380, 16934; The Looking-Glass, no. 12 (1 Dec. 1830), 3: State of the Country; Figaro in London, 1 (28 Jan. 1832), 2: Shearing of the Political Black Sheep. 100 BMC 16340: J. Phillips, A Regular Turn-Out; or Cleansing the Augean Stable, handcoloured etching, pub. J. Fairburn, 23 Nov. 1830; BMC 16537: The Looking-Glass, no. 13 (1 Jan. 1831), 1: John Bull and his Grey. 101 BMC 16698: McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, no. 18 (1 June 1831), 2: The Bill, the Whole Bill, and Nothing but the Bill.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 49

23/09/2014 11:54

50

Politics personified

102 BMC 16934: Figaro in London, 1 (28 Jan. 1832), 2: John Bull and his Burdens. 103 BMC 16409: A Tax Payer, hand-coloured etching, pub. c. 1830. 104 BMC 17143: The Chronologist, no. 5: The Stepping Stone or John Bull peeping into Futurity!!!, etching, pub. J.L. Marks, c. June 1832. 105 BMC 17142: John Bull: Before the Reform Bill. After the Reform Bill, woodcut (n.d.). 106 C. Fox, Graphic Journalism in England During the 1830s and 1840s (New York: Garland, 1988), p. 77. 107 Nicholson, ‘English Political Prints’, I, pp. 145, 317. 108 R., ‘The Caricatures of H.B. from 1828 to 1837’, London and Westminster Review, 6 (1837–38), 261–93 (at 292). 109 Ibid., 292. 110 G. Berkeley, My Life and Recollections (4 vols., London: Hurst and Blackett, 1865–66), IV, p. 139. 111 R., ‘The Caricatures of H.B.’, p. 292; see also Art-Union, 1 (1839), 62. 112 BL, Add. MS 40500, John Doyle to Sir Robert Peel, 7 Jan. 1842, fos. 315–16. 113 Tatler, 19 Oct. 1831, p. 379. 114 BMC 16070: HB, Political Sketches, no. 53 (Mar. 1830). 115 BMC 16104: The Looking-Glass, no. 4 (1 Apr. 1830), 1: The Vestminster Neddy Coveys & their Ass. 116 BMC 16557: HB, Political Sketches, no. 107 (1 Feb. 1831). 117 BMC 16583: HB, Political Sketches, no. 110 (26 Feb. 1831). 118 BMC 16584: R. Seymour, The Cunning Men (26 Feb. 1831). 119 On Seymour’s career, see Maidment, Comedy, pp. 144–76. 120 BMC 16646: R. Seymour, The Bad Hat, hand-coloured lithograph, pub. T. McLean, 30 Apr. 1831. See also BMC 16684: Hecate; or, the Voyage of Discovery, handcoloured etching, pub. George Humphrey, 21 May 1831. 121 BMC 16643: Little Johnny Rouse-Hell or the Ministers Last Shift, hand-coloured etching, pub. T. McLean (28 Apr. 1831). 122 BMC 16602: HB, Political Sketches, no. 112 (7 Mar. 1831). 123 BMC 16633, 16334: HB, Political Sketches, nos. 119, 120 (4, 13 Apr. 1831); 124 BMC 16799: HB, Political Sketches, no. 162 (20 Oct. 1831). See also 17223: HB, Political Sketches, nos. 219, 228 (7 Aug. 1832, 25 Sept. 1832). 125 BMC 16609: HB, Political Sketches, no. 116 (16 Mar. 1831). 126 BMC 16711: HB, Political Sketches, no. 134 (13 June 1831); BMC 16738: The Royal Jonah, hand-coloured lithograph pub. I.B. Brookes, July 1831. 127 BMC 16666: HB, Political Sketches, no. 124 (2 May 1831). 128 BMC 16711: HB, Political Sketches, no. 134 (13 June 1831). 129 BMC 16713: Reformation; or, the Turn-Coat, lithograph pub. by S.W. Fores, June 1831. 130 BMC 16994: HB, Political Sketches, no. 191 (18 Apr. 1832). 131 BMC 17032: HB, Political Sketches, unnumbered (12 May 1832). 132 BMC 17159: HB, Political Sketches, no. 209 (28 June 1832). 133 BMC 17202: John Bull’s Picture Gallery, no. 12, wood engraving, pub. W. Chubb, n.d. 134 BMC 17203: The Chronologist, no. 9: The Man Wot Pays the Taxes!!, etching, pub. J.L. Marks, c. July 1832.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 50

23/09/2014 11:54

The visual culture of reform

51

135 BMC 17277: The Times, no. 2: John Bull and the Settlers Clearing the Land of their Forefathers, hand-coloured lithograph, pub. by O. Hodgson, c. Oct. 1832. 136 J. Brewer, ‘Commercialisation and Politics’, in N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of EighteenthCentury England (London: Europa, 1982), pp. 197–262. 137 J.R. Oldfield, Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The Mobilization of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade, 1787–1807 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 155–84; West Sussex Record Office, Cobden Papers, 418, National Anti-Corn Law Bazaar Gazette (1845), nos. 1–15. 138 A. Taylor, “Lords of Misrule”: Hostility to Aristocracy in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004); Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel, pp. 203–38.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 51

23/09/2014 11:54

2

Party politics and portraiture, 1832–46

This chapter shows how visual images personified and reaffirmed the party identities that were formed in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act. By examining the semi-official portrait series that were published in this period, this chapter highlights the innovative new ways in which party identities were presented after 1832. These broke new ground by exploiting steel engraving, which greatly increased the number of prints that could be produced, to appeal to supporters of the rival Conservative and Reform parties. A study of Henry Thomas Ryall’s Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Conservative Statesmen (twenty-four parts, 1836–46) and John Saunders’ Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Living Political Reformers (nine parts, 1837–40) provides fresh perspectives on how party identity was reaffirmed and sustained during the potentially long periods between elections. Crucially, these portrait series were embedded in local partisan cultures. For example, they were advertised, promoted and reviewed in local partisan newspapers and, in the Conservative case at least, were displayed at party meetings. At the local level, there was clearly an appetite for likenesses of national political figures. The portraits gave a human face to the political principles valued by partisans and personified party politics in the process. Individual politicians were associated with party principles. Through collecting these portraits, or displaying them on walls, people expressed their partisanship. The series familiarised local supporters and activists with the faces of national leaders, strengthening attachments between constituency level and Westminster. They were static, iconic portraits that offered definitive depictions, in many cases with the sitters’ tacit endorsement, for posterity. Through bringing together different politicians in a longer series, Ryall’s and Saunders’ publications also projected broad party identities. The Conservative gallery stressed attachment to the established Church, state and constitution, while the Reformers series highlighted the common ground between the Whigs and Radicals, and their shared commitment to reform and civil and religious liberty. Both series emphasised unity and coherence, underplaying internal divisions and tensions. The two series were one of the ways in which the visual image of politicians was refashioned in a more respectful and positive way in the 1830s.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 52

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

53

Party politics and political modernisation, 1832–41 Although historians have long debated the impact of the 1832 Reform Act in areas such as voter enfranchisement, there is now something of a consensus that it led to the ‘political modernisation’ of England: that is, the creation of a two-party system, with electoral competition between the Conservatives and the Liberals. Electoral studies of different English constituencies both before and after the Reform Act by John Phillips and others have indicated that electors were increasingly likely to vote in a partisan way after the Act.1 The Reform Act’s requirement for electors to be annually registered stimulated the development of local party organisations to enrol their supporters and get their opponents struck off.2 The annual registration battle meant that both sides had an accurate indicator of their respective strengths in a particular constituency. Uncontested elections were not the result of political apathy or deference to local patrons but an acknowledgement that the result of any contest was a foregone conclusion because of the state of the register. Local party organisations and voters were increasingly motivated by national political issues, which represented the key political dividing lines. There was a significant electoral realignment in the 1830s. In many boroughs before 1832 the main political division had been between local independents and the dominant interest. For example, in Leicester the independent party challenged the powerful Tory corporation. After 1832, and particularly after the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 replaced self-selecting corporations with elected town councils, the political division in Leicester was between Reformers and Conservatives.3 In many newly enfranchised boroughs, such as Wolverhampton, Walsall and Stoke-on-Trent, there was also a tendency towards two-party alignments, stimulated by the annual registration of voters and the emergence of polarising issues. Between 1832 and 1841 the key dividing lines between the Reform/Liberal and Conservative parties were political and religious.4 Broadly speaking, Reformers or Liberals sought to promote civil and religious liberty. In practice this meant dismantling exclusively Anglican privileges and giving concessions to non-Anglican denominations such as Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. The Whig governments of 1830–34 and 1835–41 sought to reform the Protestant Irish Church and tithe, and to find an alternative to the church rate, a local tax for the upkeep of Anglican churches that many English Dissenters objected to paying.5 The totemic issue of Irish church appropriation was at the heart of the Lichfield House compact agreed by Whigs, Radicals and Irish repealers in 1835.6 Appropriation meant redistributing some of the surplus revenues of the Protestant Irish Church, which only served a minority of the Irish population, to fund a system of non-denominational education for the Catholic majority. This controversial policy propelled into the ­Conservative

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 53

23/09/2014 11:54

54

Politics personified

party many moderate reformers who feared that appropriation would undermine the Irish Church establishment, the Union between Britain and Ireland and Protestantism more generally. Many Whigs sincerely believed in these religious and ecclesiastical reforms as part of their ‘Liberal Anglicanism’, a commitment to a broad-based, truly national Church of England, but it was also electorally politic given that Dissenters now formed an important part of the urban electorate.7 With a dwindling majority in the Commons and a Conservative majority in the Lords, the Whigs had great difficulty in getting such measures on to the statute book. More successful was their reform of English local government in 1835. An official inquiry into existing municipal corporations exposed self-selection, political exclusivity and financial mismanagement. Although significant concessions were needed to pass the bill, municipal reform replaced corporations with elected town councils. At the first elections in December 1835, Reformers and Liberals swept to power in many places, often replacing Tory-Anglican oligarchies, paving the way for an era of Liberal dominance of local government in many provincial towns.8 For their part, the Conservatives, led by Sir Robert Peel, pledged to maintain the established institutions of the country, particularly the Church and constitution. Although party lines remained unsettled for a time after 1832, the Conservatives became an increasingly powerful electoral force after Peel’s minority government of 1834–35 and were strengthened by moderate reformers who defected from the Whigs. Although they did not forswear the need for reform where there were ‘proved abuses’, Conservatives were less willing to contemplate policies that altered the relationship between Church and state. Proposed reforms to the Irish Church were regarded as a slippery slope, a precedent that would only weaken the established Churches of Ireland and England. Conservatives argued that the Whigs did not believe in the measures they brought forward, which they were increasingly unlikely to pass, but were seeking to cling on to power by capitulating to the demands of Daniel O’Connell and his Irish supporters and English Radicals. After 1835, Conservatives viewed the Whig government as an increasingly illegitimate one, not reflecting the views of the country, particularly England, which had shown a marked swing towards Conservatism. Conservatives also objected to the Whig style of government, viewing their opponents’ encouragement of popular agitation with extreme distaste. The political modernisation thesis is not without its problems. Parliamentary elections in the reformed political system were not simply played out between diametrically opposed local parties, but also allowed compromise and the representation of different interests. Many electors voted as members of communities or interests rather than as individuals.9 Furthermore, over 96 per cent of the reformed English electorate in 1832 had more than one vote. This was because electors had as many votes as there were MPs to be returned

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 54

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

55

and the reformed representative system had just fifty-four single-member c­ onstituencies. Electors could deploy their votes in a variety of different ways, including splitting their votes between different parties or between their party and the candidate of a local landowner or patron.10 Furthermore, in many double-member constituencies there were ‘triangular’ contests due to the presence of Radical candidates. Radicals mostly stood alongside Whigs or Reformers, but in some cases opposed them, occasionally in league with local Conservatives. The development of party at a local level was also refracted through distinctive local political cultures. These did not exist in isolation from national debates and issues: there was always a dynamic interplay between local and national issues and politics, with the dynamics dependent upon the combination of a variety of factors including local political traditions, party organisation, national debates, structural factors and economic interests. A further difficulty arises from the use of Liberal and Conservative labels that were imposed by later writers who were projecting backwards the clearercut party division of the 1860s and 1870s. The situation in the early Victorian Commons and electoral system was more complicated and fluid. As Joe Coohill has shown, many ‘Liberal’ MPs who responded to requests for information from contemporary parliamentary guides carefully distinguished themselves as Radicals, Reformers, Radical Reformers, Whigs or Liberals in the 1830s.11 These distinctions partly reflected the internal divisions and tensions within the parties. As Boyd Hilton has observed, if the two parties were generally opposed over political and religious questions, they were often internally divided on economic and social issues. In the Conservative party, paternalist and protectionist Tories, often High Churchmen, supported the corn laws, were critical of the 1834 new poor law that imposed a harsher system of public welfare and favoured the regulation of industrial conditions and working hours. Liberal Tories, who were often Evangelicals in religion, favoured freer trade, strongly supported the new poor law and were generally predisposed to laissez-faire. Influenced by Thomas Malthus and Evangelical political economy, these politicians did not believe that the state could do much to alleviate distress which was providentially ordained.12 On the Liberal or Reform side, the division was between liberal Whigs and radicals, who were influenced by Utilitarian secular political economy and favoured laissezfaire, and popular radicals and interventionist Whigs more willing to promote state intervention to regulate working conditions through the establishment of factory inspectorates.13 Despite these caveats, the increasing importance of national party identities in the constituencies, particularly after 1835, cannot be denied, even while acknowledging that local differences, variations and distinctions did not disappear. Party identities were generated and maintained at a local level through a variety of means, as Matthew Cragoe has emphasised. Local newspaper editors

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 55

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

56

and proprietors were frequently key players in generating and maintaining partisan feeling locally. Conservatives fostered a culture of sociability through annual dinners and meetings of operative associations. Almost every English constituency had a Conservative association, and many had a rival Reform association. Many of the members of these bodies would have been local notables, professionals, as well as those lower down the social scale such as retailers and shopkeepers.14 The development of party identities created a market for portraits of politicians classified by party. Ryall, an engraver, and Saunders, a radical writer, were clearly aiming at this market when they launched their Conservative and Reform series of portraits. They were explicitly aimed at party supporters and promoted through the partisan press. The resultant series of engraved portraits were, however, only possible due to the development of steel engraving, which transformed the economics of reproductive printing. The development of steel engraving Intaglio printing on copper plate was the dominant form for portraits and fine art reproductions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Shortages of copper during the French wars gave engravers and publishers an incentive to experiment with other metals. As copper was a soft metal it produced relatively small print runs, perhaps no more than 2,000 impressions per plate.15 In the 1820s engravers began to use steel as well as copper. Steel’s hardness made it more durable and gave longer print runs. The disadvantage was that it was less malleable and gave less freedom to the engraver.16 Steel’s productivity enabled publishers to satisfy the growing and lucrative middle-class market for reproductions of high art, although critics complained of the ‘thin, smoky character’ of the resultant prints.17 Steel engraving was generally associated with works that involved the reproduction of paintings, such as gift books, albums and topographical books or serials. The ability to reproduce tonality, particularly evident in mezzotints, and enhanced whiteness and brightness were among the unique selling points of steel engravings, all of which allowed print-sellers to charge a premium while supplying an expanding middle-class market. A crucial arbiter of taste and developer of the reproduction market was the Art-Union, later Art Journal, founded in 1839, which reviewed engravings and gave prints away to its subscribers. In 1844 it supplied 12,000 subscribers with fine art engravings.18 In the 1840s, as steel engraving spread around the country, the Art-Union noted with satisfaction: not only are all the finest publications of the metropolis scattered through the various provincial towns, but in many instances (as, for example, in the cases of Agnew of Manchester, and Hill of Edinburgh), works of the most costly

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 56

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

57

character, and the most undoubted excellence, originate in the provinces, and from thence make their way to London. While purchasers of expensive engravings have largely augmented in manufacturing and commercial towns, buyers of cheap prints have increased in the same proportion; and many are the publishers who are catering for this new and wholesome appetite.19

The ‘golden age’ of ‘reproductive engraving’ lasted until the late 1870s when steel engraving was superseded by photo-mechanical and photo-chemical processes that were cheaper, quicker and more accurate methods of reproducing images of fine art.20 Steel engraving boasted potentially huge print runs, and it is significant that this medium was chosen by Ryall and Saunders as it suggests that large numbers of party portraits could have been produced. The 1851 Great Exhibition catalogue reported an example in which 500,000 impressions had been struck from one plate.21 One engraver thought that up to 100,000 impressions could be produced from a single plate, while another said that he had printed 200,000 copies of a £1 note from one plate.22 The awkwardness of engraving on steel was mitigated by the development of steel-facing plates, which involved giving a copper plate a thin coat of steel, combining the malleability of copper with the durability of steel.23 As the steel face could be replaced, steel-facing plates could produce endless print runs, although arguably they were not the same plate.24 The development of stereotyping and electrotyping, used by art unions, enabled steel plates to be copied and meant that a limitless number of impressions could be produced.25 However, leading print-sellers such as Henry Graves carefully controlled the number of prints produced to avoid flooding the market and reducing their value.26 Typically, a limited number of steel-engraved prints would be sold at different prices depending upon the quality and size of the paper and, in the case of portraits, the addition of autographs of the sitters. Price variations were supposed to reflect the point at which the print had been struck from the plate. But as steel did not deteriorate like copper, it was bogus to insist, as publishers and print-sellers frequently did, that there was a marked difference between earlier and later prints struck from the plate that should be reflected in the price.27 Steel engraving was a slow, expensive process and not suited to producing topical or ephemeral images. As late as 1875 the Art Journal’s steel engravings reportedly took eighteen months.28 For these reasons, steel engraving was well suited to producing fixed, atemporal, static portraiture that represented sitters for posterity, rather than more dynamic, current likenesses that aimed to provide a snapshot of a sitter at a particular moment in time. Steel engraving was commonly used for reproductive prints of contemporary paintings and multi-volume works. These could be sold in part-issue, spreading the risk and cost of production and building up and maintaining a readership, especially if the series met with favourable reviews. The content

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 57

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

58

could be repackaged and sold in a variety of formats at different prices: as single prints, in parts or as completed bound volumes. Long-running multivolume portrait galleries of the great and good were popular in the first half of the nineteenth century.29 In the late 1830s advertised portrait series included the ‘gallery of medical portraits’, Finden’s Portraits of the Female Aristocracy of Queen Victoria, portraits of the children of the nobility, and Mrs Jameson’s Memoirs of the Beauties of the Court of Charles II, which included twenty-one likenesses of the merry monarch’s mistresses.30 H.T. Ryall’s Portraits of Eminent Conservative Statesmen, 1836–46 The publication of political portrait series in the late 1830s was an ambitious attempt to capitalise commercially on the growth of partisanship. The spread of local party associations across the country created a market for likenesses of leading party politicians. Portraits were already a common decoration at Conservative party meetings and dinners, which usually took place after elections or during the parliamentary recess, which in this period was typically between August and February. There was also a proliferation of local Operative Conservative Associations that had no Reform equivalent in the 1830s.31 Local MPs, gentlemen, nobles and clergymen would address the party faithful and local party managers would report on the state of the registration. Conservative dinners had distinctive rituals and symbolic practices that affirmed collective identity, although they have received less attention than the radical culture of sociability discussed by James Epstein.32 Conservative dinners featured portraits or the coat of arms of the local MP, candidate or noble patron. Banners, flags and draperies, some of which had been used at election time, were inscribed with party slogans such as ‘King, Lords, and Commons’, ‘Our Glorious Constitution’, ‘Church and State’ as well as the names of national leaders. Portraits of national leaders were also displayed. For example, a meeting of the Manchester Operative Conservative Association in August 1835 ‘displayed a large transparency’ of the Duke of Wellington and ‘an excellent portrait of Sir Robert Peel’, who were the two individuals most frequently represented at party meetings.33 A dinner at Stourbridge, Worcestershire, in January 1836 was adorned with likenesses of William IV and Queen Adelaide and ‘engraved portraits of Pitt, Burke, Eldon, Wellington, Lyndhurst, Peel and Croker’.34 Ryall, a London engraver, conceived Portraits of Eminent Conservative Statesmen to tap into this market. The series was explicitly aimed at the ‘Conservatives of the United Kingdom’ and ‘all who concur in the political sentiments’ of the politicians represented.35 The series sought the patronage of national leaders and MPs, and was dedicated to the ‘members of the Carlton Club’, the party’s Westminster political base that had been founded in 1832.36

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 58

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

59

There are good reasons to assume that Ryall’s series carried the tacit endorsement or sanction of Peel and other sitters who were portrayed. Most of the likenesses were derived from existing paintings. Before 1897, artists could sell the copyright to a work of art separately from the work of art itself. Selling copyrights to publisher/print-sellers to reproduce paintings as prints proved to be a lucrative source of income for Victorian artists such as John Everett Millais. The copyright regime meant that reproductions of paintings could be produced without the consent of the owner of the original work, who in the case of portraits often would have been the sitter.37 However, in practice and in the case of the portraits discussed in this chapter, the engravers would have needed access to the original to produce the reproduction. In this sense, the two series discussed in this chapter relied on the cooperation of sitters who owned the original portraits. Ryall’s and Saunders’ series were not official party publications, but they are a good example of the crucial role played by outside agencies, such as such as publishers, writers and the press, in promoting party identity in this period. Ryall’s publication promised to disseminate and preserve for posterity the images of ‘those patriots and statesmen, who have so nobly defended our ancient institutions from the open attacks of popular recklessness’. The series was to be published in parts, each containing three portraits with accompanying biographies, every two months.38 The engravings were published in imperial folio size, and were available at three prices, 12s, 18s or a guinea, depending upon the quality of the paper.39 One Conservative newspaper considered this to be ‘astonishingly cheap’ considering the quality of the prints.40 The first part, containing portraits of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Wharncliffe, published in June 1836, was well received by Conservative newspapers in London and the provinces, and the enthusiastic endorsements were swiftly incorporated into new advertisements. Newspapers urged ‘every Conservative society in the kingdom’ to subscribe.41 ‘The drawing room of no Conservative nobleman or gentleman could be considered complete without it’ declared the Stockport Advertiser.42 The series would reaffirm party principles through depictions of politicians and by providing an iconic record for posterity of the faces of these leaders. The Lancaster Gazette thought that ‘nothing was better calculated to bind loyal hearts together’ than connecting local partisans with their national leaders ‘who, though absent, will thus be ever present’.43 The series provided Conservatives with a permanent ‘memento of their great men worth preserving’ the Doncaster Chronicle observed.44 Ryall’s series was eventually completed in 1846, after the publication of seventy-two portraits and biographies. The series therefore coincided with the formation, rise and disintegration of the powerful Conservative party led by Sir Robert Peel, and offers valuable insights into the construction and mainten­nce of the party’s image and identity in this crucial period. The series

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 59

23/09/2014 11:54

60

Politics personified

Figure 2.1  H.T. Ryall after Sir T. Lawrence, Sir Robert Peel, 1837. Line and stipple engraving. 12¾ x 9¾ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 60

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

61

took longer than expected due to a number of problems. The publication of part III was delayed because of a copyright dispute over the portrait of Peel (figure 2.1). The eminent print-seller Dominic Colnaghi sought an injunction against the publication, claiming that the portrait was derived from Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 1828 painted portrait, from which he alone had the right to publish engravings. The judge dismissed Colnaghi’s claim, as the engraving in question was not based on Colnaghi’s print but on a drawing after Lawrence’s portrait that Peel had given to his confidante John Wilson Croker, a Tory writer. With Peel’s approval, the drawing had been lent to Ryall to engrave.45 This example underlines how the enterprise was reliant on the cooperation of politicians who owned the portraits, including the Conservative leader himself, who was a noted connoisseur and patron of portraiture. Ryall was declared bankrupt in 1839, and the ownership of the series changed hands.46 By October 1841 seventeen parts containing fifty-one portraits and biographies had been published, but it took a further five years to publish the remaining seven parts. When finished, the series was available in two volumes ‘in superb morocco bindings’, priced at £8 or £12. Subscribers were ‘requested to complete their sets without delay, as a very limited number of parts remain on hand’.47 Despite these difficulties and delays, the Conservative series must be considered a successful enterprise for three reasons. Firstly, the series was completed at a time when publishers were quick to cut their losses on serials that were unprofitable. The prices were unchanged throughout and there was no attempt or apparent need to sell parts off cheaply. In 1843 an advertisement stated that ‘several of the parts are nearly out of print’.48 Secondly, the Conservative press, both at national and local level, warmly approved of the series and encouraged its dissemination to display and commemorate admired politicians. Thirdly, the series was widely advertised and available through booksellers and print-sellers around the country, and the Chartist Northern Star noted the presence of Conservative portraits in print-shop windows.49 Significantly, the portraits were used as decorations at local party gatherings, such as Operative Conservative Association meetings in Liverpool, Oldham and Wigan.50 Receiving portraits of national leaders may have been especially attractive to local partisans who had few if any opportunities to see them in the flesh.51 All of this suggests the series was well received and put to good use by its target audience, which was sufficient to sustain it. The quality of the engravings was frequently remarked on, including by non-Conservative periodicals. Reviewing the first nine parts, the Monthly Magazine praised Ryall’s publication as ‘the finest series of engravings ever offered to the … public’.52 However, the press were not uncritical admirers whose reviews were merely promotional. They paid close attention to the accuracy of the likenesses and the selection criteria. Some portraits were criticised for being based on old paintings rather than current accurate likenesses.53 This

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 61

23/09/2014 11:54

62

Politics personified

reflected a deeper tension at the heart of political portraiture in this period. There was a fine line between offering a definitive image of the sitter for posterity and the public demand for the most current likeness available. Steel engraving was better suited to the former than the latter on account of the time it took to engrave a steel plate. In some cases critics complained that engravings had not been based on the best available likeness.54 The Morning Post also complained that the series included politicians ‘who have no business there’ and those who were Conservative from self-interest or careerism rather than principle.55 Portrait series were always selective, their composition depending on exclusion and inclusion. However, this was not simply about projecting a particular image of the overall group through the deliberate choice of specific individuals, but was also constrained by the availability of sitters and images to engrave. This may explain the inclusion of some men who contemporaries clearly thought did not merit a place in the portrait gallery, and the surprising omission of others. Through depictions of its sitters in word and image, Eminent Conservative Statesmen emphasised the principles cherished by the party: the established institutions of Church and state, the constitution and the law. These beliefs were symbolised in the iconography that appeared on the wrappers that covered each part. Wrappers were a common feature of print culture in this period and would have been regularly experienced by consumers of serial formats, although they have often been removed from the bound volumes found in libraries and the digitised versions of these texts. From a surviving example it would appear that the wrappers for Ryall’s series were published in ‘true blue’, a colour long associated with Toryism.56 At the centre of the page was the royal crown resting on the sceptre and Bible, symbolising the centrality of monarchy and the Church to Conservatism. The crown sits among thistles, shamrocks and roses representing the Union between Scotland, Ireland and England, a message reinforced by the Union Jack and royal coat of arms behind. The central symbol is flanked by two wreaths, one of oak leaves, the oak having a long pedigree of representing the strong, historic and organic qualities of the British constitution. Widely circulating portraits of Conservatives leaders in large quantities visualised and reinforced established party identities. Since the eighteenth century, it had been a common practice to collect engraved portraits to frame or place in albums. Individuals identified with portraits and used them to display and affirm their self-identity and attachment to broader collective identities.57 As we have seen, Conservative newspapers expected the portrait to strengthen the emotional attachments between party supporters and their leaders and also to provide an enduring reminder of political principles. In many cases, sitters were praised for their steadfast commitment to key Conservative principles. Key to understanding the nature of party identity is the selection of sitters and

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 62

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

63

how they were portrayed through text and image. The eulogistic biographies frequently commended the sitters for their staunch defence of the institutions of Church and state and the constitution. But studied as a whole, a more nuanced and detailed picture emerges. Central to Conservative party principles was the maintenance of the established Churches of England and Ireland, which were threatened by a combination of Whigs, secular radicals, Catholics and Dissenters.58 It was significant that Ryall’s series featured a number of spiritual peers including William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, George Murray, Bishop of Rochester, and Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter. As legislators and high officials in the established Church, these men were involved in many of the contentious debates of the period. Although they were not party politicians, the spiritual peers who were depicted were generally believed to be sympathetic to the Conservatives. The Archbishop of Canterbury was praised for ‘his unshaken fidelity as an advocate of our Protestant Church, and as a Conservative in the best and purest sense of the term’.59 Another way in which Ryall’s series personified Conservative principles was through giving a prominent place to the aristocratic magnates who possessed immense territorial influence and political weight in the House of Lords. Great landowners included the Duke of Rutland, who owned swathes of land in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Cambridgeshire, the Duke of Northumberland and the Marquess of Londonderry, both of whom possessed extensive estates in north-eastern England. These men were fêted less for their formidable electoral influence than for their embodiment of the hereditary principle and their role in the Lords. The biographies of the Duke of Montrose and the Earl of Devon documented the ancient lineages of the Graham and Courtenay families at considerable length, after the fashion of contemporary genealogical guides such as Burke’s Peerage. The biographies in the Conservative series were always prefaced by the family coat of arms of the subject. The value of such peers was in personifying the historic attachment of the great territorial families and ‘property’ to the constitution and the Conservative party. The defence of the royal prerogative, particularly of William IV’s constitutional right to dismiss the Whig government in 1834, was another cardinal tenet of Conservatism. The display of portraits of past and present monarchs at Conservative meetings underlined the importance of the monarchy to Conservative party identity. Ryall’s series did not directly include William IV or Victoria, but it did include Earl Howe, the lord high chamberlain to Queen Adelaide, wife of William IV. The king’s eldest illegitimate son, the Earl of Munster, was included in the series, although the biography dwelt on his military exploits rather than his paternity.60 Opposition to Irish Church appropriation and O’Connell was a key rallying point for the Conservatives. In Ryall’s series this component of party identity was reflected by the inclusion of significant Irish politicians. Just as the Chartist

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 63

23/09/2014 11:54

64

Politics personified

portrait series published in the 1840s (see chapter 3) included Irish repealers to symbolise their sympathy for nationalist causes, so the Conservative gallery included Irish peers and office-holders to reflect the party’s strong support for the Anglo-Irish Union and the Irish Church.61 Irish territorial magnates included in the series included Viscount Beresford, the Marquess of Thomond and the Anglo-Irish Marquess of Londonderry. Significantly, the biography and portrait of Frederick Shaw, MP for Dublin University and the ‘admitted leader of the Irish Conservative party’, was published in the same part as Peel.62 The portrait and biography of another lawyer and key Irish Conservative, Joseph Devonsher Jackson, MP for Bandon, was published early, in part V in August 1837.63 Peel’s adviser on Irish law and electoral politics, Jackson later served as Irish attorney general from 1841 until his appointment as a judge in 1842. In the late 1830s he was a leading adversary of Daniel O’Connell and the Whigs on the key issues of Irish Church and municipal reform.64 These examples show that portrait galleries of prints created meanings not only through the inclusion or exclusion of individuals and their juxtaposition, but also the sequence in which they were published. The Conservatives’ veneration of the law was embodied in the significant number of lawyers who were portrayed in Ryall’s series, many of whom had held legal offices. The law was presented as a means for talented individuals with no great wealth or connections to rise up the ranks of society. It was remarked of Sir James Scarlett, who was attorney general twice in the 1820s and ennobled as Lord Abinger in 1835, that his achievements came ‘without family patronage, without court influence, without adulation’.65 Most of the younger, rising stars of the Conservative party were lawyers such as Fitzroy Kelly, James Emerson Tennant, Sir William Follett, Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic Thesiger. These men were valued for their legal expertise, judgement and speaking abilities. Most of the MPs in Ryall’s series were lawyers, public men or scions of the nobility, with country gentlemen under-represented by comparison. There were very few with connections to trade or manufacturing, or MPs for the larger towns. Exceptions included Viscount Sandon, MP for Liverpool and heir to the earldom of Harrowby, and George Lyall, a merchant, shipowner and director of the East India Company elected for the City of London in 1841. This suggests that much of the party’s identity was bound up with the land and aristocracy rather than newer, urban interests. The focus on established grandees or statesmen, or lawyers who could quickly make their name through speeches, also shows how long it could take to make a political impact and acquire a reputation. Norman Gash famously argued that Peel rebranded old Toryism as the new Conservative party in the 1830s, and successfully appealed to new middleclass electors enfranchised by the 1832 Reform Act by presenting a moderate image.66 In Gash’s influential account, Peel’s 1834 address to his constituents, the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 64

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

65

Figure 2.2  F. Holl after E.U. Eddis, Sir Henry Hardinge, 1836. Stipple engraving. 12⅞ x 10¼ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

‘Tamworth manifesto’, was the founding text of this new, moderate Conservatism. However, historians since Gash have highlighted the limited electoral and ideological impact of Tamworth-style Conservatism. The Conservative electoral recovery of the 1830s was due to regaining traditional strongholds in the English counties and small boroughs through rallying around a defence of the Church and state, rather than Peel’s new brand of Conservatism.67 In this light, the absence of Tamworth-style Conservatives from Ryall’s series is ­significant. For example, moderate reformers who crossed the floor did not

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 65

23/09/2014 11:54

66

Politics personified

feature prominently. Although Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham were essentially on the Conservative side after the failure of their attempt to form a middle party of moderate Reformers in 1834–35, Stanley’s portrait and biography was not published until November 1843, by which time he was colonial secretary. Interestingly, Graham was not included in the series, even though he was a close ally of Peel after 1837. Unusually for the biographies in the series, Stanley was subjected to some criticism, although his oratory was much praised.68 The emphasis on the continuity between the Conservative party of the 1830s and previous Tory governments further underlines the point that the party’s identity revolved around long-established principles, notably defence of the constitution and the established Church, rather than a new Peelite ideology. Politicians whose importance was much diminished after 1832 were included, highlighting the esteem in which they, and the administrations they served in, were held. Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth, a relic of the Pittite era and prime minister as long ago as 1801, was praised as an ‘uncompromising champion of the British constitution’. His record as home secretary from 1812 to 1822, which was criticised by many radicals as repressive, was admired for restoring the country’s ‘internal tranquillity’.69 Such biographies were part of the general emphasis on the governmental experience of the sitters, twentyeight of whom had served in the pre-1830 Tory administrations, with a further twelve gaining executive experience under Peel in 1834–35 or 1841–46. Unlike the Reformer portraits, the Conservative series made much more use of the recent past, and it was no coincidence that the military exploits of a number of sitters in the wars with France were emphasised.70 The much-decorated soldier Sir Henry Hardinge, appointed secretary at war by Peel in 1841, was described as possessing a ‘manly, simple, straightforward’ speaking style, and as embodying ‘the best qualities of the soldier and the senator’.71 Hardinge, Wellington and others were portrayed in their military uniforms, their chests glittering with crosses, medals and awards (figure 2.2). The new Conservative party portrayed in Ryall’s series was largely made out of old Tory materials. This allowed the series to play up the past record of the party, which was especially important given that it was excluded from office for most of the 1830s. Reaching back into the recent past enabled the series to associate the Conservatives strongly with the victories of their ­predecessors against revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Yet acknowledging the obvious continuities with the Tory governments of the preceding period was not without its complications, given the deep splits that had arisen in the party over George Canning’s accession to the premiership in 1827 and the passing of Catholic emancipation in 1829. To some extent, these differences of opinion were downplayed or omitted. For instance, the resignation of the Canningite John Charles Herries from Wellington’s government in 1828 was glossed over.72 Wellington’s twelve-page biography focused almost entirely on

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 66

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

67

his military achievements and was virtually silent about his political career and the party difficulties he had faced as prime minister between 1828 and 1830. The division over Catholic emancipation was more difficult to ignore but the biographer generally gave credit to both sides for acting honourably. Peel had only favoured the measure from his ‘firm conviction of the impossibility of any longer safely withholding it’.73 The writer also acknowledged the consistency and sincerity of staunch opponents of Catholic relief like the ultra-Tory Duke of Newcastle.74 The series therefore attempted to draw a line under past differences and focus on what united Conservatives in the present, particularly their defence of the established Church and constitution from Whig and Radical schemes. For this reason, little attention was given to the deeper ideological tensions within the party on economic and social policy. This was to be expected given that it was political and ecclesiastical issues that were at the core of the party’s identity in the 1830s. Even so, it was notable that even in the later portraits and biographies published after the 1841 general election victory, at which the corn laws were the major issue, economic issues were downplayed. High protectionists such as the Duke of Richmond and Lord Chandos, later the Duke of Buckingham, were conspicuous by their absence. Lord Ashley was described as an advocate of ‘practical philanthropy’, and damned with faint praise.75 Ashley was, of course, one of the leading advocates of paternalist measures to regulate working conditions and hours in industry, and sponsored a number of factory bills. When his proposal for a ten-hour day in factories was passed against Peel’s wishes in 1844, a peeved prime minister threatened to resign unless Conservative MPs reversed their votes.76 Although the Conservative series accurately reflected the party’s strong defence of the established Church and constitution, which was at the core of the political identity forged in the 1830s, more troublesome issues were sidelined. Nevertheless the series successfully appealed to party supporters for a decade. The prints personified and reaffirmed party identities. The value in which they were held is shown by their enthusiastic reception in the national and local Conservative press and their use at party meetings. It is also likely that they were collected and displayed in the private homes of Conservatives, helping to strengthen the connection between national leaders and supporters. John Saunders’ Portraits of Eminent Reformers, 1837–40 Launched in response to Ryall’s publication, Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Living Political Reformers owed something to earlier publications such as William Jones’s Biographical Sketches of the Reform Ministers (1832), which had included some likenesses. The initiator of Eminent Political Reformers was John Saunders, a London-based radical writer. The first part was extensively

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 67

23/09/2014 11:54

68

Politics personified

advertised before its sale in September 1837 in the leading provincial journals.77 Reformers were defined as politicians who endorsed the ‘principal measures of the Melbourne ministry’. The series reflected the looser, less cohesive nature of the Liberal party in the 1830s, featuring ‘Reformers of all grades of opinion’. There was no attempt to impose an order of precedence, unlike the Conservative series. The engravings would be based on existing likenesses, or original paintings especially commissioned by the proprietor. Like the Conservative series, then, Eminent Political Reformers relied on the cooperation of politicians either to provide access to original paintings or sit for new portraits. Fourteen parts were to be published, each containing three engravings and biographies.78 Eminent Political Reformers followed the format of its Conservative counterpart, but was notably cheaper. The folio edition on India paper was priced at 7s 6d and a small imperial octavo edition at 3s.79 The folio-size portraits could also be purchased separately as prints for 5s, available from ‘all print sellers’.80 The first six parts were available and sold as a bound volume in June 1838, in imperial octavo for 20s, or ‘large folio, a magnificent edition, superbly bound’ for 50s.81 The engravings were all autograph proofs. Some of the portraits may also have been given away with the News between November 1838 and March 1839, as that newspaper’s ‘twelve portraits of leading Reformers’ overlapped with those in Saunders’ publication.82 Saunders’ series experienced difficulties. Part VII was published in February 1838, but there was then a delay for over a year. In March 1839 it was announced that there was a new proprietor, J. Dowding, and that portraits of Earl Grey, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Palmerston would be published, reflecting a less Radical and more Whiggish direction. Prices were also reduced. The first six parts, which comprised volume I, were available for 10s 6d and 25s instead of 18s and 45s for the imperial octavo and folio editions, respectively. Imperial octavo prints could now be purchased for 2s instead of 3s and folio prints for 5s instead of 7s 6d.83 However, only two more parts seem to have been published, so by the time it had ceased publication twenty-seven portraits in nine parts had been issued. Although it was probably a commercial failure, Eminent Political Reformers was well received by the London and provincial press, which nevertheless reserved the right to subject the portraits to critical scrutiny. For example, the portrait of Lord John Russell, derived from a bust by Collings, published in the first part, received mixed reviews. Some thought the likeness ‘striking’ and the bust ‘a beautiful specimen of art’.84 Others complained that while ‘sculpture is immortal and imperishable’, painting was a far better medium for capturing a subject when they were alive.85 Busts gave ‘the matter without the spirit of the likeness’, and the portrait made Russell look too gaunt.86 The portrait of Charles Buller, MP for Liskeard, also received a mixed reception (figure 2.3). The Spectator thought it presented Buller ‘in a stiff, stuck-up posture, staring

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 68

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

69

Figure 2.3  E. Scriven after B.E. Duppa, Charles Buller, 1840. Line and stipple engraving. 11 x 7½ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 69

23/09/2014 11:54

70

Politics personified

point-blank like a waxen image’, and Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine remarked that it was ‘scarce his true portrait’.87 Others thought Buller’s eyes were ‘sparkling, full of gaiety and humour, and intimately well engraved’, and the portrait an ‘admirable likeness’.88 The portrait of John Arthur Roebuck, Radical MP for Bath, was commended for having a ‘fine manly face and forehead’, the latter feature taken as an indication of his intellect.89 In other ways, too, the portrait reflected Roebuck’s character, depicting ‘an expressive and penetrating eye; an eloquent mouth; a mild and somewhat melancholy air pervades the whole countenance’.90 The quality of the work of B.E. Duppa, the painter commissioned to produce original likenesses, was also questioned.91 Seven portraits were engraved after originals by George Hayter, recently appointed portrait painter to Queen Victoria, and were based on his character sketches for his monumental group portrait of the first reformed House of Commons.92 Hayter supervised the engraving of his portraits.93 Securing Hayter’s involvement was quite a coup, and his portraits were highly praised for their ‘fidelity and beauty’.94 Hayter’s portraits included Lord Ebrington, MP for North Devon, whose portrait captured ‘all the quiet … calmness and determination, combined with deep reflection which mark his public character’.95 However, the Athenaeum complained that Hayter’s portraits of Wyse and Lord Althorp were spoiled by ‘a vivid artificial light’ and were ‘anything but agreeable or satisfactory’.96 The biographies were also praised for their refreshing lack of sycophancy compared to other contemporary works.97 Saunders made no secret of the fact that his opinions were more radical than the Whigs who featured, and was not afraid to criticise them for policies that he thought did not go far enough.98 As with the Conservative series, reviews of Eminent Political Reformers were not merely uncritical puff pieces. Generally, however, the portraits were highly praised and the series recommended to ‘every Reformer and Reform Association in the kingdom’.99 Saunders was praised for his ‘well-timed and spirited publication’, executed in ‘excellent style’.100 An examination of the portraits and biographies sheds light on the public image of the loose coalition of Whigs and Radicals that constituted the Reformers or early Liberal party that emerged in the 1830s. The twenty-seven portraits in Saunders’ Political Reformers were largely drawn from two elements: Whig members of the government, and the largely London-based group of Philosophic Radicals, who were influenced by the Utilitarian ideas of Jeremy Bentham. The latter group, who had been in decline since 1835, were over-represented and their political influence and importance was, accordingly, exaggerated in the series. After the change of ownership, Whigs began to feature more regularly, offsetting Saunders’ earlier radical emphasis. Unlike the Conservative series, Political Reformers largely focused on the present and recent past, beginning with the Reform Act. Many leading

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 70

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

71

members of government were portrayed, including members of the ‘Grand Whiggery’, the network of interrelated aristocratic families that had provided the mainstay of elite support for Charles James Fox and kept the Foxite tradition alive after his death in 1807.101 Lord John Russell, a younger son of the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Morpeth, heir to the Earl of Carlisle, were perhaps the most talented of the younger generation of the ‘Grand Whiggery’. Given his family background, Morpeth ‘could not fail … to have a decided whig bias’.102 Although he was 38 years old at the time of publication, Morpeth’s portrait presented a much more youthful image, the engraving being based on a picture in the nobleman’s possession. While they were scions of the nobility, both these two men were sensitive to urban, liberal opinion.103 It was written of another youthful Whig, Lord Ebrington, that ‘a more liberal, dignified, and every sense respectable, specimen of the aristocracy of the House of Commons could scarcely be pointed out than the noble lord’.104 Although the Whigs’ aristocratic credentials were just as impressive as those of their Conservative counterparts, the biographies did not dwell to the same extent on their genealogical pedigrees. The focus was on their public principles and support for reforming policies rather than their bloodlines. Of the other, more senior figures, Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, and Lord Palmerston had been supporters of Canning and members of the Tory governments before defecting to the Whigs in 1830. Lord Holland, as the nephew of Fox, had impeccable Whig credentials. Lord Lansdowne was a ‘liberal Whig’, whose support for political economy and efficient government meant that he and his followers had at times sought a coalition of the centre with Liberal Tories in 1827–30. Although they were perhaps out of sympathy with the direction of Whig policy since leaving the government in 1834, Earl Grey and Earl Spencer (previously Lord Althorp) were nevertheless included. This served to underline the continuity between Grey and Melbourne’s government, an important point given that many of the moderate reformers who joined the Conservative party after 1834–35 claimed that they remained true to the principles of the Grey administration, while Melbourne’s government had become increasingly radical. Lord Durham, Grey’s difficult son-inlaw, was another member of the 1830–34 government who was included, although he had disappointed the expectations of radicals who looked to him for leadership. Even so, as a young aristocrat and the ‘champion of popular principles’ his reputation retained some of its earlier lustre.105 Like the portraits of Morpeth, Durham’s image was full of dashing, youthful vigour. There was, however, no place for Brougham, even though he had been one of the heroes of the popular visual culture of reform explored in the previous chapter. When Melbourne and the Whigs returned to office in April 1835, Lord Brougham was left out, as he was widely considered to be an unmanageable and unpredictable maverick.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 71

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

72

Figure 2.4  W. Holl, after G.P.A. Healy, Joseph Hume, 1840. Line and stipple engraving. 11 x 7½ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 72

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

73

Although Saunders’ publication did not include Daniel O’Connell or other prominent Irish repealers, there was, as with the Conservative series, an Irish dimension. Many of the Whigs who were portrayed owned land in Ireland, and their sympathetic and conciliatory approach to Irish grievances was singled out for approval, particularly Lord Mulgrave, lord lieutenant of Ireland, and Lord Morpeth, who was Irish chief secretary.106 Although Saunders was critical of the policy of the Melbourne government in a number of areas, he noted that ‘the liberal government of Ireland was the redeeming virtue of the ­administration’.107 There were many different shades of radicalism in this period, and those radicals represented in Saunders’ gallery were of a distinct type. Most of them were London-based Philosophic Radicals who were intellectually influenced by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and other Utilitarians and associated with the Westminster Review, a radical quarterly periodical established in 1823. Unlike many of the Whigs, these radical politicians, like Joseph Hume (figure 2.4), favoured further political reforms, most notably the secret ballot, which they believed would break the electoral power of landowners over their tenants in county elections. They supported institutional reforms to the state to break up monopolies and produce cheaper and more effective government. However, their staunch support for political economy and economic liberalism meant that they were generally unsympathetic to the demands of working-class radicals for factory regulation or the repeal of the new poor law.108 This meant that on economic and social issues they were often at odds with popular radicals such as Thomas Attwood, William Cobbett or John Fielden, who were fierce critics of political economy and advocates of a more positive role for the state to alleviate the position of the poor. However, Saunders, who shared many of their views, generally portrayed these Philosophic Radicals or Radical Reformers favourably. Their cerebral reputation was reflected in the high foreheads depicted in the portraits of Roebuck and John Bowring. There were few Whig or Reform country gentleman or representatives of provincial liberalism, both important strands in early Victorian reformism, meaning that Saunders’ series remained a highly selective portrayal of the Reform party. Conclusion The success and longevity of Ryall’s Portraits of Eminent Conservative Statesmen has to be situated in a broader context in which likenesses of Peel were increasingly in circulation. By contrast, the demand for likenesses of leading Whigs never again reached the heights of the early 1830s. The engraving of Peel after a painting by John Linnell, published in 1839, was commended by the Art-Union as a ‘valuable portrait’ and a ‘striking likeness’ of the ‘statesman of the age’.109 In 1841 Peel’s accession to the premiership for the second time prompted the publication of a spate of engravings.110 In 1843 yet another

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 73

23/09/2014 11:54

74

Politics personified

engraving of Peel after a painting by J.W. Walton was taken as ‘a sure indication of popularity’ as publishers had a shrewd knowledge of which politicians were likely to sell well.111 It was evidently good business as the prints were sold at £5 5s, £3 3s and £1 11s 6d, with each class costing a guinea extra for advance orders.112 These portraits of Peel were slightly removed from the party political context of Ryall’s series. Peel and his features were increasingly held to represent certain personal qualities such as ‘judgement, ability, and integrity’ rather than political principles that were the property of a distinctive party.113 In some respects this anticipated his later image as a statesman who put the national interest before the interests of his party by repealing the corn laws in 1846. Peel’s decision split the Conservative party, with two-thirds of his MPs opposing him, and it was just as well that Ryall’s series finished when it did. A new publication, Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Conservatives, attempted to exploit the same format, but only one issue was published, apparently in August 1846. With the party split over the corn laws, which had been preceded by a series of damaging divisions over the sugar duties and the endowment of the Catholic seminary at Maynooth in Ireland, there was no longer a coherent party identity or audience to underpin such an enterprise.114 This suggests that the party portrait series relied upon a steady market, appealing to, personifying and reaffirming existing identities rather than necessarily creating them. This chapter has shown that visual media played a critical part in personifying party identities in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act. The role of media and communication has been given less attention by proponents of ‘political modernisation’ than the statistical analysis of voting patterns, but it was central to disseminating, reaffirming and sustaining party identities and principles, and connecting local supporters to national leaders. After 1846 there was a period of party confusion and realignment and it was not until the 1860s that there was again a relatively clear-cut Liberal/Conservative two-party system, at both Westminster and in the country, which would prove to be more lasting. In the intervening period, the images of individual politicians such as Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston and Lord Derby were increasingly important given the factionalism of the period. In the later 1860s partisan polarisation was increasingly personified through representations of Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone. Party portrait series fell out of fashion after 1846, but the format was enthusiastically exploited by a range of radical movements as the next chapter shows.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 74

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

75

Notes 1 J.A. Phillips, The Great Reform Bill in the Boroughs: English Electoral Behaviour, 1818–1841 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); J.A. Phillips and C. Wetherell, ‘The Great Reform Bill of 1832 and the Rise of Partisanship’, Journal of Modern History, 63 (1991), 621–46; J.A. Phillips and C. Wetherell, ‘The Great Reform Act and the Political Modernization of England’, American Historical Review, 100 (1995), 411–36. 2 P. Salmon, Electoral Reform at Work: Local Politics and National Parties, 1832–1841 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002). 3 H. Miller, ‘Leicester’, History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1832–1868 (forthcoming). 4 B. Hilton, A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England, 1783–1846 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006), pp. 375, 517–24. 5 J.P. Ellens, Religious Routes to Gladstonian Liberalism: The Church Rates Conflict in England and Wales, 1832–1868 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994); J. Coohill, Ideas of the Liberal Party: Perceptions, Agendas and Liberal Politics in the House of Commons, 1832–1852 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), pp. 131–53. 6 A.H. Graham, ‘The Lichfield House Compact, 1835’, Irish Historical Studies, 12 (1961), 209–25; Coohill, Ideas of the Liberal Party, pp. 113–30; J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 130. 7 R. Brent, Liberal Anglican Politics: Whiggery, Religion and Reform, 1830–1841 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987); R. Floyd, Church, Chapel and Party: Religious Dissent and Political Modernisation in Nineteenth-Century England (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008). 8 D. Fraser, Urban Politics in Victorian England: The Structure of Politics in Victorian Cities (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1976), p. 124. 9 M. Taylor, ‘Interests, Parties and the State: The Urban Electorate in England, c. 1820–72’, in J. Lawrence and M. Taylor (eds), Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820 (Aldershot: Scolar, 1997), pp. 50–78. 10 P. Salmon, ‘“Plumping Contests”: The Impact of By-elections on English Voting Behaviour, 1832–67’, in T. Otte and P. Readman (eds), By-elections in British Politics, 1832–1914 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), pp. 23–49 (at 23, 25, 28, 30–1). 11 Coohill, Ideas of the Liberal Party, pp. 13–45. 12 Hilton, Dangerous People, pp. 314–28; B. Hilton, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795–1865 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 13 P. Mandler, Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals, 1830–1852 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 33–43. 14 M. Cragoe, ‘The Great Reform Act and the Modernisation of British Politics: The Impact of Conservative Associations, 1835–1841’, Journal of British Studies, 47 (2008), 581–603. 15 B. Hunnisett, Engraved on Steel: The History of Picture Production using Steel Plates (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 29, 217; [H. Cole], ‘Modern Wood Engraving’, Westminster Review, 31 (1838), 265–80 (at 268); [J. Holmes], ‘Illustrated Books’, Quarterly Review, 74 (1844), 167–99 (at 169).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 75

23/09/2014 11:54

76

Politics personified

16 H.W. Singer and W. Strang, Etching, Engraving and Other Methods of Printing Pictures (London: Kegan Paul, 1897), pp. 58–9; Hunnisett, Engraved on Steel, pp. 38–41. 17 A. Dyson, Pictures to Prints: The Nineteenth Century Engraving Trade (London: Farrand, 1984), pp. 4–13; H. Herkomer, Etching and Mezzotint Engraving (London: Macmillan, 1892), p. 75. 18 [Holmes], ‘Illustrated Books’, p. 169. 19 Art-Union, 7 (1845), 241. 20 Dyson, Pictures to Prints, p. ix; J.W. Harland, The Printing Arts (London: Ward and Lock, 1892), p. 128. 21 Dyson, Pictures to Prints, p. 137. 22 Hunnisett, Engraved on Steel, pp. 38–9. 23 Ibid., p. 116; Herkomer, Etching and Mezzotint Engraving, p. 75. 24 Singer and Strang, Etching, pp. 61–2. 25 M.P. Tedeschi, ‘How Prints Work: Reproductions, Originals, and their Markets in England, 1840–1900’, PhD thesis, Northwestern University, 2 vols., 1994, I, pp. 32–3. 26 Dyson, Pictures to Prints, pp. 53–4. 27 Herkomer, Etching and Mezzotint Engraving, p. 75. 28 Printers’ Register, 15 (1875), 499. 29 G.M. Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography: Portrait Publications in Great Britain, 1856–1900’, PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1985, pp. 14–20. 30 Belfast News-Letter, 12 June 1838, p. 1; Leeds Mercury, 15 Sept. 1838, p. 7; Manchester Courier, 3 Nov. 1838, p. 1; The Standard, 30 July 1838, p. 1. 31 R. Hill, Toryism and the People (London: Constable, 1929), pp. 32–70. 32 J. Epstein, Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual and Symbol in England, 1790–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 147–66. Although see Cragoe, ‘Conservative Associations’. 33 Manchester Courier, qu. in The Standard, 31 Aug. 1835, p. 5. 34 Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 21 Jan. 1836, p. 4. 35 Bath Chronicle, 17 Mar. 1836, p. 2. 36 H.T. Ryall, Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Conservative Statesmen (n.d.), inscription, British Library, shelfmark RB.31.c.169. 37 Tedeschi, ‘How Prints Work’, p. 23. 38 Bath Chronicle, 17 Mar. 1836, p. 2. 39 Ibid. 40 Blackburn Standard, 11 May 1836, p. 8. 41 Carlisle Patriot, 6 May 1836, qu. in Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 23 June 1836, p. 1. 42 Stockport Advertiser, 6 May 1836, qu. in ibid. 43 Lancaster Gazette, 14 May 1836, qu. in ibid. 44 Doncaster Chronicle, 21 May 1836, qu. in ibid. 45 Morning Post, 11 Feb. 1837, p. 7. 46 The Examiner, 15 Dec. 1839, p. 797; Morning Post, 30 Apr. 1840, p. 2. 47 Daily News, 1 June 1846, p. 7. 48 The Standard, 31 Mar. 1843, p. 1; Art-Union, 6 (1843), 97. 49 Northern Star, 30 May 1840, p. 3.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 76

23/09/2014 11:54

Party politics and portraiture

77

50 West Kent Guardian, 28 Jan. 1837, p. 2; Manchester Courier, 5 Jan. 1839, p. 4; Blackburn Standard, 4 June 1845, p. 3. 51 Monthly Magazine, 26 (1838), 384. 52 Ibid., 382. 53 West Kent Guardian, 21 July 1838, p. 3. 54 Morning Post, 4 Sept. 1838, p. 3. 55 Ibid., 31 Aug. 1837, p. 3, 28 Aug. 1840, p. 3. 56 The wrapper prefaces the edition of Portraits of Eminent Conservative Statesmen possessed by the University of Toronto, which is accessible from the American Libraries website: www.archive.org. 57 Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, pp. 17, 32–3; M. Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 53–78. 58 The Presbyterian Church of Scotland had less salience for Conservatives as the main threat to the establishment came from internal divisions; most Scottish Dissenters were also Presbyterian; and many Scottish landowners and Conservatives were not members of the Kirk but Episcopalians. 59 H.T. Ryall, Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Conservative Statesmen (London: G. Vertue, 1836–46), ‘Dr. Howley’, p. 2. 60 ‘Earl of Munster’, pp. 5–7. 61 ‘Earl of Limerick’, p. 2. 62 ‘Frederick Shaw’, p. 2. 63 ‘Joseph Devonsher Jackson’, p. 3. 64 S. Ball, ‘Jackson, Joseph Devonsher’, HP Commons, 1832–1868 (forthcoming). 65 ‘Lord Abinger’, p. 4. 66 N. Gash, Reaction and Reconstruction in English Politics, 1832–1852 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), pp. 140–5; N. Gash, Sir Robert Peel (London: Longmans, 1972), pp. 96–9, 125, 130–1. 67 T. Jenkins, Sir Robert Peel (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 89–92. 68 ‘Lord Stanley’, p. 2. 69 ‘Viscount Sidmouth’, p. 4. 70 Including the Marquess of Londonderry, General Gascoyne, Lord Forbes, Lord Saltoun, Sir George Murray and the Earl of Munster. 71 ‘Sir Henry Hardinge’, pp. 1–2. 72 ‘John Charles Herries’, p. 2. 73 ‘Sir Robert Peel’, p. 4. 74 ‘Duke of Newcastle’, pp. 1–2. 75 ‘Lord Ashley’, p. 3. 76 R. Stewart, ‘The Ten Hours and Sugar Crises of 1844: Government and the House of Commons in the Age of Reform’, Historical Journal, 12 (1969), 35–57 (at 38–45). 77 Manchester Times, 16 Sept. 1837, p. 1; Brighton Patriot, 19 Sept. 1837, p. 1; Freeman’s Journal, 22 Sept. 1837, p. 1; Bristol Mercury, 23 Sept. 1837, p. 2; Western Times, 30 Sept. 1837, p. 2. 78 Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 7 Aug. 1837, p. 1. 79 Leeds Mercury, 16 Sept. 1837, p. 1. 80 Morning Chronicle, 16 Jan. 1838, p. 1.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 77

23/09/2014 11:54

78

Politics personified

81 The Examiner, 10 June 1838, p. 16. 82 Bath Chronicle, 15 Nov. 1838, p. 1. 83 Bristol Mercury, 30 Mar. 1839, p. 2. 84 Western Times, 12 Aug. 1837, p. 4; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 5 Oct. 1837, p. 4. 85 Brighton Patriot, 5 Sept. 1837, p. 4. 86 Leicester Chronicle, 26 Aug. 1837, p. 2. 87 Spectator, 10 (1837), 741; Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 4 (1837), 600. 88 Brighton Patriot, 5 Sept. 1837, p. 4; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 5 Oct. 1837, p. 4. 89 Leicester Chronicle, 26 Aug. 1837, p. 2. 90 Brighton Patriot, 5 Sept. 1837, p. 4. See also Spectator, 10 (1837), 741 for similar comments about Roebuck’s physiognomy. 91 Spectator, 10 (1837), 741. 92 Literary Gazette, 7 Apr. 1838, p. 219. 93 National Portrait Gallery, London, A. Hayter, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter, 1st January 1838–21st June 1858’, 25 Aug. 1838, transcript. 94 Reading Mercury, 4 Aug. 1838, p. 1. 95 Western Times, 1 Sept. 1838, p. 4. 96 Athenaeum, 14 July 1838, p. 499. 97 Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette, 7 Oct. 1837, p. 7. 98 Leeds Mercury, 15 Sept. 1838, p. 7; Eclectic Review, 2 (1837), 669. 99 Western Times, 12 Aug. 1837, p. 4. 100 Eclectic Review, 2 (1837), 669. 101 Mandler, Aristocratic Government, pp. 45–50. 102 J. Saunders, Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Living Political Reformers (London: J. Dowding, 1837–40), p. 215. 103 D. Gent, ‘Aristocratic Whig Politics in Early-Victorian Yorkshire: Lord Morpeth and his World’, PhD thesis, University of York, 2010, pp. 71–149. 104 Saunders, Political Reformers, p. 147. 105 Ibid., p. 193. 106 Ibid., pp. 135–46, 215–16. 107 Ibid., p. 146. 108 D. Nicholls, ‘Friends of the People: Parliamentary Supporters of Popular Radicalism, 1832–1849’, Labour History Review, 62 (1997), 127–46. 109 Art-Union, 1 (1839), 173. 110 Bent’s Literary Advertiser and Register of Engravings (1841), pp. 9, 73, 86, 166. 111 Art-Union, 5 (1843), 73. 112 Ibid., 4 (1842), 63. 113 Ibid., 5 (1843), 73. 114 The Critic, 15 Aug. 1846, p. 210.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 78

23/09/2014 11:54

3

Radical visual culture: from caricature to portraiture

The previous chapter highlighted the importance of portraiture for shaping the identities of the political parties formed in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act. However, it was radicals who were consistently the most innovative in their exploitation of new visual technologies. This was no coincidence. Portraiture was even more valuable to radical movements, which frequently experienced media indifference or hostility. To counter this, radicals produced their own series to project their own self-image to supporters. A good example of the negative image that radicals often encountered is the hostile media coverage that Charles Bradlaugh received when he contested Northampton at the 1868 general election. A prominent radical and secularist, Bradlaugh complained that until the election campaign he ‘never knew how meanly vile and contemptibly cruel the hirelings of the press could be’.1 Malicious pencils were just as bad, if not worse, than malevolent pens. While fighting the election, Bradlaugh criticised in his newspaper, the National Reformer, a number of cartoons. He objected to one that portrayed him and other radical candidates as liabilities to the Liberal party who should be thrown off the Liberal ‘ship’.2 A cartoon pasted up on walls in Birmingham depicted Bradlaugh carrying the flag of ‘Atheism’, with the Pope, Fenian bogeymen and the Liberal candidates for Birmingham following him. The cartoon referred to the disestablishment of the Protestant Church of Ireland, the central plank of Liberal policy and the main election issue. Opponents of the policy, including Conservatives, argued that disestablishment was a capitulation to the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish nationalists known as the Fenians. The National Reformer objected that the Liberal candidates were all Christians and argued that secularists had never asked Liberals to fight under the flag of ‘Atheism’. The newspaper naively concluded that ‘everything is fair which represents things as they are, but this picture does not’ and that it was a ‘misrepresentation’.3 Even worse was a cartoon in the Tomahawk, a satirical weekly, which portrayed Bradlaugh as ‘slightly bald’ and too short (figure 3.1).4 The picture was the work of Matt Morgan, the Tomahawk’s artist, whose distinctive cartoons were unique at this time for being colour-tinted fold-outs. The cartoon was a comment on the Westminster election, where the sitting MP,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 79

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

80

liberal ­philosopher and radical John Stuart Mill, was being challenged by the Conservative stationer and newsagent W.H. Smith. The common sense of Smith was contrasted with the impractical Mill, who with his radical allies Bradlaugh and George Odger of the Reform League sought to lure voters with dubious bait, including ‘Atheism’ and ‘Claptrap’. Even so, as befitted Mill’s status as a leading public intellectual and parliamentarian, he was not caricatured, unlike Odger and Bradlaugh. They were identified by labels and it is unlikely that Morgan knew what they looked like; and even if he had, the Tomahawk’s readers would probably not have recognised them. Bradlaugh was drawn with an exaggerated head, tight jacket and an inane expression similar to Morgan’s grotesque ‘Irish Frankenstein’ published a year later.5 This example shows that however respectfully Victorian politicians were gener­­ally treated by cartoonists, there were always exceptions. Groups or

Figure 3.1  Detail of ‘Not for Jo(hn Stuart Mill); or, a Smith for Westminster’, Tomahawk, 3 (1868), 203.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 80

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

81

individuals judged to be beyond the pale in terms of their background or politics were often cruelly depicted. From being a potent weapon in the hands of radicals in the 1820s and 1830s, caricature came to be a device deployed against them. Bradlaugh protested in his columns but offered no visual riposte, and like many radicals after the 1840s, he did not make much use of images let alone caricature. A study of radical visual culture helps to understand the decline of caricature and, more broadly, the growing cultural prestige of political portraiture. Portrait series enabled individual representations to be grouped together to present a flexible and coherent image of wider movements, creating visual narratives through the selection, juxtaposition and sequencing of the different sitters. They helped to develop and maintain a rapport between the leadership and their supporters. Radicalism was a remarkably varied political and intellectual tradition that is central to any understanding of Victorian popular politics. Although willing, at times, to cooperate with the Liberal and Conservative parties, radical politicians and their supporters retained an independent and distinctive identity, centred on the defence of popular rights and the extension of the franchise.6 Combined with other radical political reforms such as the secret ballot and more regular elections, such measures were seen as a way to make Parliament more responsive and accountable, but also as a means to achieving other important reforms.7 In the 1830s and 1840s the Chartist campaign for democratic political reforms received mass support, as demonstrated by huge petitions and public meetings.8 There were other shades of radicalism. Middle-class radicals, such as those associated with the Manchester-based Anti-Corn Law League, preferred to press for financial and administrative reforms, especially free trade. In their campaigns against the corn laws in the 1840s, the League blamed such monopolies on the dominance of Parliament by a landed elite, but they were reluctant to countenance political reforms and were wary of the appeal of Chartism to the working classes.9 The tensions between the Chartists and the League reflected a deeper division between popular and middle-class radicals over the merits of laissez-faire economic liberalism. In Parliament, the ‘Manchester school’, as Richard Cobden and John Bright were dubbed, joined with other radicals such as Joseph Hume in pressing for retrenchment in public expenditure and the remission of taxation.10 Like Hume, Cobden and Bright were resistant to attempts to regulate industrial conditions favoured by popular radicals and Chartists. However, they did endorse Hume’s campaign for the ‘Little Charter’ in the late 1840s and early 1850s, believing that a reformed Parliament would be more likely to promote their policy objectives.11 By the 1860s, a shared commitment to European liberal nationalism, cheap government and free trade, embodied in William Gladstone’s financial policy, and a moderation of economic liberalism smoothed the way for a

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 81

23/09/2014 11:54

82

Politics personified

r­ approchement between different types of radicals, as part of a broadly based popular liberalism.12 Yet radicals such as Bradlaugh and others retained a sense of independence, and the relationship with organised liberalism that developed in the 1860s and 1870s was always a negotiated one, subject to tension and contestation.13 Although historians have rightly stressed the importance of cultural practices and rituals in sustaining radicalism, visual culture and printed images have received less attention, with a few notable exceptions, including Malcolm Chase’s superb study of Chartist portraiture.14 The role of material culture has attracted increasing attention. The Anti-Corn Law League skilfully used bazaars to sell a range of free trade merchandise and goods, as well as engage female activists.15 Katrina Navickas has highlighted the significance of clothing and adornment in symbolising political opinion and identities, which were particularly important in the early nineteenth century given the restrictions on the press and freedom of speech.16 This chapter shows just how important visual culture and portraiture in particular was, not only to Chartism, but to other radical movements. C.J. Grant and radical caricature in the 1830s Although the torrent of pro-reform prints published between 1830 and 1832 is usually regarded as the last outpouring of the single-sheet caricature tradition, a radical brand of caricature flourished in the 1830s, much of it produced by the shadowy Charles Jameson Grant.17 The versatile Grant produced single-sheet prints and the lithographic Everybody’s Album (1834–35), which catered to the huge appetite for ‘scraps’. Everybody’s Album featured a number of small comic scenes that could be cut out and rearranged in scrapbooks by consumers.18 If Grant’s versatility was similar to that of other contemporary artists such as Robert Seymour, a product of both the opportunities and pressures created by the enlarged commercial marketplace for comic art and caricature, he seems to have been more consistent in his political work. Grant was not an unaligned artist drawing to order, but consistently favoured a radical line. He later contributed woodcuts to radical newspapers like the Penny Satirist (1837–46), and seems to have been part of the same milieu as radical ‘unstamped’ publishers such as Henry Hetherington and John Cleave. Reporting on cheap print culture for Fraser’s Magazine in 1838, William Makepeace Thackeray noted that the Penny Satirist and Cleave’s Gazette and London Satirist contained ‘rude wood-cuts’ almost all of which were ‘from the hand of the same artist – Grant, by name’. The staples of these images, Thackeray observed, were ‘outrageous caricatures; squinting eyes, wooden legs, and pimpled noses’ which formed ‘the chief points of fun’.19 What became of Grant after the 1840s is a mystery.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 82

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

83

Figure 3.2  Tree of Taxation, given away with the Northern Liberator, 13 Aug. 1838. Wood engraving. 14⅝ x 7 inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 83

23/09/2014 11:54

84

Politics personified

Grant’s most powerful, ferocious and sustained work was the Political Drama (1833–35), a series of 131 wood-engraved broadsheets that exemplified the themes of radical caricature in the 1830s.20 Wood engraving allowed Grant to put in chunks of text like blocks of type, producing an arresting combination of coarse, striking, primitive images and cynical text. The series may have been issued in alternative forms, however, as at least one number was published as a coloured lithograph.21 Grant’s series sought to appeal to a large, popular audience through radical caricature, although as we shall see there is some evidence to suggest that the main market was London. Brian Maidment has suggested that Grant’s work was a commercial failure due to his political radicalism, but also because his artistic sensibility was out of step with the times. He used scatological and grotesque imagery at a time when audiences were seeking more refinement; he deployed large, deliberately primitive woodcuts when audiences increasingly preferred small vignettes that could be detached for their scrapbooks; and he focused on political subjects when the expanding market was for social and non-political comic scenes.22 While it is hard to argue with these points, it is worth noting that the Political Drama survived for two and a half years in a highly competitive marketplace for printed imagery. Furthermore, Grant rightly recognised that there was a market for radical political caricature at this time. The period in which the Political Drama flourished was one of popular disappointment with the fruits of the Reform Act and disillusion with the Whig government, who were no longer considered popular heroes. The Whigs had deceived John Bull, conned him with ‘Reform’ and used him to spring them into office.23 The Political Drama was a visual rendition of the radical critique of ‘Old Corruption’, the notion that the state was a web of corrupt patronage networks, populated by placemen, pensioners and sinecurists, and funded by the heavy taxes imposed on the British people.24 Grant’s caricatures personified the failings of the political system. Alternatively, some prints from the later 1830s depicted the web of patronage and privilege as diagrams, visually expressing the data from the numerous radical Black Books and lists of place-holders. Inverting its symbolic meaning of industry, one print used a beehive motif, with different levels showing the various ranks of patronage, topped off by the Queen Bee, Victoria.25 ‘The Tree of Taxation’, given away with a Chartist newspaper, combined a hierarchical structure with the corrupt tree trope that had been used in reform prints in the early 1830s (figure 3.2). Grant, however, personified the ‘Old Corruption’ through his attacks on the Whigs. Portrayed as a high-minded father of the people in many pro-reform prints a few years previously, the prime minister Earl Grey was now depicted as a corrupt, nepotistic individual. On his resignation as prime minister in July 1834, Grant drew Grey exiting the stage followed by a procession of relatives, all clutching money bags, to highlight how they had exploited office to line their pockets.26 The Tories and

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 84

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

85

Figure 3.3  C.J. Grant, Political Drama, no. 13 [1833]. Wood engraving. 14⅜ x 8⅞ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 85

23/09/2014 11:54

86

Politics personified

Whigs were ‘staunch friends in one common cause, to plunder and oppress the people’ and divisions between them were over the spoils of place, not political principle, an argument common in radical discourse (figure 3.3).27 Grant regularly employed tropes designed to highlight the Whigs’ artifice and trickery, such as depicting them as a circus show fooling a gullible John Bull.28 They were hypocrites for prosecuting the radical publishers Hetherington and Cleave for their unstamped newspapers, while similarly illegal purveyors of Utilitarian ‘useful knowledge’, who were sponsored by the Whigs, went unmolested.29 Brougham, one of the leading members of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK), was regularly ridiculed by Grant, portrayed with the Lord Chancellor’s wig, his figure stretched into a spindly frame and his cuboid nose further elongated. However, as Maidment has noted, Grant’s derision of the Utilitarian campaign for ‘useful knowledge’ promoted by the SDUK and the Whigs shaded off into a contempt for working-class selfimprovement that suggests he ‘was no lover of “the people”’.30 The Tories and Conservatives were given a bloody and reactionary image. For this reason they were typically represented by the Duke of Wellington rather than Sir Robert Peel. When he was prime minister between 1828 and 1830, Wellington’s military background and perceived hard-line views made it easy for caricaturists to imagine him as a military dictator. One 1827 caricature summed up the danger of the duke being commander-in-chief by representing him as a jackboot, an object which had long symbolised the repression of English liberties, having first been used in the 1760s as a device to satirise the influence of the Scottish Lord Bute (‘Jack Bute’) over the young George III.31 Grant always dressed the ‘Duke of Butcherloo’ in military uniform.32 The implication was clear: radicals should be wary of the duke, particularly his command of the coercive powers of the state. When the Tories briefly replaced the Whigs in late 1834, Grant presented them as a military parade, with Wellington sitting on a gun carriage, clutching an axe and a miniature gallows, indicating how he would deal with any opposition.33 A virulent anti-clericalism pervaded much of the radical caricature of Grant and others in the 1830s. Bishops in the established Church of England were regularly grotesquely caricatured. In part this was a continuation of the criticism of the bishops for their opposition to the reform bill in the House of Lords in autumn 1831. It also reflected the fact that after the passage of the Reform Act, the reform of the established Churches of England and Ireland was very much on the parliamentary agenda. A Slap at the Church (1832), a radical periodical, contained small woodcuts to complement its angry denunciations of the established Church.34 Four woodcuts pasted into a copy of the innocuously named Church Examiner and Ecclesiastical Record (1832), in fact the successor to A Slap at the Church, highlighted the most common criticisms.35 The thin curate, living with his family in a hovel, was juxtaposed with his fat

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 86

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

87

superior. The mask of Christ was stripped away to reveal an obese cleric. The teachings of Jesus were contrasted with the debauched practice of the established Church, a common trope in radical prints.36 The future Chartist John James Bezer recalled that when he was a printer’s apprentice, this newspaper was his ‘master’s favourite’. Bezer remembered the ‘superior’ woodcuts on the front cover, which normally featured bishops ‘represented as enormously stout’.37 The Church’s formal political role in the upper house was also targeted by Grant in one satire of the bishops’ bench in the House of Lords, where the devil was seated among the ungodly spiritual peers.38 There remained a detectable undercurrent of anti-clericalism (and anti-Catholicism) in the late 1840s, perhaps associated with the tradition of unrespectable metropolitan radicalism rediscovered by Iain McCalman and Antony Taylor.39 Wandering around London, Henry Mayhew found ‘many caricatures of the Pope, the Church of Rome, Cardinal Wiseman, the Church of England, the Bishop of London with John Bull and the devil often featuring’.40 Grant focused his attention on the Conservatives after their accession to office in late 1834, although he remained profoundly critical of both main parties.41 However, he softened his attitude to the Whigs after their return to government in April 1835, backed by a coalition of Reform, Radical and Irish MPs, not least because the Melbourne ministry’s proposed reforms of the Irish Church appealed to his anti-clericalism.42 Otherwise his stance fluctuated depending on the issue. As a staunch supporter of the unstamped press, Grant deplored the destruction of Hetherington’s and Cleave’s printing presses and the seizure of their newspapers.43 Yet the very next number took a favourable stance towards the government’s bill to reform municipal corporations. While the Conservative peers represented the ‘corruption’ of the old corporations and freemen, the Whigs stood for ‘Reform’.44 Grant’s prints were strongly libertarian, but they were also pessimistic, even fatalistic, about the ability of the people to resist the growing power of the state. This differentiated Grant’s work from Regency caricature and gave it a gloomier edge. Then it had been a case of satirising or condemning moments that seemed to reveal and exemplify the state’s coercive power, such as the Peterloo massacre of 1819. In the 1830s, it was a question of resisting the expansion of powers that were likely to be permanent, pervasive and impersonal. The assault on John Bull came from a number of fronts. One threat came from Evangelical moral reformers such as Sir Andrew Agnew whose attempt in 1833 to legislate for a strict enforcement of Sabbath observance was presented as an attack on working-class leisure time. Agnew was portrayed as a puritan, which tapped into the tradition of attacking Evangelical reformers for humbug and hypocrisy in targeting the poor while ignoring the vices of the rich.45 The real ‘Sabbath breakers’ were the bishops who enjoyed Bacchanalian debauchery in private, while attempting to coerce the people into respecting the Sabbath.46 As

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 87

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 88

23/09/2014 11:54

Figure 3.4  C.J. Grant, Political Drama, no. 57 [1834]. Wood engraving. 14 x 9⅜ inches.

Radical visual culture

89

he often did, Grant looked into the future to imagine the nightmarish consequences of measures he disliked. An emaciated, sans-culotte John Bull sat in a bare house, with no food, tobacco, tea or soap, an allusion to taxes on consumable articles.47 John Bull was reduced to impotent grumbling as the presence of a policeman outside underlined the state’s increased capacity to enforce such laws. At this time the Metropolitan Police (founded in 1829) were routinely portrayed by radical caricaturists as little more than hired thugs rather than the friendly Bobbies of later Victorian popular culture.48 The most sinister development was the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, better known as the new poor law, which radically reformed the system of public welfare in England. The discretionary power of local poor law guardians to grant outdoor relief was severely curtailed and a central commission established to issue and enforce regulations. As a deterrent, those able-bodied individuals who claimed relief would, in theory, have to enter workhouses. One of the most contentious clauses in the 1834 Act was the ‘bastardy’ clause which put the burden of maintenance for illegitimate children on the mother, and did not accept the mother’s testimony alone as proof of paternity.49 This was portrayed by Grant as an attempt by the state to control poor women’s sexuality. In one caricature, women were taken to a ‘general breeding house’ where they would lie in bed with their legs tied for twelve months.50 The clause would be a licence for aristocratic rakes to have their way with poor women without any fear of the consequences.51 The most disturbing image of the new poor law was Grant’s imagined workhouse (figure 3.4). The dehumanised inmates were rendered indistinguishable by their shaved heads. The menial, grinding work consisted of beating hemp and picking oakum. An elderly man was whipped by an overseer and the workhouse also sold off infant corpses to surgeons. Various notices threatened the lash, treadmill and death as the penalties for mutiny or slacking. In the background, women and children were chained to the wall, while men hung from meat hooks. This unsettling picture was used to make a public protest against the new poor law in Oxfordshire. After two men held up the print in November 1834 they were promptly detained by local authorities. The potential power of the image was emphasised by one magistrate, who wrote to the prime minister Lord Melbourne that the culprits had clearly intended to ‘excite the minds of the common people against the Administration of the Poor Law in this place’ and their conduct was ‘evidently calculated to mislead, inflame & arm the poorer classes of Society against the higher’.52 Although radical caricature retained considerable vitality and potential in the 1830s, it was cynical and bleak. There were few heroes, although young Whigs like Lord Durham and Russell were occasionally flattered.53 Daniel O’Connell was later championed as the ‘The Modern Saint Patrick’, driving the Irish Church from the island, and Hetherington and Cleave were f­avourably

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 89

23/09/2014 11:54

90

Politics personified

portrayed.54 Generally, however, the people had many enemies but few champions, and, as we have already noted, Grant had little faith in popular self-improvement through education. In an increasingly atomised society John Bull was being driven into his home by a combination of irresistible forces, and the unremitting cynicism about the political process offered little hope for the future. However, it is important to understand that this type of radical caricature was a product of a particular time and place. The political context was the disappointment with the fruits of the Reform Act, but the prints were also in many respects a London phenomenon and not fully representative of radicalism in this period. For example, the campaign for factory regulation to limit the hours worked by women, children and men in the textile industries of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire was almost entirely absent as a subject in these prints.55 Evidence about the sale and distribution of the Political Drama tends to support this impression. Advertisements stated that it was sold at twenty-four newsagents and booksellers, of which one was in Sheffield, one in Liverpool, two in Bath and the remainder in London.56 Although the tradition of radical caricature lingered for a while longer, it is telling that it was in metropolitan radical-satirical journals such as Hetherington’s Odd Fellow (1839–42) or the Penny Satirist, rather than in the burgeoning Chartist press of the 1840s. The problem with caricature The most important reason for the waning of radical caricature was the advantages offered to radicals by portraiture, which was valued for its ability to project a positive image and identity. In the 1840s the Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law League issued official or semi-official portrait galleries. These series of steel engravings owed an obvious debt to the party portrait galleries discussed in the previous chapter. Other Chartist newspapers published wood-engraved portraits in the letterpress. The Charter (1839–40) featured delegates to the first Chartist convention in spring 1839, while Reynolds’s Political Instructor (1849–50) portrayed a mixture of British and Irish radicals and European nationalists whose reputations had been forged by the 1848 revolutions. By the 1870s, wood engraving was the preferred medium for radicals. It was a much cheaper and quicker process than steel engraving and could be incorporated into the letterpress. As a result both the working-class radicals and trade union leaders associated with the Bee-Hive (1862–78) and the Secular Chronicle (1872–79) published wood-engraved portraits in their newspapers. Despite the often fierce rhetoric of radical movements such as Chartism, caricature was only ever used occasionally. This was partly a matter of choice, but also of circumstance. Obtaining wood engravings from outside London could be a tedious process in the early Victorian period. When Richard Cobden, the architect of the free trade campaign, attempted to procure carica-

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 90

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

91

tures for the League’s newspaper in 1839, he quickly discovered what a lengthy and expensive business it was. He had to send his suggestions for illustrations to Henry Cole in London, who he had met through the agitation for the penny post.57 Cole would then relay these to his artist, who was none other than William Makepeace Thackeray, at this time a struggling writer. If Cobden was satisfied with the design, it would be engraved on woodblocks and sent to Manchester to be printed in the newspaper. Given the tortuous process it is not surprising that only two of Cobden’s ideas made it into the newspaper. The first had the lackeys of the state stopping a Pole and a Russian from bringing cheap food to shore.58 In the background families starved and a factory lay idle, the latter symbolising a key League argument that the corn laws damaged manufacturing and the working classes by restricting foreign trade. The second picture implied that the corn laws increased the price of food by restricting and inflating the price of cheap foreign corn, another central argument of the League. Using a retail analogy, a poor family were shown comparing the expensive bakery of the Duke of Buckingham, a prominent supporter of the corn laws, with a cheap Polish one. They were forced to purchase from the protectionist shop by a gun-toting soldier.59 However, Cobden concluded that ‘the wood-cuts cost rather more cutting & designing than I had expected – We can’t afford to give one in every paper. But we must endeavour to make those tell effectually that we do insert.’60 A further difficulty was that the tradition of English caricature was in many respects a metropolitan tradition. Georgian political caricature had been sustained by the unique culture of the capital.61 Punch had a thoroughly London-orientated focus and largely misunderstood provincial Britain.62 Caricature was a complicated visual language that required a familiarity with its conventions and it was perhaps a problematic genre for movements that drew their strength from outside the capital. Radicals did occasionally use caricature, and the Northern Star published one picture by Grant in the letterpress. The caricature was an attack on the ‘Leeds New Move’, an attempt led by the Leeds flax spinner James Garth Marshall to rally middle-class reformers and workingclass radicals behind a common programme. The picture employed O’Connor’s putdown of the initiative as the ‘Fox and Goose’ club to present Marshall and his allies as foxes preparing to savage the gullible working-class geese.63 Chartists also knew about the potential of caricature as they were frequently the butt of cartoons and jokes in the London comic press.64 By contrast, the support of Punch and other periodicals for repeal of the corn laws, which was often expressed visually, largely obviated the need for any production of caricatures by the League.65 However, some of the League’s ephemeral publications contained illustrations and one of Cobden’s suggestions for the Circular was reproduced in a broadside.66 Gadsby, the League’s printer, also sold caricatures.67 Although Bradlaugh largely avoided caricature, a number of secularist periodicals in the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 91

23/09/2014 11:54

92

Politics personified

1880s carried cartoons that depicted scenes from the Bible literally, in a reductio ad absurdum fashion. Cartoons in this vein led to G.W. Foote, the editor of the Freethinker, being prosecuted for blasphemy in 1883.68 The climate of respectability undoubtedly inhibited radicals’ use of caricature. The early Victorian period saw a reformation of caricature and the development of pervasive and influential ideas about what cartoons should and should not do. Although not always adhered to in practice, these notions did place boundaries on contemporary pictorial satire, particularly in middleclass comic periodicals. Excessive physical distortion, personal attacks on private character, lewdness and vulgarity were out of fashion, and were absent from the work of HB and Punch’s artists.69 Radicals were well aware that they were operating within a climate of greater respectability. For example, one of Cobden’s unrealised ideas was for an attack on the protectionist Lord Ashley, the Tory paternalist champion of factory legislation to protect children, later and better known as the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. The intention was to present Ashley preaching about the evils of factories while withholding bread from a child. This was a highly emotive way of presenting Ashley as a hypocrite for claiming to have children’s best interests at heart while supporting the corn laws that increased the price of food. Despite this, Cobden was keen to keep the image within certain boundaries. ‘We must avoid personality as much as possible – & I have therefore taken out Ashley’ he explained to Cole. Instead Cobden gave the nobleman an extinct title, cynically assuming that the audience would know who he meant in any case.70 Cobden then explained why old-fashioned caricature would not be suitable: ‘Our circular is not read chiefly by the lower classes – but by the earnest & right-minded politicians of the Sturge school – We must therefore avoid grossness & mere caricature.’71 Thereafter the League’s official newspaper avoided using pictures, particularly as the pressure group sought to develop a more respectable public image and harness the considerable energies of middle-class female activists and organised Dissent. However, other anti-corn law campaigners operating independently of the League used crudely executed woodcuts to appeal to a lower-class readership, most notably Joseph Livesey in his ½d free trade periodical The Struggle (1842–46).72 Unofficially, then, the anti-corn law campaign continued to use demotic images to appeal to popular audiences, but officially the League preferred to present a rather different and less contentious image through a series of portraits of its leading members. The virtues of portraiture If caricature was a problematic genre for radicals, the same was not true of portraiture. There was a tradition or radical or reforming portraiture. In the early nineteenth century likenesses of Sir Francis Burdett, Richard Carlile,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 92

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

93

Figure 3.5  S.W. Reynolds after C.A. Duval, Charles Pelham Villiers, 1 Feb. 1844. Line and stipple engraving. 14 x 11 inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 93

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

94

Table 3.1  Radical portrait galleries, 1837–78 Series Chartist

Publisher

Format

Feargus O’Connor/ Northern Star

Steelengraved print

40

1837–52

Steelengraved prints

15

1843–46, £4 11s 6d 1850 £1 1s 10s 5d 5s

Anti-Corn Thomas Agnew Law League

Number of Date of portraits issue

Cost 5½–6d

Trade unionist/ labour

Bee-Hive

Wood ­engravings in letterpress

88

8 Mar. 1873–1 July 1876

1d

Secularist

Secular ­Chronicle

Wood ­engravings in letterpress

39

16 Sept. 1877–1 Dec. 1878

1d

Sources: The Bee-Hive and Secular Chronicle are in the British Library; see M. Chase ‘Building Identity, Building Circulation: Engraved Portraiture in the Northern Star’, in J. Allen and O. Ashton (eds), Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press (London: Merlin, 2005), pp. 25–54 on the Chartist series. The fifteen League portraits and the group portrait can be found in the British Museum, National Portrait Gallery, West Sussex Record Office and the Reform Club.* *  Richard Cobden, John Bright, George Wilson, C.P. Villiers, Henry Ashworth, Thomas Milner Gibson and Sir John Bowring, BM: Blythe House, CIII P.5, and the 1850 group portrait is in the Large Portfolio folder. Villiers, Ashworth, Wilson, Milner Gibson, Bowring, William Rawson, John Brooks and Thomas Perronet Thompson, Cobden Papers, West Sussex Record Office, Cobden 1143/1, 3, 6, 23, 32, 36, 46, 47; Joseph Brotherton, William Brown, Ashworth, Bowring, Cobden and Milner Gibson, NPG, London, D32196, D32231, D7413, D2844, D18092, D34465; William Brown, Brotherton and Earl Radnor, Reform Club.

Major Cartwright and Henry Hunt, among others, were in circulation.73 New technologies allowed radicals to make more systematic and ambitious use of portraiture than previously. A study of four radical portrait galleries (Table  3.1) highlights the advantages of portraiture for these movements. Although portraiture was a means of reaffirming collective identities and rapport

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 94

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

95

between leaders and their supporters, commercial motives were not entirely absent. The League gallery was published by Thomas Agnew, the Manchester print-seller and art dealer, and the London art dealer Rudolf Ackermann. The series remained unfinished and of the twenty-two projected portraits, only fifteen appear to have been published. This was because, firstly, the production process was lengthy as the sitters were either drawn or painted and then engraved on steel. The series began in 1843, but by July 1846 the corn laws had been repealed. The League and its newspaper were subsequently wound up, although the remaining sitters featured in the group portrait published in 1850. Secondly, the main engraver was the busy Samuel William Reynolds II and the pressures on his time probably held up production.74 This also accounts for the rushed nature of some of the prints. Although care was taken with the heads, the backgrounds were usually sparse, and other features hurried. C.P. Villiers’s hands were poorly defined for example (figure 3.5). The group portrait was further delayed by a dispute between the painter and Agnew, which required the intervention of George Wilson, the former chairman of the League.75 Agnew’s series came with the League’s endorsement. Agnew was a staunch free trader and part of the same social milieu as many Leaguers, having made his fortune selling art to the Lancastrian bourgeoisie, and he directly appealed to the League’s members and supporters.76 The object of the series, one advertisement in the League’s newspaper grandly declared, was to ensure that ‘the form and features of the prominent leaders in this national effort may be transmitted to future ages’, preserving for posterity ‘those who have so successfully battled against corruption, ignorance, and inhumanity’.77 Through such advertisements Agnew reached a readership of 20,000, three-quarters of whom were League subscribers.78 As the previous chapter indicated, steel engraving was productive enough to supply a market of that size. Agnew’s portraits were aimed at a large, wealthy, select audience sympathetic to the League and its leading figures. The portraits were available at four prices, depending upon the quality of paper and the addition of autographs.79 The portraits would be superior to existing and more ephemeral representations of free traders, which were often judged to be poor likenesses. One engraved collecting card portraying Lord Radnor and Villiers prompted Cobden to write to the latter that the nobleman’s ‘likeness is clear but yours is a libel’.80 Portraits were a common feature of Chartist culture with banners at meetings and demonstrations often depicting leaders and earlier radicals such as Henry Hunt.81 The Northern Star series also included prints of seminal moments in Chartism such as the 1839 National Convention and the presentation of the Chartist petition in 1842. As Chase has shown, the portraits were used by the Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor as a way to attract, retain and reward subscribers to the Northern Star.82 The newspaper emphasised the quality and authenticity of the likenesses at every opportunity, commenting

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 95

23/09/2014 11:54

96

Politics personified

of one picture that ‘no expense has been spared to make it in every way worth a place in every poor man’s cottage’.83 This was partly good marketing puff, but the Chartist portraits were extremely cheap given the expense and quality of the prints. After heavy trailing in notices, all readers from a specific date would be entitled to the engraving after a subscribing for a minimum period. When publication was imminent, specimens would be sent to the Northern Star’s agents around the country for subscribers to examine. Finally, a date would be set for when subscribers could collect the engravings. Deliveries were staggered and different parts of the country were given different dates to collect their portraits. On the day of issue the Northern Star cost one penny more than normal. The portraits were therefore much more affordable than the League’s.84 There were 25,000 copies of the portrait of J.R. Stephens produced and a print run of 20,000 was projected for the print of Thomas Frost.85 However, it is likely that the portraits were seen by even more people. At times, as in April 1839, the Northern Star’s weekly circulation surpassed 60,000 copies, and as the leading Chartist paper it passed through many hands in coffee shops, taverns, reading rooms and at meetings.86 Observers noted the presence of Chartist portraits in working-class houses in a number of different localities including the Staffordshire Potteries, Yorkshire and Lancashire.87 By the 1870s the accessibility and cheapness of wood engraving meant that radical publications such as the Bee-Hive or the Secular Chronicle could easily incorporate portraits in the letterpress rather than commit to the time-consuming and expensive process of commissioning steel engravings. Furthermore, such portraits could be engraved on wood after photographs, producing a more accurate likeness and avoiding the need for prior paintings or drawings. The Bee-Hive series ran every other week on the front page with each portrait accompanied by a brief biographical sketch. Previously the newspaper had shown little interest in images, although a photographic portrait of George Potter, its ‘orchestrator’, was advertised in the mid-1860s.88 Potter controlled the Bee-Hive in the 1860s, until financial difficulties prompted its takeover by Daniel Pratt, a wealthy Liberal and Nonconformist businessman. Potter returned as editor and manager in early 1871 but only regained complete command after the death of Pratt in March 1873.89 The beginning of the portrait series coincided precisely with Potter’s resumption of control over the Bee-Hive and was, like the Chartist series, a strategy to boost circulation. The Bee-Hive was mostly read by ‘active trade unionists’ and had a much smaller circulation than the Northern Star or the mass readerships of the popular Sunday newspapers such as Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper.90 Even so, it was not specialised enough to provide a forum for the increasingly sophisticated internal affairs of unions, which preferred to use their own journals.91 By depicting their leaders Potter hoped to attract their members in greater quantities. The portraits were also available in sets of twelve, and the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 96

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

97

first volume, the ‘Labour Portrait Gallery’, was priced at 1s or twelve copies for 9s.92 As with other portrait series, the same material was repackaged and sold in different formats and at different prices. Images were largely absent from the secularist press of the 1860s, although Bradlaugh’s National Reformer published one wood engraving of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian nationalist leader.93 Like the Bee-Hive, the Secular Chronicle published wood-engraved portraits on its front page, accompanied by biographies. The Chronicle had been founded by a Birmingham secularist, George H. Reddalls, and after his death it was bought by Harriet Law and moved to London.94 The Chronicle was part of the burgeoning secularist press of the period, but it was distributed and sold through local secular societies rather than sold commercially.95 The Chronicle was more a periodical than a newspaper, its content consisting of powerful, but accessible, critical essays on Christianity. It championed women’s rights, secular education and the disestablishment of the Church of England. Readers’ letters suggest that the portraits were well received by rank and file secularists.96 Radical portraits: a comparison Portraits allowed a positive projection of individuals and through them political movements. Although portraiture and caricature are opposites in theory, in practice the gap between the two diminished in this period as politicians were more ‘realistically’ and respectfully portrayed in political cartoons and other visual media. This was not always the case, and Chartist and secularist portraits were ripostes to negative depictions, statements of how they wanted to be seen. Caricature and satire implied defining one’s politics negatively, through attacking opponents. Unlike cartoons or caricature, portraits never made much claim of currency. They often aimed for permanence by fixing the sitter in an atemporal environment, although there could be a thin line between permanence and stiltedness.97 Individuals were placed in wider series, with even O’Connor and Cobden, leaders of their respective movements, situated among others. These series were pantheons or portrait galleries, in which, as art historians have noted, individual likenesses are gathered and configured so that meaning is created through their interrelationships.98 Although not exhibited simultaneously, the four radical series were still arranged in particular ways. Sequential publication imposed a hierarchy and the sitters were selectively chosen and juxtaposed. The most obvious exclusion was the omission of women from all but the secularist series. Women had not been absent from the expensive ‘great and the good’ engraved portrait galleries of the early Victorian period, although most who featured were aristocrats or bluestockings, and they still formed a tiny proportion of the whole.99 Despite the recently recovered role of women in the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 97

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

98

Figure 3.6  Portrait of Alexander MacDonald, Bee-Hive, 29 Mar. 1873, p. 1. Wood engraving. 7 x 6¼ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 98

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

99

repeal of the corn laws, they played no part in the League’s portrait gallery.100 The Northern Star series excluded women, despite the important role women played in Chartism, especially at a grassroots level, and their highly visible presence at meetings and demonstrations.101 The gender bias of the Bee-Hive pictures was more predictable given that they almost entirely consisted of trade union leaders and MPs. Only secularists featured women in their series, reflecting their proud championing of women’s rights. Although the Secular Chronicle was edited and owned by Harriet Law there were still only four women out of thirty-nine portraits. These included Annie Besant, a prominent secularist campaigner, Mary Wollstonecraft, the pioneering feminist, and the writer Harriet Martineau.102 The final female was Mrs Maden, who had been the subject of a secularist cause célèbre in the early 1860s. Seeking to reclaim a piano taken by her stepfather, Mrs Maden refused to swear the oath in court and as a result lost the case.103 The radical series all depicted the leadership rather than the rank and file, even in the case of Chartism, the only mass movement among them.104 Similarly, it was general secretaries rather than union members who were glimpsed in the Bee-Hive. The League portraits displayed a similar selectivity. The portrait of Cobden, who was ‘not only the leader, but the very personification of the League’, was published first.105 Aristocratic free traders such as Earl Radnor, Earl Ducie and Lord Kinnaird were to be included in the anti-corn law pantheon, although only Radnor’s portrait seems to have been published.106 These men were not card-carrying members of the League but Whig free traders who had initially favoured a low fixed duty on corn in preference to the League’s policy of outright and immediate abolition of the corn laws.107 Many peers disliked the League’s incendiary language and while privately expressing support and donating money, they often politely declined to attend public events, pleading other commitments.108 The inclusion of peers underplayed the League’s antiaristocratic bent and enhanced its social standing, which was further sharpened by the exclusion of more plebeian or unrespectable figures like Ebenezer Elliott, the ‘Corn Law rhymer’, or the lecturer James Acland.109 The Bee-Hive series was one of the ways that mid-Victorian trade union leaders projected a sensible, moderate public image of themselves and their unions (figure 3.6).110 Their talent for public relations was vital in an age when unions were lobbying for the repeal of hostile legislation and seeking recognition. However, general secretaries came from much more lowly social backgrounds than the sitters in the League and Chartist series. There was a big difference between the gentlemen leaders of the Northern Star and the rugged union bosses of the Bee-Hive.111 Many of the union leaders, especially the miners, grew up in tough circumstances.112 Although some of the leaders featured had inherited positions of leadership in the early 1870s, most had painstakingly built up their unions over a long period.113 Compared to the League

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 99

23/09/2014 11:54

100

Politics personified

sitters, the union leaders lacked poise and had an older appearance, but they do have a rugged determined quality. The accompanying biographies told of the rise of the unions through the featured individuals, labour history through biography. Together the biographies and portraits presented the unions and the trades they sought to represent as inseparable from the men who led them. The ­biographies reeled off statistics about the number of members and the value of the union funds, often contrasting them with earlier totals to signal progress.114 This confident image concealed the underlying fragility and vulnerability of many unions that collapsed or declined during the economic downturn from the mid-1870s.115 The emphasis on individual and collective progress inflected the portraits and biographies with an exemplary bent, an intimation further enhanced by the focus on the autodidactic pursuits of many of the sitters. As the commentary on Robert Knight, general secretary of the boilermakers, stated: ‘Enough has been said to show him to be a man worthy of imitation – a fitting representative of the British working man.’116 This reveals another purpose of the portraits. It was no coincidence that the portraits were published at the same time as the efforts of the Labour Representation League (LRL) to get many of the same men elected to Parliament were intensified. Portrait galleries allowed heterogeneous movements to pay tribute to different strands, and draw in semi-detached elements. The pictures of Joseph Rayner Stephens and Richard Oastler were a generous acknowledgement by O’Connor of the formative role of Tory-Radicalism in the formation of early Chartism.117 It was also politic for O’Connor to associate himself with these firebrands when he was seeking to consolidate his leadership in a diverse, loose, embryonic movement.118 The inclusion of Thomas Attwood admitted his role in both the reform agitation of the early 1830s and the Birmingham Political Union’s brief contribution to the development of Chartism (figure 3.7).119 The League gallery acknowledged support from outside its Lancashire powerbase, though subject to the gender and class biases delineated above, including from prominent Dissenting ministers such as the Revd R.W. Massie and the Revd William McKerrow.120 Other portraits were to include Edward Baines junior, son of the editor and proprietor of the Leeds Mercury, the mouthpiece of the West Riding bourgeoisie; supportive MPs like Joseph Hume and Sir Thomas Potter; and the Liverpool merchants Lawrence Heyworth and William Brown.121 The likenesses of Hume and Potter do not seem to have been published. The ‘men of labour’ in the Bee-Hive were representatives of various unions. A general feature of mid-Victorian representations of working men, whether trade union emblems, political cartoons or illustrations in improving periodicals, was the identification of different trades through their dress and tools. A very different note was struck by the Bee-Hive portraits as the union leaders were all dressed in dark suits (figure 3.6). They did not just represent their

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 100

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

101

Figure 3.7  Unknown artist, Thomas Attwood, given away with Northern Star, Nov. 1838. Stipple engraving. 8⅞ x 5¾ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 101

23/09/2014 11:54

102

Politics personified

members and sectional interests, but claimed a broader and more ambitious role. Through their shared membership of the Reform League, the LRL and the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, these men were seeking to act as political representatives for the whole of labour, and through them the wider working classes. In some cases the radical galleries included figures from history or the recent past. O’Connor issued portraits of Henry Hunt and William Cobbett, honouring them and associating himself and the emergent Chartism with two of the recently deceased heroes of the previous generation of radicalism.122 As well as drawing inspiration from past struggles, the inclusion of certain figures signified strongly held beliefs in the present. The portraits of the Irish nationalist heroes Robert Emmet and Feargus O’Connor’s uncle, Arthur, not only reflected the traditional kinship between radicals on the mainland and in Ireland, but the continued commitment of Chartists to the Irish cause.123 After the eclipse and death of O’Connor’s great adversary and bête noire, Daniel O’Connell, the Northern Star’s support for Irish nationalism was reiterated by a series of portraits of ‘Young Ireland’ figures like Patrick O’Higgins, John Mitchell, William Smith O’Brien and T.P. Meagher.124

Figure 3.8  Portrait of Charles Darwin, Secular Chronicle, 9 (1878), 133.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 102

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

103

The secularist series included a number of historical figures, as well as other authorities who were never formally part of any secularist movement, as the term was only coined in 1851.125 The secularists’ ambitious and sweeping goal to remove religion from public life rested to a considerable extent on an intellectual basis. However, the very first issue of the Chronicle admitted it was advocating ‘an unpopular cause’, and the appeal to historical, ­intellectual and scientific authorities through portraiture reflected insecurities about the movement’s reputation and status.126 Understandably, secularists viewed themselves as part of a tradition of reason that dated back to the Enlightenment.127 Tribute was also paid to earlier radicals and freethinkers such as John Wilkes, Richard Carlile, William Cobbett and Robert Owen.128 As well as drawing authority, strength and inspiration from these figures, prominent scientists such as John Tyndall, T.H. Huxley and Charles Darwin (figure 3.8), as well as literary figures, such as the Romantic poets, and European liberal nationalists found a place in the secularist pantheon.129 Overall, the inclusion of these giants of art, science, politics and philosophy rather dwarfs the secularists in the series, of whom George Jacob Holyoake and Bradlaugh are the best known.130 The League and Bee-Hive galleries were situated aggressively in the present, although the free trade series acknowledged Thomas Perronet Thompson’s early championing of corn law repeal.131 The Bee-Hive sitters were from a different generation, although some had participated in Chartist activity in their youth.132 The Bee-Hive itself exhibited a distaste for Chartism, expressing the view in an editorial on the ‘New reform movement’ in March 1865 that ‘there must be no repetition of that folly, amounting, in many instances, to criminality, which disgraced and brought ridicule to the Chartist movement’.133 A later article significantly claimed the Anti-Corn Law League as the true ‘predecessor’ of the Reform League.134 The League and Chartist series looked to the future and for this reason portrayed the sitters as respectable statesmen, far removed from the rough and tumble of popular politics and rowdy public meetings.135 They were almost all seated indoors, often by a desk and sombrely clothed. They read The Times, like C.P. Villiers (figure 3.5), or were seated at a desk with documents, like Richard Oastler.136 Even the more eventful portraits take place inside; the Chartist Peter McDouall addresses a court, for example.137 The League and Chartist politicians were not alone in projecting such an image in portraiture, as many Victorian paintings of elite politicians were similar in style. For images of politicians addressing crowds or appearing outside we have to turn to cartoons, election ephemera, the illustrated press and photographs. The Chartist portraits, as Chase has concluded, looked forward to the sitters taking their place at Westminster as MPs, which explains the series affinity with conventional portraits of elite politicians.138 The most interesting gallery in this respect was the Bee-Hive portraits. Union leaders featured first, and made up the first two volumes of likenesses that Potter

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 103

23/09/2014 11:54

104

Politics personified

sold later. The last portraits were of figures from the cooperative movement, but in between the Bee-Hive also carried portraits of twenty-seven MPs and candidates, who were all Liberals. The organising theme was ‘Gentlemen who have been favourable to the cause of labour, and who have advocated … the right of workmen to combine.’139 Interestingly, Gladstone and Bright did not feature despite their popularity among Liberal working men. Younger or newer MPs, particularly those elected in 1868 and 1874, were depicted, many of them representatives of big provincial towns and cities or London constituencies.140 In 1876 a clutch of sketches depicted MPs from north-eastern English constituencies associated with coal mining.141 On one level the Bee-Hive was portraying the men who had been elected for popular constituencies that, particularly after the 1867 Representation of the People Act, had large working-class electorates. They looked to these Liberal MPs to further their interests and redress their grievances. They were introducing and familiarising their readers with their representatives, as they had done with their general secretaries. As they were relatively young or new to ­Parliament, these Liberals were the potential leaders of the future, their political rise only temporarily halted by their party’s unexpected defeat at the 1874 general election. The MPs were part of a new generation of hard-headed pragmatists, Liberals rather than Whigs or Radicals, who were committed to practical reform. Many of them were exponents of the muscular Liberalism explored by Jonathan Parry, part of a parliamentary party representing a broad coalition of the propertied, amenable to compromise, aiming at the harmonisation of different interests and classes, and the orderly redressing of grievances.142 The Liberal MPs had a strong affinity with Geoffrey Searle’s ‘entrepreneurial radicals’, as many were not only Liberal parliamentarians but also employers.143 Many were sympathetic to the Bee-Hive’s aims; indeed of the twenty-seven Liberal candidates and MPs featured, fifteen had been named as ‘supporters’ of the newspaper in 1870.144 Samuel Morley, the hosier, had largely underwritten the Reform League and had also donated to the Bee-Hive.145 The Bee-Hive also paid tribute to Sir Titus Salt, briefly a Bradford MP, but more famous for his philanthropy and his conciliatory and sympathetic attitude towards labour.146 These men held a double value for the Bee-Hive as enlightened employers as well as reforming MPs. The relationship was not one-way, however, but rather a partnership between the Liberal party and trade unions.147 The association with Liberal MPs served the purpose of furthering the parliamentary ambitions of the working-class radicals associated with the Bee-Hive. A number of union leaders stood for Parliament, and the series reflected the fluctuating relationship the Reform League and trade union leaders had with the Liberal party on the issue of working-class representation in the House of Commons.148 In 1868, partly influenced by the financial support given by Morley and other Liberal businessmen, George Howell,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 104

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

105

secretary of the Reform League, tied its support firmly to the Liberal party, and independent candidatures were discouraged.149 The following year the LRL was formed to press for more working men to be Liberal candidates and MPs. By the time their portraits were issued, many of the union leaders had fought elections.150 The series began in March 1873, just as the LRL’s efforts to gather information about potentially winnable seats and raise funds intensified.151 A circular published at this time called for the formation of a ‘great Labour party – a party which knows its strength, and is prepared to fight and win’, although privately it was acknowledged that any candidates elected would act together to extract reforms from the two main parties, rather than forming a potential government.152 This was the strategy of electoral pressure that had been pioneered by many Victorian pressure groups, particularly those with their roots in political Nonconformity such as the prohibitionist United Kingdom Alliance.153 The LRL’s careful planning and information gathering was all for nothing, however, as Gladstone’s unexpected dissolution in early 1874 caught them unprepared. Ten candidates stood at the subsequent general election, five of whom were portrayed in the Bee-Hive, but only two were elected.154 The Liberal defeat and the general failure of working-class candidates led to a rapprochement between the party and the unions centred on repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.155 Significantly, it was after the 1874 general election that Liberal MPs began to feature in the Bee-Hive and the LRL now proclaimed that ‘we have ever sought to be allied to the great Liberal party’.156 What this highlights is that the relationship between working-class radicals and the Liberal party was fluid, negotiated and complicated. Working-class radicals were not a pliant adjunct of organised Liberalism, but neither were they an embryonic Labour party. The relationship was more ambiguous, as James Owen has concluded in his comprehensive study.157 Despite their setback in 1874, the union leaders looked forward to winning parliamentary seats and the association with Liberal MPs burnished their credentials. Many of the union leaders were relatively young. The bushy tight curls of Peter Shorrocks suggest youthfulness, while the bright eyes of Robert Applegarth hint at the young features behind his wide and thick moustache.158 Older union leaders like Alexander MacDonald combined determined, strong features with an appearance that belied their age (figure 3.6).159 Like the Chartist series, the Bee-Hive portraits carried a staid air partly in the expectation that in time the subjects would take their place in Parliament, but this time in alliance with pragmatic Liberals. In this respect, the public images projected by the League, Chartist and Bee-Hive series are indicative of the central importance of Parliament, particularly the Commons, in national political life, even to radical movements that were frequently critical of the inadequacy of the representative system. The context was the growing prestige of parliamentarians and Parliament in this period, a development explored in chapter 5.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 105

23/09/2014 11:54

106

Politics personified Conclusion

Despite its potential, radical caricature fizzled out after the 1830s. The growing cultural prestige of political portraiture was reflected in its use by radicals. Caricature was a better weapon for attacking enemies, but for building a positive sense of identity and a connection between leadership and supporters, portraiture was superior. Significantly, the galleries were closely tied to official organs or actually published in them. Readers were familiarised with those who sought to lead and represent them. Like lecture tours, candidates’ addresses and personalised editorials, these portraits were a medium that enabled leaders to build up and maintain a rapport with supporters. Portrait series could subtly reflect the diversity of heterogeneous political movements while maintaining a broad coherence. Unlike the Liberal and Conservative parties, radicals continued to use the format throughout the period and took advantage of cheaper technologies such as wood engraving. If portrait series were crucial in developing and maintaining political identities, portraiture was also able to present national narratives. As the next chapter shows, group portraiture in the style of history painting was an important genre in early and mid-Victorian Britain. Artists sought to capture landmark political reforms for posterity and the nation by representing the men who had passed them. Notes 1 National Reformer, 4 Oct. 1868, p. 214. 2 Ibid.; Judy, 3 (1868), 225–6. 3 National Reformer, 15 Nov. 1868, p. 310. 4 Ibid., p. 307. 5 Tomahawk, 5 (1869), 277–9. 6 M. Roberts, Political Movements in Urban England, 1832–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), p. 28. 7 M. Taylor, ‘The Six Points: Chartism and the Reform of Parliament’, in O. Ashton, R. Fyson and S. Roberts (eds), The Chartist Legacy (Rendlesham: Merlin, 1999), pp.  1–23. 8 P. Pickering, ‘“And Your Petitioners, &c.”: Chartist Petitioning in Popular Politics, 1838–48’, English Historical Review, 116 (2001), 368–88; M. Chase, Chartism: A New History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007). 9 P. Pickering and A. Tyrrell, The People’s Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Law League (London: Leicester University Press, 2000), p. 145; L. Brown, ‘The Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law League’, in A. Briggs (ed.), Chartist Studies (London: Macmillan, 1959), pp. 342–71. 10 M. Taylor, The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995). 11 N. Edsall, ‘A Failed National Movement: The Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association, 1848–1854’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 49 (1976), 108–31.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 106

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

107

12 M. Finn, After Chartism: Class and Nation in English Radical Politics, 1848–1874 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); E. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 41–60; E. Biagini, ‘Popular Liberals, Gladstonian Finance and the Debate on Taxation, 1860–1874’, in E. Biagini and A. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour and Party Politics, 1850–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 134–62. 13 Roberts, Political Movements, pp. 90–6; J. Owen, Labour and the Caucus: WorkingClass Radicalism and Organised Liberalism, 1868–1888 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014). 14 J. Epstein, Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual and Symbol in England, 1790–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); J. Epstein, In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003); P. Pickering, ‘Class Without Words: Symbolic Communication in the Chartist Movement’, Past & Present, 112 (1986), 144–62; P. Pickering and A. Tyrrell, Contested Sites: Commemoration, Memorials and Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); M. Chase, ‘Building Identity, Building Circulation: Engraved Portraiture and the Northern Star’, in J. Allen and O. Ashton (eds), Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press (London: Merlin, 2005), pp. 25–54; S. Roberts and D. Thompson, Images of Chartism (Woodbridge: Merlin, 1998). 15 P. Gurney, ‘“The Sublime of the Bazaar”: A Moment in the Making of a Consumer Culture in Mid-Nineteenth Century England’, Journal of Social History, 40 (2006), 385–405; Pickering and Tyrrell, The People’s Bread, pp. 191–216. 16 K. Navickas, ‘“That Sash Will Hang You”: Political Clothing and Adornment in England, 1780–1840’, Journal of British Studies, 49 (2010), 540–65. 17 R. Pound, C.J. Grant’s Political Drama: A Radical Satirist Rediscovered, ([London]: University College London, 1998); R. Pound, ‘Charles Jameson Grant (fl. 1830–1852)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (60 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), XXXIII, pp. 296–7. 18 B. Maidment, Comedy, Caricature and the Social Order, 1820–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 83, 89. 19 [W.M. Thackeray], ‘Half-a-Crown’s Worth of Cheap Knowledge’, Fraser’s Magazine, 17 (1838), 279–90 (at 287). 20 An almost complete run exists in the ‘Penny Political Caricatures’ volume, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum (BM). 21 Political Drama, no. 7, prints, box 7, Labour History and Archives Study Centre (LHASC), NMLH.1993.372.3. 22 Maidment, Comedy, p. 90. 23 Political Drama, nos. 27, 29. 24 W.D. Rubinstein, ‘The End of “Old Corruption” in Britain, 1780–1860’, Past & Present, 101 (1983), 55–86; P. Harling, ‘Rethinking Old Corruption’, Past & Present, 147 (1995), 127–58. 25 Timothy Wasp (pseudo.), The Queen BEE in her HIVE!!!, coloured etching, 29 Aug. 1837, uncatalogued satires, 1836–1846, BM. 26 Political Drama, no. 44.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 107

23/09/2014 11:54

108

Politics personified

27 K. Gilmartin, Print Politics: The Press and Radical Opposition in Early NineteenthCentury England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 11–22. 28 Political Drama, no. 21. 29 Ibid., nos. 14, 24–5, 41, 100. 30 Maidment, Comedy, pp. 89, 94, 97–103 (at 89). 31 BMC 15430: W. Heath, A Wellington Boot, or the Head of the Army, coloured etching, Oct. 1827; L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 105–32; D. Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (London: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 50–60. 32 Political Drama, nos. 12, 31, 40, 111. Newspapers were legally obliged to pay a 4d stamp duty on each issue they published. ‘Unstamped’ newspapers, often radical publications sold for a penny, were technically illegal and flourished until the newspaper stamp was cut to 1d in 1836. P. Hollis, The Pauper Press (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970); J. Wiener, The War of the Unstamped (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969). 33 Political Drama, no. 65. 34 A number of copies survive in the National Archives: Public Record Office (hereafter TNA: PRO), Home Office papers, HO 64/18, ‘Seditious Publications’ files, fos. 615–44. 35 Church Examiner and Ecclesiastical Record (1832), in the British Library. 36 J.L. Marks, Marks’s New Caricaturist, no. 2 (n.d.), uncatalogued satires, 1833–36, BM. 37 J.J. Bezer, ‘Autobiography of One of the Chartist Rebels of 1848’, in D. Vincent (ed.), Testaments of Radicalism: Memoirs of Working-Class Politicians, 1790–1885 (London: Europa, 1977), pp. 170–1. 38 Political Drama, no. 16. 39 I. McCalman, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795–1840 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988); A. Taylor, ‘“A Melancholy Odyssey Among London Public Houses”: Radical Club Life and the Unrespectable in Mid-Nineteenth Century London’, Historical Research, 78 (2005), 74–95. 40 H. Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor [1851] (4 vols., London: Frank Cass, 1967), I, p. 286. 41 Political Drama, nos. 66–7, 72, 76. 42 Ibid., nos. 85, 88. 43 Ibid., no. 100. 44 Ibid., no. 101. 45 Ibid., no. 1; V. Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London (London: Atlantic, 2006), pp. 447–53, 470–82. 46 Political Drama, no. 2. 47 Ibid., no. 4. 48 Ibid., nos. 11, 55; Marks’s New Caricaturist, no. 23 (n.d.), uncatalogued satires, 1833–36, BM. 49 U.R.Q. Henriques, ‘Bastardy and the New Poor Law’, Past & Present, 37 (1967), 103–29. 50 Political Drama, no. 47. 51 Popular Subjects, no. 2 (n.d), published by J.L. Marks, uncatalogued satires, 1833–36, BM. 52 TNA: PRO, HO 44/27, Home Office correspondence, Revd John Hyde to Lord

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 108

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

109

Melbourne, 6 Nov. 1834, fos. 298–302. 53 Political Drama, nos. 63, 88, 94. 54 Ibid., nos. 100, 108, 118. 55 Ibid., nos. 10, 68. 56 Poor Man’s Guardian, 13 Sept. 1834, p. 256; 11 Oct. 1834, p. 288. 57 BL, Add. MS 65136, Richard Cobden to Henry Cole, 27 Apr., 30 May, 6 June 1839, fos. 5, 8, 10. 58 Anti-Corn Law Circular, 23 July 1839, p. 4. 59 Ibid., 10 Dec. 1839, p. 4. 60 BL, Add. MS 65136, Cobden to Cole, 30 July 1839, fo. 20. 61 Gatrell, City of Laughter, pp. 21–156; M. Bills, The Art of Satire: London in Caricature (London: Museum of London, 2006). 62 H. Miller, ‘The Problem with Punch’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), 285–302. 63 Northern Star, 23 Jan. 1841, p. 1; D. Fraser, Urban Politics in Victorian England (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1976), p. 260. 64 Miller, ‘The Problem with Punch’, pp. 289–92. 65 Ibid., pp. 292–33. 66 Manchester City Library (MCL), Anti-Corn Law Papers 1842, Microfilm 2918, Wages in Poland and in England! (Manchester: Gadsby, [1842]). 67 MCL, Anti-Corn Law Papers 1842, The Corn Question (Manchester: Gadsby, [1842]). See also the adverts for caricatures in Anti-Bread Tax Circular, 29 July 1841, p. 48; 3 Nov. 1842, p. 196. 68 J. Marsh, Word Crimes: Blasphemy, Culture, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 140–3, 145, 149, 178–9; E. Royle, Radicals, Secularists and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980), pp. 159–61. 69 H. Miller, ‘John Leech and the Shaping of the Victorian Cartoon: The Context of Respectability’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 42 (2009), 267–91. 70 BL, Add. MS 65136, Cobden to Cole, 23 July 1839, fo. 16. 71 Ibid. Joseph Sturge was a Birmingham Quaker and corn merchant who was active in the anti-corn law and anti-slavery campaigns. 72 J. Livesey, The Autobiography of Joseph Livesey (London: National Temperance League, n.d.), p. 22. 73 H. Hoppner Meyer, John Cartwright (1826), NPG, London, D13772; Henry Hunt, the Champion of the People, 1 Dec. 1819; J.G. Waller after Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Francis Burdett (n.d.), Parliamentary Archives, PRG/5/22, items 66 and 70. 74 S.A. Whitman, Samuel William Reynolds (London: George Bell & Sons, 1903), although this catalogue is probably far from complete, listing only three of his eight League portraits. 75 Greater Manchester County Record Office (GMCRO), George Wilson Papers, M20, vol. 13, Thomas Agnew to George Wilson, 15 Nov. 1847. 76 G. Agnew, Agnew’s 1817–1967 (London: Bradbury Agnew, 1967), pp. 9, 12–13; J. Seed, ‘“Commerce and the Liberal Arts”: The Political Economy of Art in Manchester, 1775–1860’, in J. Seed and J. Wolff (eds), The Culture of Capital: Art, Power and the Nineteenth-Century Middle Class (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), pp. 45–81 (at 53–5). 77 The League, 25 Jan. 1845, p. 288.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 109

23/09/2014 11:54

110

Politics personified

78 A. Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League (2 vols., London: W. & F.G. Gash, 1853), II, p. 281. 79 Anti-Bread Tax Circular, 17 Jan. 1843, p. 24. 80 BL, Add. MS 43662, Richard Cobden to Charles Pelham Villiers, 13 Nov. 1841, fo.  62. 81 The Charter, 2 June 1839, p. 299; Northern Star, 6 Oct. 1841, pp. 6–7; 4 Dec. 1841, p. 1; 7 May 1842, p. 7. 82 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, p. 25. 83 Northern Star, 17 July 1841, p. 5. 84 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, pp. 30–1, 39. 85 Ibid., p. 41. 86 Parliamentary Papers 1839 (213), Newspaper Stamp Returns, 1838–9, XXX, p. 487; PP 1839 (449), Newspaper Stamp Returns, April to June 1839, XXX, p. 497; PP 1840 (15), Newspaper Stamp Returns, July to December 1839, XXIX, p. 488; J. Epstein, ‘Feargus O’Connor and the Northern Star’, International Review of Social History, 21 (1976), 51–97 (at 70–1). 87 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, p. 38. 88 Bee-Hive, 16 June 1866, p. 4. 89 S. Coltham, ‘The Bee-Hive Newspaper: Its Origin and Early Struggles’, in A. Briggs and J. Saville (eds), Essays in Labour History (London: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 174–204; S. Coltham, ‘George Potter, the Junta, and the Bee-Hive’ (parts 1 and 2), International Review of Social History, 9 (1964), 391–432; 10 (1965), 23–65. 90 Bee-Hive, 18 Mar. 1875, p. 3; T. Wright, Our New Masters (London: Strahan & Co., 1873), p. 350. 91 D. Vincent, Literacy and Popular Culture, 1750–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 255. 92 Bee-Hive, 20 Dec. 1873, p. 6. 93 National Reformer, 29 Sept. 1860, p. 5. 94 Secular Chronicle, 4 (1875–76), 188, 191, 201–2, 206. 95 D. Nash, ‘Unfettered Investigation: The Secularist Press and the Creation of Audience in Victorian England’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 28 (1995), 123–35; Secular Chronicle, 10 (1878), 289. 96 Ibid., 9 (1878), 138, 210. 97 R. Brilliant, Portraiture (London: Reaktion, 1991), pp. 130–2, 134. 98 F. Haskell, History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), ch. 2; M. Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 16–34; R. Wrigley and M. Craske (eds), Pantheons: Transformations of a Monumental Idea (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 99 There were eleven women out of 241 subjects in W. Cooke Taylor, National Portrait Gallery of Illustrious and Eminent Personages, chiefly of the Nineteenth century (4 vols., London: Caxton Press, 1846–48), I, pp. 42, 97, 112; II, pp. 20, 48, 111; III, p. 122; IV, pp. 19, 39, 104, 106. 100 Gurney, ‘“The Sublime of the Bazaar”’; S. Morgan, ‘Domestic Economy and Political Agitation: Women and the Anti-Corn Law League, 1839–46’, in K. Gleadle and S. Richardson (eds), Women in British Politics, 1760–1860 (Basingstoke: Palgrave,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 110

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

111

2000), pp. 115–33; Pickering and Tyrrell, The People’s Bread, pp. 116–34; H. Miller, ‘Popular Petitioning and the Corn Laws’, EHR, 127 (2012), 882–919 (at 915–18). 101 Chase, Chartism, pp. 27–8, 35–6, 41–4, 184–91, 261–70; A. Clark, ‘The Rhetoric of Chartist Domesticity: Gender, Language, and Class in the 1830s and 1840s’, JBS, 31 (1992), 62–88 (at 76–9); A. Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 220–47; H. Rogers, Women and the People: Authority, Authorship and the Radical Tradition in Nineteenth-Century England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 80–123; D. Jones, ‘Women and Chartism’, History, 68 (1983), 1–21. 102 Secular Chronicle, 8 (1877), 157; 9 (1878), 61, 145. 103 Secular Chronicle, 9 (1878), 265; E. Royle, Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1974), pp. 270–1. 104 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, pp. 30–1. 105 H. Ashworth, Recollections of Richard Cobden, MP and the Anti-Corn Law League (London: Cassell, [1876]), p. 387. 106 The League, 25 Jan. 1845, p. 288. 107 A. Kadish, ‘An Introduction to the Variety of Arguments for Free Trade’, in A. Kadish (ed.), The Corn Laws: The Formation of Popular Economics in Britain (6 vols., London: Pickering and Chatto, 1996), I, pp. xiv–xxii; D. Spring, ‘Earl Fitzwilliam and the Corn Laws’, American Historical Review, 41 (1954), 287–304. 108 See, for example, the letters to George Wilson from numerous Whig peers: GMCRO, George Wilson Papers, M20, vols. 2–3, 5–7: Marquess of Westminster, 16 Dec. 1839; Lord Cloncurry, 26 Dec. 1839; Earl of Clarendon, 21 Jan. 1843; Lord Nugent, 27 Jan. 1843. 109 J. Watkins, Life, Poetry, and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-Law Rhymer (London: John Mortimer, 1850); J. Martin, ‘Oratory, Itinerant Lecturing and Victorian Popular Politics: A Case Study of James Acland (1799–1876)’, Historical Research, 86 (2013), 30–52. 110 W. Hamish Fraser, Trade Unionism in British Society, 1850–1880: The Struggle for Acceptance (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974), pp. 56–63, 201; A. Briggs, Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851–67 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), pp. 180–1, 188–9, 192–6. 111 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, p. 30. 112 Bee-Hive, 29 Mar. 1873, pp. 1–2; 26 Apr. 1873, pp. 1-2; 19 July 1873, pp. 1–2. 113 Bee-Hive, 21 June 1873, pp. 1–2; 11 Oct. 1873, pp. 1–2; 25 Oct. 1873, pp. 1–2; 8 Mar. 1873, pp. 1–2; 5 July 1873, pp. 1–2. 114 E.g. Bee-Hive, 8 Mar. 1873, pp. 1–2; 26 Apr. 1873, pp. 1–2; 5 July 1873, pp. 1–2. 115 A.J. Reid, United We Stand: A History of Britain’s Trade Unions (London: Allen Lane, 2006), pp. xi–xii. 116 Bee-Hive, 27 Sept. 1873, p. 2. 117 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, p. 32. 118 J. Epstein, The Lion of Freedom: Feargus O’Connor and the Chartist Movement, 1832–1842 (London: Croom Helm, 1982), pp. 94–101. 119 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, p. 32. 120 The League, 17 Jan. 1843, p. 24.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 111

23/09/2014 11:54

112

Politics personified

121 Ibid.; The League, 27 Dec. 1845, p. 192. 122 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, p. 32; William Cobbett, stipple engraving, Sept. 1838, NPG, London D20841; Henry Hunt, stipple engraving, [June 1838], NPG, London D20838. 123 W. Read after J. Petrie, Robert Emmet, stipple and line engraving, July 1841, NPG, London D21604. 124 Northern Star, 11 Nov. 1848, p. 4; 16 Dec. 1848, p. 4; 9 June 1849, p. 4. 125 Royle, Victorian Infidels, p. 3. 126 Secular Chronicle, 1 (1872), 1. 127 Ibid., 8 (1877), 241; 9 (1878), 145, 241; 10 (1878), 253. 128 Ibid., 8 (1877), 301, 313; 9 (1878), 97, 229, 253. 129 Ibid., 8 (1877), 133, 145, 181, 217, 253, 265, 289; 9 (1879), 109. 130 Ibid., 8 (1877), 229; 9 (1878), 73. 131 S. Reynolds II after C.A. Duval, T. Perronet Thompson, pub. T. Agnew, 21 Nov. 1844; M.J. Turner, ‘The “Bonaparte of Free Trade” and the Anti-Corn Law League’, Historical Journal, 41 (1998), 1011–34. 132 Bee-Hive, 24 May 1873, pp. 1–2. 133 Ibid., 4 Mar. 1865, p. 4. 134 Ibid., 3 Nov. 1865, p. 1. 135 Chase, ‘Building Identity’, pp. 26–7, 28–9. 136 J. Posselwhite, after B. Garside, Richard Oastler, stipple and line engraving, Feb. 1840, NPG, London D7845. 137 Unknown artist, Peter Murray M’Douall (1840), NPG, London D21602. 138 Chase, ‘Building Identity,’ pp. 45–6. 139 Bee-Hive, 21 Mar. 1874, p. 7. Italics original. 140 Bee-Hive, 4 Apr. 1874, p. 1; 18 Apr. 1874, p. 1; 5 Sept. 1874, p. 1; 17 Oct. 1874, p. 1; 14 Nov. 1874, p. 1; 28 Nov. 1874, p. 1. 141 Published in the Bee-Hive, 15 Jan.–6 May 1876, on the front page. 142 J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 167–225. 143 G. Searle, Entrepreneurial Politics in Mid-Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 144 Bee-Hive, 15 Oct. 1870, p. 550. 145 R. Harrison, Before the Socialists: Studies in Labour and Politics, 1861–1881 (London: Routledge, 1965), pp. 34–9, 142; Coltham, ‘George Potter and the Bee-Hive’, pt. 2, 40. 146 Bee-Hive, 11 July 1874, pp. 1–3. 147 Reid, United We Stand, pp. 132–3. 148 Bee-Hive, 7 June 1874, pp. 1–2. 149 D.A. Hamer, The Politics of Electoral Pressure: A Study in the History of Victorian Reform Agitations (Hassocks: Harvester, 1977), p. 319; Harrison, Before the Socialists, pp. 137–209. 150 MacDonald (Kilmarnock, 1868); Halliday (Merthyr Tydfil, 1874); Howell (Aylesbury, 1873); Kane (Wednesbury, 1874); Applegarth (Maidstone, 1870); Knight and Prior did not contest elections but were on the LRL: J. Bellamy and J. Saville, Dictionary of Labour Biography (13 vols., London: Macmillan, 1972–), VI, pp. 152–6; Bee-Hive, 11 Oct. 1873, pp. 1–2.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 112

23/09/2014 11:54

Radical visual culture

113

151 British Library of Political and Economic Science (BLPES), SR 61, microfilm 77, Labour Representation League papers, committee minutes, 31 Jan. 1873, 15 Mar. 1873, fos. 3–4, 13–15. 152 BLPES, LRL papers, SR 61, circular, 17 Mar 1873, committee minutes, 22 Mar. 1873, fos. 16, 32. 153 Hamer, Electoral Pressure. 154 BLPES, LRL papers, SR 61, committee minutes, 27 Jan. 1874, 13 Feb. 1874, fos. 69, 75–6; Bee-Hive, 14 Feb. 1874, pp. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. 155 Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform, pp. 149–64; J. Spain, ‘Trade Unionists, Gladstonian Liberals, and the Labour Law Reforms of 1875’, in E. Biagini and A. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour and Party Politics, 1850–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 109–33. 156 BLPES, LRL papers, SR 61, ‘An Address to the People of Great Britain’, circular, [1875], pasted into LRL minute book, fo. 142. 157 Owen, Labour and the Caucus. 158 Bee-Hive, 5 July 1873, p. 1; 30 Aug. 1873, p. 1. 159 Ibid., 29 Mar. 1873, p. 1.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 113

23/09/2014 11:54

4

Reforming pantheons: political group portraiture and history painting

This chapter shows how group portrait paintings could recast political events as part of a celebrated national narrative. It contrasts, therefore, with the previous two chapters, which focused on how portraits could function as aides-memoires to political partisanship or identity. Group portrait paintings and derivative prints commemorated reforming triumphs through the aggregated representations of individual politicians. In doing so they presented a country of progress and enlightened reform and should be located in the broader context of the time. These early Victorian group portraits commemorated contemporary political events in the style of the grand history paintings of the Hanoverian era. In this vein, there were large group portraits to celebrate the passing of the 1832 Reform Act, the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention and the repeal of the corn laws in 1846, as well as numerous representations of the cabinets of the time. The most famous example of this genre was Sir George Hayter’s monumental painting of the first meeting of the reformed House of Commons in 1833, which he later described as ‘essentially a national document’.1 The group portraits of reforming triumphs served to create a Liberal or Whig narrative of gradual constitutional progress achieved through reasoned and peaceful debate. However, the grand ambitions of such pictures were frequently undercut by technological and economic difficulties. The size and detail of the paintings, and the cost in time and money of producing prints, meant that the market for these representations had often dwindled by the time such projects were completed. There was a tension between these pictures’ aims of capturing important historical moments for posterity and the more immediate need to cash in on the temporary market prompted by a surge in political excitement. Most famously, Hayter’s project took ten years to complete, by which time a Conservative government was in office that was ill-disposed to purchase for the nation a tribute to the reforming triumph of their political enemies from a decade earlier.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 114

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

115

Haydon, Hayter and the commemoration of reform The popularity of reform spawned a great quantity of material and visual culture in the early 1830s. Opponents as well as supporters acknowledged the 1832 Reform Act as a political watershed. The passing of the Act in July 1832 was celebrated around the country with reform jubilees and festivals in many places. Eminent artists such as Sir George Hayter (1792–1871) and Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846) sought to capitalise on the popular enthusiasm for reform. Both men embarked on ambitious group portraits containing a huge number of sitters. As a genre, these pictures combined portraiture and history painting to develop a national narrative in which reforming triumphs were seen as the achievements of heroic individuals. Hayter later commented that his ‘sole aim was history by portraiture’.2 While this reveals the potency of portraiture, the troubles that beset the mammoth enterprises of Haydon and Hayter highlight the difficulties of this specific genre. As with political portraiture more generally, there was a tension between currency and posterity: between swiftly exploiting a demand for political images on the one hand, and, on the other, providing authoritative depictions for posterity. Hayter was essentially a Whig portraitist. His group portrait of Queen Caroline’s trial (1820–23), although ostensibly neutral, depicted proceedings that did not reflect very creditably on King George IV or his Tory ministers.3 His patrons included the Whig grandee John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, who commissioned him to paint The Execution of William, Lord Russell (1825). This was a sympathetic portrayal of one of Bedford’s ancestors from the late seventeenth century as a Whig martyr. Hayter later described Bedford as ‘my first and greatest patron’.4 In 1837 Hayter was appointed portrait and history painter to Queen Victoria, becoming principal painter in ordinary to the monarch in 1841, and he was knighted the following year. It was no coincidence that the pinnacle of Hayter’s royal patronage and influence came at a time when the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, was surrounding the young queen with Whig courtiers. Indeed, from both political principle and self-interest Hayter closely identified with the Whig administration. When Melbourne’s government resigned in May 1839, Hayter confessed that he was ‘so agitated that I could not paint all day’.5 The news that Sir Robert Peel and the Conservatives had declined to take office, allowing the Whigs to resume their place in government, ‘put me in better spirits’ Hayter reflected.6 After Victoria’s marriage to Albert in 1840, Hayter’s stock began to wane at court. German art, promoted by Albert, was increasingly fashionable.7 The Prince Consort was himself the president of the Fine Arts Commission, which recommended that frescos, modelled on the Bavarian example, decorate the New Palace of Westminster.8 Secondly, Hayter’s private life, notably his separation from his first wife, after which he had fathered children by another woman, was at odds with the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 115

23/09/2014 11:54

116

Politics personified

domestic virtues preached and projected by the Victorian court. Although Hayter’s familiarity with royal and aristocratic patrons meant he was extremely well connected, he was largely a self-made man and remained something of an outsider in the artistic world of his day. He was never admitted as a member of the Royal Academy of Art (RA), for example. In 1837 the admiring Morning Chronicle noted that throughout his career Hayter had had to ‘work up hill’ and overcome great ‘obstacles and prejudices’.9 By contrast, Haydon was the last of a series of thinkers and painters, going back to Sir Joshua Reynolds in the mid-eighteenth century, who believed that High Art, above all history painting, had a national duty to promote public virtue. Furthermore, they argued that there was a connection between the health of art and the health of the body politic.10 The chief aim of Haydon’s life was to pioneer an English school of history painting, and he argued that the state should publicly fund High Art for this purpose. History painting, by picturing scenes from classical or historical narratives, had the power to tell national stories. In Haydon’s view, the noble art of history painting had been injured by the low politics of the RA, which he regarded as a conspiracy of mediocre portraitists who cared more about maintaining their own privileged position than promoting High Art. As Haydon cynically observed, the Academy were a ‘set of men who claim the privileges of a private society the moment you attempt to interfere with them, and come forward as [a] public one the moment any advantage is to be gained’.11 In the 1830s Haydon was one of the leading campaigners for reform of the RA to parallel the reform of Parliament.12 As portraitists, Royal Academicians were able to manipulate and influence politicians and other eminent figures who sat for them, and for this reason Haydon had a low opinion of portraiture. When Sir Robert Peel suggested to him in 1830 that the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence, generally regarded as the greatest portrait painter of his day, created a vacancy for another artist to fill, Haydon did not take the hint.13 In Haydon’s opinion, Lawrence had succeeded by ‘obsequious flattery’, perverting the painter’s responsibility for artistic truth.14 Haydon complained that Lawrence ‘perfume[d]’ his sitters, for example, by portraying them all with glittering, bright eyes.15 Haydon’s political opinions were generally secondary to his campaign against the RA, and shifted depending on which party he thought would be more favourable to his scheme for state patronage of history painting.16 He had been a Tory and as late as August 1831 praised Peel for resisting the reform bill.17 However, he quickly became caught up in the enthusiasm for reform, and wrote three pro-reform letters to The Times.18 His anxiety about the fate of reform meant that he could not sleep during the ‘days of May’ in 1832.19 Throughout the 1830s he successively idolised different politicians including Thomas Attwood, Earl Grey, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, until they disappointed his expectations. Although Haydon disdained portraiture,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 116

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

117

his belief in heroes drew him towards the genre. Perennially beset by financial difficulties, including regular stints in the debtors’ prison, Haydon realised that portraiture would pay dividends if he could master the basic skills.20 He told himself he would never abandon High Art, but Haydon moved into portraiture with a series of group paintings over the next decade. Even one of the most forthright critics of portraiture appreciated its power to create narratives that were usually regarded as the province of history painting. The financial, political and artistic attractions of a large group portrait on the theme of reform were manifold for ambitious painters such as Hayter and Haydon. One newspaper cyncially suggested that the object of such paintings was to get ‘popular characters to sit for portraits, doomed to be sold afterwards to print-sellers’ for the profit of the artist.21 With characteristic enterprise, Hayter charged his sitters 10 guineas for their character study and for the privilege of appearing in the painting, something Haydon refused to do as a ‘gentleman’.22 The sittings also provided the painter with the opportunity to secure further private commissions from the sitters.23 Given his financial position Haydon was not oblivious to the potential commercial benefits, but group portraiture was attractive for other reasons as well. He could take advantage of the individual sittings to lobby leading politicians in favour of his pet scheme for state funding of High Art and to brief against the RA, who were ‘the boroughmongers of the Art’.24 He prided himself on refusing to massage the egos of his sitters as other, more experienced portraitists did. Contrasting himself with his rival, Haydon reflected that ‘Hayter is a d___ clever fellow, professing the most abject servility of admiration, but makes them pay. I talk to them, argue with them, am not servile, and disdain to make ’em pay.’25 After Hayter’s assiduous attention to the young Queen Victoria led to his appointment as royal portrait painter in 1837, Haydon wrote ‘he is a courtier, which I am not’.26 Although Hayter was more professional in his dealings with sitters than Haydon, he also ran into great difficulties due to the labour and time required to complete his huge painting. Even though he was disenfranchised by the 1832 Reform Act, Haydon was inspired by its passing and initially intended to immortalise the popular agitation.27 He proposed to members of the Birmingham Political Union (BPU) that he would paint a picture of the great meeting on Newhall Hill in May 1832, one of the huge meetings in favour of the reform bill after the dismissal of Grey’s ministry by William IV. He suggested that the work could be funded by public subscription and travelled to Birmingham to set the project in motion. Such a painting, he noted, would give an ‘immense popular impulse to the art’, and with it, his prospects.28 At this stage, Haydon was impressed by Attwood, the BPU’s leader, writing after their first sitting that he was a ‘wonderful man, with a strong natural understanding. His features are well cut, and vigorous … an extraordinary man, and really a leader.’29 The picture would keep ‘alive

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 117

23/09/2014 11:54

118

Politics personified

the remembrance of the people of their heroic & unadulterated conduct in the great political contest for Reform’.30 However, when the subscriptions were not forthcoming Haydon was forced to abandon the enterprise.31 He offered the unfinished oil sketch to Grey, but the prime minister declined. He did not want a picture that immortalised a popular agitation that he and many other Whigs had been anxious to discourage.32 Instead, in July 1832 Grey invited Haydon to a banquet to celebrate the passing of reform held at the Guildhall in the City of London, which he was subsequently commissioned to paint. The picture would therefore privilege the role of Whig ministers, above all Grey, in passing reform, rather than popular feeling, although a few Radical MPs were included. The commission, worth 500 guineas, was a financial lifeline for Haydon.33 The next eighteen months working on the project were among the happiest of Haydon’s career, and an exhilarating experience. He enjoyed arguing with Whig aristocrats over his ideas about art, and exchanging social and political gossip. His political views changed accordingly; he became critical of Radicals like Attwood and venerated the Whigs, although he remained a perceptive observer of their individual foibles, such as Grey’s vanity. By contrast, the idea for Hayter’s painting was originally suggested by his friend, Charles Hamilton. It is unclear why Hayter selected the first meeting of the reformed Commons rather than the one of the critical votes in the passing of the reform bill in 1831. Joe Coohill has suggested that choosing the former would show ‘that political transition in Britain was organic and orderly’.34 The work had no patron or purchaser when it was commenced; Hayter was operating on his own account. His project was widely recognised as a ‘Herculean task’.35 Unlike Haydon, Hayter was experienced in large portrait painting, and he hoped to replicate the success of The Trial of Queen Caroline, although the House of Commons picture would contain significantly more likenesses. In 1837 the Morning Chronicle commented that Hayter’s picture contained 400 portraits ‘drawn with the minute accuracy of miniatures, but … so judiciously and skilfully as to avoid all appearance of formality’. Despite depicting rows of men, the newspaper thought Hayter had avoided a monotonous appearance and even revealed the ‘individuality of the persons represented’.36 In his 1843 catalogue to the exhibition of The House of Commons, 1833, Hayter singled out composition, expression, light, shade and colour as the chief problems with the design. The question was how to avoid the ‘monotony of form’ which the etiquette and architecture of the House imposed, especially when depicting rows of MPs. It was not normal for MPs to have extreme expressions during the debate on the address, normally a non-partisan event, so Hayter had to rely on body language rather than facial expression to provide variety. Secondly, the style and colour of the costumes of the sitters were remarkably similar and were generally heavy materials rather than reflective ones such as silk or satin,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 118

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

119

which increased Hayter’s difficulty with light. The Commons chamber drew light from two sources; to add further artificial light would leave Hayter vulnerable to the charge that the scene was not truthful or accurate, an accusation about which he was sensitive.37 By contrast, there was more variety in Haydon’s banquet, with candles, mirrors and silk draperies providing light and reflection, and objects and the bustling waiters serving to break up the monotony.38 As with the printed portrait series examined in chapters 2 and 3, the group paintings raised questions about inclusion and exclusion. These were not merely matters of individual importance but of wider significance. Omitting or adding different political figures could subtly alter the political meaning of group pictures. To some extent Hayter avoided this problem by charging MPs for the privilege of sitting and appearing in the painting. Yet he also included a number of peers, such as the Duke of Wellington, Earl Grey and Lord Melbourne, in front of the bar of the House, a conceit that allowed him to include leading politicians who would not necessarily have been present.39 Haydon liked to think of himself as a depicter of artistic truth rather than a portraitist catering to the whims of his subjects, but he was quickly faced

Figure 4.1  J. Bromley after B.R. Haydon, The Reform Banquet, 1832, 1 July 1837. Mezzotint. 21 x 26½ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 119

23/09/2014 11:54

120

Politics personified

with decisions about inclusion and exclusion that were essentially political. He came under pressure from Whigs to drop Attwood from the picture, which was resisted after Lord Althorp insisted on his inclusion. Although he viewed Attwood’s radical political opinions with distaste, Althorp thought it wrong to omit a man who had undoubtedly played a key part in the passing of reform.40 There was also the question of whether to depict absentees, including venerable Whigs such as the Duke of Bedford, Lord Holland and Lord Essex.41 Lord John Russell lobbied for the inclusion of his elder brother, the Marquess of Tavistock.42 All these absentees were included in the final picture.43 Grey’s radical and impetuous son-in-law Lord Durham objected to being in the picture, as he was in Russia at the time. This decision suited Durham’s long-suffering cabinet colleagues, but Haydon, an admirer of the peer, planned to inscribe his name on one of the banners in the painting.44 There was also a debate about whether the seating arrangements should be accurately recorded. Russell argued that the picture should present the most important politicians in more prominent positions than others, whereas Lord Lansdowne insisted that the composition be an accurate historical record.45 Haydon later noted drily that all those of high rank argued for the painting to accurately reflect the seating arrangements, which were done according to social position, while ‘all those whose talents entitled them to distinction say “Place them as they are entitled from talent & honesty in the cause, & never mind rank!!!”’.46 In the case of Russell, whose importance in the passing of reform was indisputable, Haydon’s ‘conscience would not allow me to keep him by the side: I therefore put him on the line of honour’.47 Haydon found the sittings a pleasurable experience and his diary offers a valuable insight into the practical workings of what art historians call the ‘portrait transaction’: the way in which portraits are shaped by the interaction between the artist and sitter. Haydon was seduced by his sittings with the Whigs, just as his Birmingham experience had briefly radicalised him. He enjoyed his conversations with leading Whigs, especially Lords Melbourne and Palmerston, whom he thought civilised, amiable, witty men of the world.48 Collectively he was impressed by their refined appearances, which he attributed to their blue blood. As he wrote ‘The Whigs have all fine heads, pure in expression’.49 After sketching one of the Cavendish family, he wrote the ‘beauty of high breeding is delightful’.50 He also admired their honesty, for instance praising Althorp’s ‘manly frankness and simplicity’.51 Influenced by phrenology and physiognomy, Haydon thought the faces, heads and physical appearance of the Whigs revealed their character traits. He idealised Grey as ‘tall in figure, refined in look, and noble in principle’.52 He predicted of Lord Stanley, then a rising star in the Whig cabinet, that his ‘head announces that he will be the [prime] minister one day’.53 (This proved to be correct as after becoming the Conservative leader and succeeding as

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 120

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

121

14th Earl of Derby, he served as premier on three occasions, 1852, 1858–59 and 1866–68.) At this time, Stanley’s renown as a brilliant orator was matched by a reputation for being a difficult cabinet colleague, and an abrasive Irish chief secretary. Indeed, while sitting for Haydon in 1833, Stanley caustically commented on his fellow ministers, including Russell and Melbourne.54 He was equally dismissive of the new cohort of MPs and remarked with characteristic haughtiness that ‘they wanted hunting, like a pack of hounds, & would soon come into order’. Impressed but also intimidated by Stanley, Haydon wrote of his sitter that ‘he has an eye like a bird of prey, as if impatient of all human obstructions’.55 While Haydon enjoyed the cut and thrust of debating art and politics with his sitters, he also experienced the pressures that portraitists faced to flatter their subjects. As he was employed by Grey, he had a more equal relationship with his other sitters than would ordinarily be the case.56 However, this also meant that there was a ‘great deal of management’ to arrange sittings, whereas had they been paying clients the onus would have been on them.57 Furthermore, the sitters and their families were not slow to offer their opinions on their likenesses and that of others. Wives frequently complained that the likenesses of their husbands were insufficiently handsome.58 Grey’s family were the hardest to please. Even when Haydon thought he had really captured Grey’s likeness, they demanded he make alterations. ‘The anxiety of all the family [is] about Lord Grey’s mouth because he has lost his teeth’, Haydon complained.59 Althorp endorsed Haydon’s modified portrait of Grey, but as late as 1837 the artist was touching up the picture at the behest of the Greys.60 Exhibiting reform Conceived during a time of political excitement, by the time The Reform Banquet and The House of Commons, 1833 had been completed the political climate had greatly changed, to the detriment of both artists. The length of time devoted to the projects by both men meant that they faced financial difficulties when they could not secure remuneration commensurate for their labour. Although the paintings proved a disappointment to the artists in this respect, they nonetheless provided a distinctive view of reform, parliamentary government and political leadership in the reformed era. Contemporary attitudes towards Hayter’s and Haydon’s paintings were partially influenced by political feeling. When Haydon’s commission was first announced, the Whig Morning Chronicle hailed the commemoration of the new charter of liberty for the people.61 By contrast, the Tory Albion sniped that the picture should resemble Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress to provide a true depiction of the consequences of reform.62 When the painting was finally exhibited the most ferocious and sharpest criticism came from the Tory Fraser’s Magazine,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 121

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 122

23/09/2014 11:54

Figure 4.2  Sir G. Hayter, The House of Commons, 1833 (1833–43). Oil painting. 17 ft 8⅜ inches x 11 ft 4¼ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Political group portraiture and history painting

123

which roundly condemned the painting as well as Haydon’s over-exuberant catalogue.63 This famous review was more a character assassination of Haydon, who was described as ‘an insufferable coxcomb’ and a ‘Jackass Painter’, than a considered piece of art criticism.64 In picturing the triumphant reformers Haydon inevitably aroused the ire of their political opponents. Hayter did not make the same mistake, portraying Parliament and Conservatives as well as Liberals/Reformers in an ostensibly unbiased way. His painting was not neutral, however, but commemorated reform more subtly. Less polemical reviewers gave a mixed but perhaps overall slightly favourable reception to Haydon’s work. The Morning Chronicle, while hailing the immortalisation of Grey and other worthies, found the picture wanting as a work of art. This was due to the insurmountable problem of representing a large aggregation of individuals. The finished painting featured 111 portraits. In spite of Haydon’s ingenuity with the composition, such a grouping was ‘essentially vulgar’.65 Other critics thought that Haydon had managed to avoid the stiffness associated with portraying a formal event.66 Opinion was divided on the quality of the likenesses. Grey’s portrait was universally praised, but critics differed about other sitters. For example, Althorp’s and Stanley’s likenesses were singled out for approbation and criticism by different commentators.67 As this suggests, political likenesses were carefully scrutinised for their quality by contemporary observers, but such judgements were always essentially subjective. Hayter finally finished his monumental picture in 1843. It included 375 individual portraits and was 170 square feet in size. It was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in London from April to August 1843, but the costs exceeded the receipts by £700.68 When the painting toured Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1843–44 ‘it barely paid its expenses’, even though 10,000 people went to the Edinburgh exhibition.69 (There was no exhibition in Dublin as Hayter feared that he would offend the queen, his patron, if O’Connell made political capital out of it while on display.)70 If Hayter’s 1843 exhibition made a loss, it was at least well attended by a glittering array of nobility, royalty and high society.71 There were 1,100 applications for tickets in the first two days and there were so many visitors that the exhibition had to be extended.72 As Coohill has commented, Hayter’s painting, both at the time and since, was praised for its technical ingenuity rather than its artistic merits.73 The Art-Union thought that Hayter had successfully avoided monotony and completed a remarkable picture commemorating a landmark political event.74 This verdict was shared by other newspapers which praised the ‘very faithful and spirited’ likenesses.75 The quality of the portraits was emphasised by many reviewers, but Hayter’s painting was also admired as a work of history painting, that is, for capturing a momentous event for posterity.76 The Morning Post, however, thought that despite Hayter’s ingenuity with light and varying the composition, the rows of MPs were ‘monotonous’, though

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 123

23/09/2014 11:54

124

Politics personified

this was the fault of the subject rather than the artist.77 This is a view shared by some modern critics of the painting. The spectator views the ­parliamentary scene as if sitting in the strangers’ gallery, but the number of sitters in the painting means that the individual portraits are small and set back.78 This has a distancing effect, meaning that the painting lacks ‘frontality’, to use an art historical term.79 By contrast, earlier Hanoverian history paintings depicting famous parliamentary scenes, such as John Singleton Copley’s The Collapse of the Earl of Chatham in the House of Lords, 7 July 1778 (1779–80, Tate Gallery), had a smaller cast of larger figures who seemed to leap out at the viewer. Such pictures had a dramatic quality in comparison to the inertness of Hayter’s picture. In her Picturing Reform in Victorian Britain (2012), Janice Carlisle has written that the overall effect of Hayter’s painting is a ‘dead oneness … a mindnumbing multitude of figures’.80 She argues that the monotony of the picture makes it ‘hard to imagine that this body of men, the products of reform, can ever become active and energetic agents of further change’, not least because so many of them were aristocrats or landed gentlemen.81 Yet the 1832 Reform Act was never intended to substantially change the social status of MPs. Furthermore, in its early years the reformed Commons passed landmark legislation to abolish slavery in the British empire, and radically reform English and Scottish local government and the poor laws, to give just a few examples. To emphasise the monotony of appearance and social homogeneity of the MPs who were portrayed is to miss the important political changes that were a consequence of the Reform Act. For example, Conservatives came to accept the Act in the 1830s, but disliked the style of government it ushered in. Tory writers hated the perpetual agitation actively encouraged by Whig ministers, which promised to unsettle other institutions that they held dear, including the established Churches of England and Ireland and the House of Lords.82 Although the debate on the address to the king’s speech was traditionally an unpartisan event, it was hardly without political excitement and controversy given the passage of reform. Indeed the speech of the Earl of Ormelie, MP for Perthshire, who is pictured moving the address, extensively praised reform, particularly of the Scottish representative system for freeing the nation from a ‘selfish and prejudiced oligarchy’.83 Additionally, he called for reform of the Irish Church and tithe, the Bank of England and East India Company charters and the Church of England.84 The Reform Act, contrary to what Carlisle suggests, opened, rather than closed, the way for further reforms. The picture may appear monotonous to modern eyes, but contemporaries viewed it through a different perspective. The Glasgow Herald thought that ‘almost every individual countenance stands out as prominently as though the picture had been painted for it alone’.85 Victorian commentators did not find it monotonous because they could appreciate the individuality and character

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 124

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

125

of the sitters depicted, as the Whig politician Edward John Littleton, Lord Hatherton, observed: Went to view the exhibition of Sir George Hayter’s paintings – especially that of the Great Picture of the Reform Parlt – the studies also are exhibited – some much better finished than others; & my portrait one of the best finished – Sir George told me that the Duchess of Kent had pronounced mine the handsomest head of the lot & soon after asked me to subscribe to a large engraving of the picture – proofs 20 guineas, prints 6/- which, notwithstanding the flattery, I resisted – the best likenesses among the prominent portraits, are Lord Grey, the Duke of Wellington, Ld Melbourne, Ld Lyndhurst – I consider the first & two last the best portraits of the men ever painted for not only are the features & complexion exact, but the position of the figures shews their political attitudes – Posterity will see in them the very men. O’Connell too is very good. I think my own likeness in the great picture is better than the study – For it was intended that my Body should be thrown back, as it is, in the great picture – But it was difficult in adding a complete figure, to the study of the head, to the body. Sir George Hayter said he believed no picture of the size, & containing an equal number of portraits had ever been painted – Twenty years have passed between the painting of Queen Caroline’s Trial by Hayter, & this picture. The style of each is the same – But the progress the Master had made in colouring in the interval is very striking.86

An advertisement, probably written by Hayter or his son, argued that the painting provided a ‘silent narration’ on the reformed political system and the nature of the constitution.87 In one sense the painting presented the traditional three pillars of the constitution. The Commons was represented by the MPs and the chamber; the Lords by the peers who were present; and the monarch’s presence was implied by the royal coat of arms above the speaker’s chair and the debate on the address to the king’s speech.88 Even so, the three branches are not equal in this picture; MPs predominated and as Ormelie noted in his speech, a ‘large majority of the House’ were Reformers.89 However, the painting did not portray the overwhelming parliamentary majority that the Whigs had, partly because some non-Conservatives, most notably O’Connell, sat on the opposition benches rather than behind the government frontbench.90 More subtly, Hayter presented two almost equally matched sides of the House, but the Whig or government side occupied slightly more space due to the tilt in the picture’s perspective.91 While he was careful to avoid charges of party bias, Hayter’s picture nonetheless endorses a reforming narrative. The Reform Act reinvigorated parliamentary government. The lack of drama and variation that modern eyes find so dreary made a highly significant point in the political climate of the time. Showing an orderly, sober, deliberative assembly was a visual rebuttal of the doom-laden predictions of Tory writers such as John Wilson Croker, who had argued that the new House would be unruly and incompetent. The reformed

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 125

23/09/2014 11:54

126

Politics personified

Commons is portrayed as a deliberative body. The Whig ministers are the heroes of the picture, leading a reform-minded assembly that was responsive to public opinion and willing to propose further reforms that had been mentioned in many MPs’ speeches both on the hustings at the 1832 general election and in the debate on the address. The picture therefore reflected two aspects of the Whig creed: a belief in a public-spirited and responsive aristocracy, and a belief in parliamentary discussion as the basis for political consensus and action.92 Although he had no formal commission, Hayter had always expected that his painting would become national property upon its completion; indeed he had been assured by MPs that this would be the case. However, by the time he had finished it in 1843 ‘the new [Conservative] ministry were averse to purchasing it’.93 Although the director of the National Gallery, Sir Charles Eastlake, said that the reason for the rejection of the picture by the government was the lack of space in the gallery, Hayter attributed it to ‘the political feelings against it by the Tories’.94 Peel was a great connoisseur of art and had built a portrait gallery at his country seat, Drayton Manor, containing specially commissioned likenesses of his political colleagues and heroes.95 However, Peel and his government had little incentive to purchase a painting that memorialised the triumph of reform and immortalised the first reformed Commons, which many Conservatives had viewed with disdain. In commemorating the Reform Act, the picture celebrated the triumph of the Whig ministry and also the Whig view of history as requiring a responsive, public-spirited aristocracy to play a central role in protecting and extending popular liberties. This was at odds with the Peelite notion of disinterested and expert government by a high-minded executive, pursuing administrative and financial reforms rather than institutional reforms.96 It was revealing that after the Conservative government declined to purchase the painting for the nation, Hayter looked to Whig patrons such as the Dukes of Sutherland and Bedford, the Marquess of Breadalbane (as Ormelie was known after succeeding to his father’s title) and Earl Spencer.97 Hayter had also undertaken many private commissions for Whig patrons and, unlike Haydon, he was consistent in his political sympathies. Unfortunately, Breadalbane baulked at the asking price of £2,700, and the picture was too large to fit into Bedford’s country seat, Woburn Abbey. The duke suggested that the painting be offered to the Reform Club.98 Another way to make money from paintings was through engravings. Hayter had intended to use the Egyptian Hall exhibition to attract subscriptions, as Hatherton observed in the above quote.99 However, the painting’s size, detail and the sheer number of portraits made it almost impossible to engrave. Ernest Gambart, the famous print-seller, suggested that ‘it wd. take at least 10 years’ to engrave.100 Hayter was so desperate to recoup some money for his vast enterprise that he was

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 126

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

127

receptive to a businessman’s offer to buy the painting for £5,000 so that it could be raffled; however, the government blocked this as illegal, much to the painter’s chagrin.101 Hayter resumed lobbying politicians to buy his painting in the 1850s. In 1854 he secured permission from Lord John Russell, then leader of the Commons in Lord Aberdeen’s coalition, to hang the painting in the Palace of Westminster. This was conceived as a way of rekindling interest and canvassing support from MPs and peers to buy the painting for the nation.102 At the same time, Hayter opened negotiations with William Gladstone, the chancellor of the exchequer, but the outbreak of the Crimean War put paid to this campaign.103 Hayter did, however, secure the right for the painting to remain in the Palace of Westminster. Following Russell’s advice, Hayter sent out circulars to MPs, enabling him to compile a list of parliamentary supporters for the purchase of the painting that could be presented to the new chancellor, Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Gladstone, now on the backbenches after resigning from Palmerston’s government, was unreceptive, arguing that not only was it ‘unconstitutional for MPs to advise any expenditure by gov[ernmen]t, but that their business is to oppose grants!’, as an exasperated Hayter wrote in his diary.104 The fall of Palmerston’s ministry in February 1858 depressed Hayter. A growing problem was that, as time passed, more and more sitters died off, weakening potential political support for purchasing the painting. By January 1858, 120 of the 375 sitters were dead.105 To Hayter’s surprise, in June 1859 the Conservative leader of the Commons and chancellor of the exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, agreed to buy the picture for the nation, with the price to be settled after consulting experts such as Eastlake.106 The purchase, for the agreed sum of £2,000, still had to be approved by Parliament. In the debate in August 1859, some MPs expressed irritation that they were being asked to rubber stamp a purchase that had already been agreed and argued that the money should have come from the annual grant to the National Gallery or the newly established National Portrait Gallery.107 Gladstone, who was again chancellor after the fall of Derby’s government, declined to take any responsibility for his predecessor’s actions, but observed that a majority of MPs had stated their support for the purchase. Furthermore, he thought his predecessors were justified in buying the picture on the grounds of its ‘intrinsic value … as representing a most important era in our parliamentary history’.108 Gladstone also considered that the price of £2,000 was cheap given the time and labour Hayter had expended on the painting. Other MPs agreed with Gladstone that the picture ‘commemorated a great national event’ far more important that the many battles ‘which were often recorded by the painter at the national expense’.109 Whereas the Art Journal argued that the painting was a ‘historic document’ due to the ‘large body of contemporary portraits’ it featured, MPs laid much greater stress on Hayter’s picture as a

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 127

23/09/2014 11:54

128

Politics personified

history painting, commemorating a landmark moment in the history of Parliament and the nation.110 Disraeli’s purchase may have been motivated by a wish to ‘impress on the country the necessity for occasional Parliamentary Reform’, one Liberal MP suggested.111 Whether coincidence or not, the buying of the painting came at a time when the Conservative administration were keen to take the initiative on this issue, as their 1859 reform bill showed. The Liberals had resumed office by the time of the Commons vote to approve the purchase in August 1859. The vote resulted in a tie, but was approved on the casting vote of the Speaker.112 In informing the queen of the vote, Palmerston, who was prime minister again, remarked that the painting was ‘an indifferent work of art, and a Collection of bad Likenesses but the money had been actually paid by the late Government, and the vote was required to Sanction the Payment’.113 Haydon also found his experience of picturing reform to be unremunerative and tinged with disappointment. His original commission from Grey was worth 500 guineas.114 However, as with his earlier pictures, Haydon’s method of working, his need to paint huge paintings, meant that the money proved to be disproportionate to the twenty months he spent on The Reform Banquet.115 When the picture was finally exhibited from April to August 1834 it proved to be a disaster for Haydon, producing a loss of £230.116 In Haydon’s view the reason for the debacle was simple: ‘the middle classes do not come’ and this was due to the government’s unpopularity.117 Conceived during the height of the Whigs’ popularity, it was Haydon’s misfortune to display the painting during a period in which they had lost their lustre with much of the public. The financial implications of the exhibition’s failure were exacerbated by other factors. The City of London Corporation did not order a copy of the painting, as originally intended.118 The engraving of the painting was finally published in July 1837, five years after the banquet and shortly before another general election which further reduced the parliamentary majority of the Reformers and left the Whig ministry even more dependent upon Irish and Radical support in the Commons.119 The engraving, 23 by 24 inches, was of an ‘imposing size and character’, and was available at three prices: 10, 5 and 3 guineas.120 By the time the engraving was published Reformers such as Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham and Sir Francis Burdett had crossed the floor. The Whig Morning Chronicle mischieviously asked whether such turncoats should have been omitted or portrayed with their backs to the viewer.121 On the other hand, Haydon benefited from Althorp’s father, Earl Spencer, purchasing the chalk sketches for £210 for his London residence, Spencer House.122 Haydon’s plan to use The Reform Banquet as a platform to promote an English school of history painting was also frustrated.123 No public ­commissions were forthcoming. He lobbied Grey about a series of history paintings for the House of Lords to illustrate the best system of government, but the premier was unreceptive.124 After Melbourne became prime minister Haydon continued

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 128

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

129

to promote his idea of history paintings in the House of Lords. The exchange offered a revealing insight into their views about art. Haydon intended to show abstract forms of government through examples drawn from history, with ‘Revolution’ illustrated by a scene from the French Revolution and ‘Anarchy’ by a group of banditti. ‘Moral Right’ would be represented by jury trial and ‘Limited Monarchy’ by the king, Lords and Commons. Melbourne baulked at the abstract ideas and insisted that ‘the subjects ought all to refer to the House of Lords & English history’.125 Melbourne’s preferences coincided with the subject matter of the murals that were belatedly completed for the New Palace of Westminster in 1927, which depicted scenes from English (and British) history to tell a Whiggish narrative about the gradual extension of civil and religious liberty and parliamentary oversight.126 The Whigs’ unwillingness to take up Haydon’s ideas about High Art soured his feelings about The Reform Banquet. Furthermore, his earlier enthusiasm for reform had effectively burned his bridges with the Conservatives. ‘It is impossible for me now after my devotion & enthusiasm for the Whigs, after the absurd Catalogue I wrote about them [for the Reform Banquet exhibition], ever to mingle again in political matters without deserved ridicule’, he wrote despairingly in his diary.127 The decline of heroic group portraiture The problems encountered by Haydon and Hayter provided ample warning about the difficulties of monumental political group portraiture, and pictures on that scale were not attempted again. However, the genre was adaptable, and in the 1840s two of the most important middle-class pressure groups, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) and the Anti-Corn Law League, commissioned smaller group portraits. These images reflected a different view of politics and political change. Instead of depicting parliamentary reformers and Whig aristocrats, these portraits would celebrate the indefatigable campaigners who forced elite politicians to act. The pictures are revealing of the self-image of two of the most important pressure groups in what was an era of agitation. Although the pictures displayed the flexibility of the genre, they were again beset by delays and other issues that demonstrated the problematic nature of political group portraiture. In 1840 the BFASS invited Haydon to paint their great convention, which included campaigners from both sides of the Atlantic.128 Although his experience of The Reform Banquet had embittered him towards group paintings, Haydon could hardly afford to turn down the commission. He hoped the painting would do the anti-slavery cause good, but he was much more emotionally detached from the picture than from The Reform Banquet. He also found the abolitionists less congenial sitters than the Whig noblemen. He regarded the Quaker leader of the American women’s delegation, Lucretia Mott, as an ‘infidel’

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 129

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 130

23/09/2014 11:54

Figure 4.3  S. Bellin after J.R. Herbert, Meeting of the Council of the Anti-Corn Law League, 1850. Line and stipple engraving. 20⅞ x 36⅜ inches.

Political group portraiture and history painting

131

due to her religious views and demoted her position in the picture.129 Instead of being accorded the prominent place her status merited, Haydon vindictively placed Mott in the distance, ‘barely distinguishable among the generic mass of bonnets’ representing the female abolitionists.130 Haydon recorded in his diary that he was ‘bored to death’ with the ‘air of weighty importance’ exuded by the celebrated anti-slavery campaigner Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton.131 The Anti-Slavery Convention was completed much more quickly than The Reform Banquet.132 The picture was exhibited from 10 May 1841 and a lithographic print was also published. Haydon considered the exhibition a failure, not least because of the bad reviews. The picture’s qualities can be seen more positively when it is judged as part of the genre of political group portraiture. Like The Reform Banquet, The Anti-Slavery Convention depicted a live event witnessed by the artist. It lacked the inert quality of most of the other pictures under consideration in this chapter and gave a sense of the enthuasiasm and zeal of the anti-slavery cause, which, furthermore, was presented as a transatlantic enterprise. The picture portrayed a campaign still in action rather than simply commemorating past achievements. It was, nevertheless, a misleading account of the convention, which was riven by disputes over antislavery strategy, particularly the use of force to suppress the slave trade. The picture, unlike many group political portraits, included women and a number of black Britons. But a closer study of the context reveals that the picture also reflected gender and racial assumptions within the anti-slavery movement.133 For example, the BFASS’s insistence that female activists be excluded from the floor of the convention was vigorously objected to by many of the American delegates. It was entirely appropriate, therefore, that Haydon’s painting relegated women to the margins. Haydon was also astonished when John Scoble, the BFASS secretary, refused to be portrayed next to the British freed slave William Beckford.134 A plan to publish colour prints after the picture, using a new reproductive process of oil printing patented by George Baxter, seems to have come to nothing. Although there was a campaign for subscriptions, the cost, estimated at nearly £2,000, seems to have put paid to this scheme.135 Haydon’s Anti-Slavery Convention was lent to the Anti-Corn Law League for their great bazaar in Manchester in 1842, where it was a source ‘of great attraction throughout the week’.136 There was a close affinity between the two campaigns. As Simon Morgan has argued, the League employed many strategies, such as use of the press and petitioning campaigns, that had been the hallmark of the anti-slavery movement.137 Both pressure groups tapped the energy and zeal of provincial Dissent and, especially, middle-class women. However, it was only after the repeal of the corn laws that Thomas Agnew, the Manchester art dealer and print-seller, commissioned a group portrait of the Anti-Corn Law League, having earlier published a semi-official series of likenesses.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 131

23/09/2014 11:54

132

Politics personified

The project was announced with great fanfare in July 1846, shortly after the repeal of the corn laws had secured the royal assent. Agnew declared that the picture would provide a ‘permanent memorial of the council of the League’. The establishment of free trade was one of the most remarkable events in the history of ‘the civilised world’ and the men who had achieved it would be ‘recognised as the benefactors of mankind to remote generations’. Unlike Haydon’s anti-slavery painting, the explicit rationale for the painting was to produce an engraving to be ‘sold at such a price as to place [it] within the reach of persons of moderate fortune’.138 The steel-engraved prints would be 24 by 22 inches and sold for 10, 7 or 3 guineas.139 There was certainly a market for commemorative free trade memorabilia, as illustrated by the portraits of Cobden and Bright that were given away with some newspapers shortly after repeal. Agnew encouraged people to subscribe for the engraving, which was a shrewd move given the inevitable delays. Even if the print was published some years later the subscription list would give Agnew a guaranteed audience, providing that the subscriptions were honoured. Agnew had made his fortune selling paintings to the Lancastrian bourgeoisie and exploiting the middle-class demand for fine art prints.140 But even his formidable business acumen could not prevent some of the perennial difficulties of political group portraiture from recurring. His commission of John Rogers Herbert to paint the picture was described as a ‘grievous error’ by the Art Journal.141 A dispute between Agnew and Herbert delayed the completion of the painting until late 1847.142 Like Haydon, Herbert mischieviously punished sitters who he disliked. A Roman Catholic, Herbert apparently painted out the head of the Dissenting minister R.W. Massie due to his membership of the Protestant Alliance, which campaigned against the state subsidy to the Catholic seminary in Maynooth, Ireland.143 The technical difficulties in engraving a large group portrait were again underlined by the fact that the prints were not published until autumn 1850. There were 600 of the 10-guinea prints produced and 300 of the 7-guinea prints, published on India paper.144 It is likely that there was a greater number of the cheapest category of prints published, but no figure has survived. Advertisements for the print quoted testimonials, including one from the miniaturist Thomas Carrick, who declared the engraving was ‘brilliant in execution, and the likenesses have been conveyed with great fidelity’.145 Despite Agnew’s promise to include ‘less prominent members’ who had made important contributions to the free trade campaign, the engraving presented a respectable image. Like the portrait gallery series of prints, there was no place for the rabble-rousing anti-corn law lecturer James Acland or for Joseph Livesey, whose cheap newspaper The Struggle (1842–46) appealed to a more popular audience than the League’s publications. Sitters included a few noble free traders who were never members of the League’s council such

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 132

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

133

as Earl Radnor and Earl Ducie, their inclusion serving to gloss over the antiaristocratic rhetoric used by the agitation. The council meeting depicted was fictitious and one subscriber refused to purchase the print when he realised how many non-members of the council were to be included. This prompted Agnew to institute legal proceedings to claim the 10 guineas that had been subscribed.146 The picture was dominated by manufacturers, especially from Lancashire, with other businessmen including the London silk merchant Peter Alfred Taylor, the Liverpool merchants Lawrence Heyworth and William Brown and the Leicester hosier William Biggs.147 Cobden was the central figure in the print, portrayed addressing the other sitters. Those closest to him include John Bright, Charles Pelham Villiers and William Rawson. The picture is notable for its allusions to the importance of print in the League’s campaign. It includes Archibald Prentice, editor of the Manchester Times, and Edward Baines, editor and proprietor of the Leeds Mercury, as well as John Bowring, MP for Bolton and former editor of the Westminster Review. James Wilson, founding editor of the Economist, is portrayed reading a copy of the League’s eponymous official newspaper. The only other publication that is pictured is Punch, an upturned copy of which lies in the right foreground, which referenced the comic periodical’s support for repeal.148 It is unclear whether the engraving achieved Agnew’s commercial ambitions, but the delayed publication was unlikely to have helped. By the 1860s the tradition of political group portraiture increasingly focused on cabinets or the Commons frontbenches rather than the whole House or extra-parliamentary campaigns. Two points are worth making. Firstly, although the genre survived by focusing on a much smaller cast of politicans, the paintings and derivative engravings were still crippled by delays. The paintings and prints recorded likenesses for posterity, but in the short term failed to materialise in time to capitalise on contemporary political interest. For example, John Phillip’s painting The House of Commons, 1860, portraying Palmerston addressing the House during the debates on the Cobden-Chevalier treaty, was finally completed in 1863, when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy.149 The engraving by Thomas Barlow was published only in 1866, a year after Palmerston’s death.150 There was a similar time lag with Henry Gales’s painting of the Derby cabinet deciding to send an expedition to Abyssinia in 1866. This was based on a design by John Gilbert and was in some respects a sequel to his portrayal of the Aberdeen coalition discussing sending troops to the Crimean War. The engraving was finally published in 1870, after the Conservatives had left office and Derby had died.151 Lowes Cato Dickinson’s painting of Gladstone’s cabinet took five years to complete.152 Secondly, the increasing focus on the cabinet or opposition frontbench was not simply an artistic choice motivated by practicality, but also reflected an important political change noted by contemporaries. By the early 1860s

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 133

23/09/2014 11:54

134

Politics personified

there was a growing sense that the legislative initiative was passing from independent members to the government. In 1861 the independent-minded Conservative MP Charles Newdegate observed that ‘it was a growing practice for the House to expect the government of the day to introduce almost all legislation of importance’.153 Although individual MPs continued to propose their own schemes, the government was increasingly expected to settle longstanding issues such as church rates or parliamentary reform. At the same time, Liberal backbenchers looked towards Gladstone and the Treasury to control and reduce public expenditure instead of the House of Commons, as earlier Radical MPs such as Joseph Hume had done.154 This change, perhaps inevitable after the development of a more stable and enduring two-party system in the 1860s, should not be overstated, but it was significant and was registered by the shift in focus of political group portraiture to a more select decision-making body, the cabinet. Conclusion The decline of monumental political group portraiture was perhaps inevitable. Ambitious painters such as Hayter and Haydon had used ceremonial group portraiture to fashion national narratives about reform and constitutional progress led by a enlightened Whig elite. Later agitations such as the anti-slavery movement and the Anti-Corn Law League projected the importance of the pressure from without through their own group portraits. These pictures presented a favourable and even heroic picture of the individuals who represented key moments in Britain’s political development in the nineteenth century. These landmark reforms and progressive and liberal measures meant that by the 1850s many British politicians regarded their political system as the envy of the civilised world.155 A succession of gradual reforms had avoided the twin extremes of revolution and reaction, and provided stability while upholding much-cherished individual liberties. The problem with political group portraiture was that due to its scale and the technological difficulties with engraving, it was prone to delays which meant that the projects were rarely completed in time to capitalise on the market that existed at a particular political moment. These difficulties had grave financial consequences for the artists involved and probably deterred other schemes. By contrast, printed portrait galleries could be produced much more quickly and cheaply while still having the potential to create narratives about different political events, parties or movements. In such a climate political group portraiture was largely redundant, and it survived only in a diminished form, focusing on cabinets.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 134

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

135

Notes 1 BL, Add. MS 40580, Sir George Hayter to Sir Robert Peel, 1 Dec. 1845, fo. 129. 2 G. Hayter, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Great Historical Picture of the Interior of the British House of Commons … 1833 (1843), p. vi. 3 G. Hayter, The Trial of Queen Caroline, 1820, oil painting, 1820–23, NPG, London 999. 4 Hayter, Descriptive Catalogue, p. iii. 5 National Portrait Gallery, London, A. Hayter, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter, 1st January 1838–21st June 1858’, transcript, 8 May 1839. 6 Ibid., 11 May 1839. 7 J. Coohill, ‘Sir George Hayter and The 1833 House of Commons: Politics and Portraiture in the Reform Period’, British Art Journal, 7 (2006–07), 58–61 (at 58). 8 E. Winter, ‘German Fresco Painting and the New Houses of Parliament at West­­­ minster, 1834–1851’, Historical Journal, 47 (2004), 291–329. 9 Morning Chronicle, 30 June 1837, p. 3. 10 J. Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 1–64. 11 The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. W.B. Pope (5 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960–63), IV, p. 13. 12 H. Hoock, The King’s Artists: The Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British Culture, 1760–1840 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003), pp. 300–5; H. Hoock, ‘Reforming Culture: National Art Institutions in the Age of Reform’, in A. Burns and J. Innes (eds), Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain, 1780–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 254–70. 13 Haydon Diary, III, p. 498. 14 Ibid., III, p. 604. 15 Ibid., III, pp. 653–4, 656. 16 Ibid., IV, pp. 555–6. 17 Ibid., III, p. 544. 18 P. O’Keeffe, A Genius for Failure: The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon (London: Bodley Head, 2009), pp. 306–8. 19 Haydon Diary, III, pp. 610–11. 20 Ibid., III, pp. 604–5. 21 West Kent Guardian, 13 Feb. 1836, p. 3. 22 Morning Post, 24 Sept. 1833, p. 3; Haydon Diary, IV, pp. 196–7. 23 West Kent Guardian, 13 Feb. 1836, p. 3. 24 Haydon Diary, IV, p. 16. 25 Ibid., IV, pp. 196–7. 26 Ibid., IV, p. 425. 27 As a non-resident freeman (for Plymouth) he lost his vote: O’Keeffe, Genius for Failure, p. 322. 28 Haydon Diary, III, p. 617. 29 Ibid., III, pp. 619–20. 30 Ibid., III, p. 625. 31 B.R. Haydon, Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table-Talk (2 vols.,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 135

23/09/2014 11:54

136

Politics personified

London: Chatto and Windus, 1876), I, pp. 168–9, 384–5; P.J. Barlow, ‘Benjamin Robert Haydon and the Radicals’, Burlington Magazine, 99 (1957), 309–12. 32 Haydon Diary, III, pp. 622, 624; B. Haydon, Meeting of the Birmingham Political Union, oil painting, 1832, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, accession no. 1937P370, on display in Birmingham History Galleries. 33 Haydon Diary, III, p. 627. 34 Coohill, ‘Sir George Hayter’, 58. 35 Morning Chronicle, 19 Jan. 1836, p. 3. 36 Ibid., 30 June 1837, p. 3. 37 Hayter, Descriptive Catalogue, pp. vi–vii. 38 J. Carlisle, Picturing Reform in Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 73. 39 Morning Chronicle, 30 June 1837, p. 3; Art-Union, 5 (1843), 122. 40 Haydon Diary, IV, p. 109. 41 Ibid., IV, p. 10. 42 Ibid., III, pp. 659–60. Haydon’s comment regarding ‘those Noblemen who were invited but did not come’ is interpreted by Carlisle (Picturing Reform, p. 73) as referring to Tory politicans, but it almost certainly refers to absent Whig peers. 43 As were two more absent peers, Lord Saye & Sele and Lord Sefton, at the behest of their relatives: Haydon Diary, IV, pp. 37, 60, 101. 44 Ibid., IV, pp. 161, 163–4. 45 Ibid., III, p. 655. 46 Ibid., III, pp. 655–6. 47 Ibid., III, p. 659. 48 Haydon, Correspondence and Table-Talk, I, p. 172. 49 Haydon Diary, IV, p. 96. 50 Ibid., IV, p. 50. 51 Ibid., IV, pp. 63–4. 52 Ibid., IV, p. 211. 53 Ibid., IV, p. 35. 54 Ibid., IV, p. 36. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., IV, p. 112. 57 Ibid., IV, p. 162. 58 For example, the Duchess of Richmond and Lady James Graham: ibid., III, p. 656; IV, pp. 75–6. 59 Ibid., IV, p. 151. 60 Ibid., IV, pp. 178, 429–31. 61 Morning Chronicle, 17 Jan. 1833, p. 3. 62 Albion, qu. in Morning Post, 18 Jan. 1833, p. 3. 63 ‘Haydon’s Reform Banquet’, Fraser’s Magazine, 9 (1834), 702–10. 64 Ibid., p. 702. 65 Morning Chronicle, 24 Mar. 1834, p. 1. 66 Literary Gazette, 29 Mar. 1834, p. 226. 67 Morning Post, 31 Mar. 1834, p. 3; The Examiner, 6 Apr. 1834, p. 6; The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, 10 May 1834, p. 312.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 136

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

137

68 NPG, London, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter’, 22 Dec. 1843. 69 Ibid., 4 May 1844; Glasgow Herald, 19 Feb. 1844, p. 3. 70 NPG, London, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter’, 21 Dec. 1843. 71 The Standard, 1 Apr. 1843, p. 1; Morning Chronicle, 4 Apr. 1843, p. 4; Morning Post, 23 May 1843, p. 5; 6 June 1843, p. 5. 72 Morning Post, 18 Apr. 1843, p. 1; The Examiner, 15 July 1843, p. 446. 73 Coohill, ‘Sir George Hayter’, pp. 59–60. 74 Art-Union, 5 (1843), 122. 75 Morning Chronicle, 4 Apr. 1843, p. 4. 76 The Times, 5 Apr. 1843, p. 3; Literary Gazette, 8 Apr. 1843, p. 225; Athenaeum, 8 Apr. 1843, pp. 340–1. 77 Morning Post, 5 Apr. 1843, p. 5. 78 The Era, 16 Apr. 1843, p. 6. 79 Carlisle, Picturing Reform, p. 98. 80 Ibid., p. 75. 81 Ibid. 82 ‘Discontent of the Working Classes’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 43 (1838), 421–36 (at 427). 83 Hansard, 5 Feb. 1833, vol. 15, cols 140–7 (at 141). 84 Ibid., 145–7. 85 Glasgow Herald, 12 Feb. 1844, 2nd edn, p. 2. 86 Staffordshire Record Office, Hatherton Papers, D260/M/F/5/26/26, Hatherton Journal, 4 Apr. 1843. 87 Glasgow Herald, 19 Feb. 1844, p. 3. 88 Carlisle, Picturing Reform, pp. 66–8. 89 Hansard, 5 Feb. 1833, vol. 15, col. 140. 90 O’Connell and a number of Radicals only came to sit on the government benches after the 1835 Lichfield House compact between Whig, Reform, Irish and Radical MPs: Coohill, ‘Sir George Hayter’, p. 60. 91 Carlisle, Picturing Reform, pp. 69–70. 92 P. Mandler, Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals, 1830–1852 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 2–8, 33–9, 159–93; J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), ch. 1. 93 NPG, London, G. Hayter, 9 Feb. 1858, circular to MPs, in Sir George Scharf Library, ‘Pictures in Private Residences I’. I am indebted to Joe Coohill for this reference. 94 NPG, London, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter’, 10 Jan. 1846. 95 R. Gaunt, ‘Robert Peel: Portraiture and Political Commemoration’, The Historian (2012), 22–6. 96 D. Eastwood, ‘Peel and the Tory Party Reconsidered’, History Today (Mar. 1992), 27–33. 97 NPG, London, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter’, 24 Feb. 1845, 2, 3, 13, 20 June 1845, 8 Jan. 1846. 98 Ibid., 2, 20, 23 June 1845. 99 Ibid., 19 Jan. 1843. 100 Ibid., 30 May 1847.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 137

23/09/2014 11:54

138

Politics personified

101 BL, Add. MS 38080, Sir George Hayter to Lord John Russell, 6 Mar. 1850, fos. 92–3; NPG, London, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter’, 3 Mar. 1854. 102 BL, Add. MS 38080, Hayter to Russell, 19 Jan. 1854, fos. 98–9. 103 NPG, London, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter’, 24 Mar. 1854, 1 Apr. 1854. 104 Ibid., 13 Feb. 1858. 105 Ibid., 19, 22 Feb. 1858. 106 Ibid., 16 June 1858. 107 Hansard, 3 Aug. 1859, vol. 155, cols 891–5. 108 Ibid., col. 893. 109 Ibid., cols 893–4. 110 Art Journal, 4 (new series, 1858), 286 111 Hansard, 3 Aug. 1859, vol. 155, col. 894. 112 Ibid., col. 895. 113 Royal Archives, RA Vic/A27/98, Lord Palmerston to Queen Victoria, 3 Aug. 1859, qu. by Coohill, ‘Sir George Hayter’, 59. 114 Haydon Diary, III, p. 627. 115 Ibid., IV, p. 135. 116 Ibid., IV, pp. 219–20. 117 Ibid., IV, p. 184. 118 Ibid. 119 W. and J.C. Bromley after Haydon, The Reform Banquet at Guildhall, July 11th 1832, mezzotint, 1 July 1837, NPG, London D11095. 120 Art-Union 1 (1839), 90; Bent’s Literary Advertiser and Register of Engravings, 10 Oct. 1837, p. 116. 121 Morning Chronicle, 27 Sept. 1837, p. 3. 122 Haydon, Correspondence and Table-Talk, I, pp. 174–5; Haydon Diary, IV, p. 134, n.  9. 123 ‘Life of Haydon’, Edinburgh Review, 98 (1853), 518–63 (at 555, 560). 124 Haydon Diary, IV, p. 184. 125 Ibid., IV, p. 314. 126 D. Cannadine, ‘Parliament: the Palace of Westminster as the Palace of Varieties’, in his In Churchill’s Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain (London: Allen Lane, 2002), pp. 3–25 (at 15–16). 127 Haydon Diary, IV, p. 557. 128 Ibid., IV, p. 640. 129 Ibid., IV, p. 644. 130 O’Keeffe, Genius for Failure, p. 406. 131 Haydon, Correspondence and Table-Talk, II, pp. 414–15. 132 O’Keeffe, Genius for Failure, pp. 409–11. 133 These sentences about the convention are based on R. Huzzey, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 14–15. For Haydon’s own views on race, see D. Higgins, ‘Art, Genius and Racial Theory in the Early Nineteenth Century’, History Workshop Journal, 58 (2004), 17–40. 134 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, p. 15; Haydon Diary, IV, p. 644; O’Keeffe, Genius for Failure, p. 407.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 138

23/09/2014 11:54

Political group portraiture and history painting

139

135 Anti-Slavery Reporter, July 1843, p. 140; Jan. 1844, p. 4; July 1844, p. 141. 136 Manchester Times, 5 Feb. 1842, p. 3. 137 S. Morgan, ‘The Anti-Corn Law League and British Anti-Slavery in Transatlantic Perspective, 1838–1846’, HJ, 53 (2009), 87–107. 138 The League, 4 July 1846, p. 688. 139 Ibid. 140 G. Agnew, Agnew’s 1817–1967 (London: Bradbury Agnew, 1967), pp. 2–9, 14, 61–7. 141 Art Journal, 8 (1846), 169. 142 Greater Manchester County Record Office, George Wilson Papers, M20, vol. 13, Thomas Agnew to George Wilson, 15 Nov. 1847. 143 Art Journal, 4 (new series, 1852), 109. 144 Catalogue of Engravings Registered by the Print Sellers’ Association … from 1847 to 1863, inclusive (London, 1865), p. 2. 145 Leeds Mercury, 28 Sept. 1850, p. 4. 146 Art Journal, 4 (n.s. 1852), 109. 147 S. Bellin after J.R. Herbert, Meeting of the Council of the Anti-Corn Law League, pub. T. Agnew, Manchester, 1850, Dept. of Prints & Drawings, BM, Blythe House, Groups, Large Portfolio. 148 H. Miller, ‘The Problem with Punch’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), 285–302 (at 292–5). 149 Art Journal Advertiser, July 1863, p. 151. 150 F. O’Donoughue, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits in the British Museum (6 vols., London: Longmans, 1908–24), V, p. 25. 151 Art Journal, 9 (1870), 257. 152 L.C. Dickinson, Gladstone’s Cabinet of 1868, oil on canvas, 1869–74, NPG, London, 5116, on display in the Palace of Westminster. 153 Hansard, 7 Feb. 1861, vol. 161, col. 170. 154 M. Taylor, The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), pp. 329–35. 155 R. Saunders, Democracy and the Vote in British Politics: The Making of the Second Reform Act, 1848–1867 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), ch. 6.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 139

23/09/2014 11:54

5

Representing the representatives: MPs and portraiture

This chapter shows how portraits of MPs presented them as independent representatives and parliamentarians rather than merely party hacks or delegates. The proliferation of parliamentary portraits shows that the popularity of political likenesses was not limited to leading figures. These images reveal a more personal side to the representative system before the mass politics of the post-1880 era, in contrast to the earlier chapter on party portraits. The previous chapter focused on group portraits that presented national narratives, but here the focus is on the individual MP. The significance of the image of MPs cannot be overstated. With the Palace of Westminster a building site from the great fire of 1834 until 1870, Parliament, and the House of Commons in particular, was symbolised as much by its members as by its buildings to many people. It was the ordinary MP who made the House of Commons a living, working institution. This was especially true in this period, the heyday of ‘parliamentary government’, when the House of Commons rather than the monarch or a mass electorate, made and unmade ministries.1 Examining these images tells us much about how parliamentarians were perceived, collectively and individually, by their constituents and the broader Victorian public. National exposure in the pictorial press and portrait prints reduced the traditional delay between politicians coming to national prominence and their image being circulated. Images were therefore crucial in helping to forge national political reputations. Local representations of MPs have to be situated in the specific local political cultures that were such a distinctive feature of this period. This illuminates the contemporary relationship between MPs and constituencies that was forged in the decades after 1832, a subject that has received surprisingly little attention.2 In a society that placed a high value on memorials and testimonials to mark public service, the veneration of local MPs was reflected in local portraits, statues and other tributes, often paid for by voluntary public subscription and presented or unveiled in public ceremonies. The cultural prestige of contemporary parliamentarians was reflected not only in portraiture but in the remarkable popularity of printed biographies, memoirs and, above all, reports of parliamentary debates in this period. Portraits and likenesses had particular value, however. In a period

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 140

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

141

distinguished by the great interest in and careful scrutiny of the ‘character’ of public men, portraits seemed to offer special insights.3 As physiognomy was culturally pervasive, people had the tools to analyse the character of public men through their appearance.4 MPs, independence and the nature of representation MPs fulfilled a number of roles in Parliament and their constituencies. A key principle that many MPs stressed in hustings speeches and at Westminster was their independence. As a concept, independence has attracted attention from scholars either side of the 1830–80 period. In the Hanoverian era, electoral politics was often a battle between dominant local interests, be they landed patrons or corporations, and their opponents, often styled as ‘Independents’.5 It has also been argued that manly independence was regarded as the necessary, and gendered, quality for political citizenship and the right to participate in political life in unreformed England.6 In the era of mass electoral politics after 1880, ‘independence’ from party organisation, usually demonised as the ‘Caucus’, was a rhetorical cliché for independent Liberals and Radicals.7 Independence meant something rather different in the period between 1830 and 1880, but the notion has received little attention from historians since Derek Beales’s classic essay in the 1960s.8 This is because historians and political scientists have focused instead on two trends that seemed, in the long run, to be fatal to the notion of an independent, private (i.e. backbench) MP: firstly, the rise of a two-party system that placed a premium on party labels and organisation to secure election and necessitated greater discipline inside the House to carry out legislative programmes demanded by an expanding electorate;9 secondly, the growth of government control over parliamentary business that came at the expense of the privileges of private members, such as their right to speak on petitions (restrictions were placed on this in 1833, which were formalised in 1842) or the executive’s increasing monopoly of the legislative timetable.10 The last chapter highlighted the shift to smaller group portrait paintings of cabinets, a cultural development that paralleled the initiative passing from Parliament to the executive. In spite of these long-term trends, MPs retained considerable independence of action and opinion from party whips, constituency activists and electors in this period. At election time and in their self-descriptions in parliamentary guides, MPs frequently promised to offer their ‘independent support’ to a party leader or statesman, giving them the latitude to vote against them according to their judgement. Candidates saw no contradiction between independence and declaring support for a particular parliamentary leader. For example, in 1847 George Cornewall Lewis stated at the Herefordshire hustings that he would go into Parliament ‘perfectly free and independent’. In the next

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 141

23/09/2014 11:54

142

Politics personified

sentence he declared his ‘decided adherence’ to Lord John Russell’s Whig/ Liberal party in the Commons.11 The two positions were compatible because contemporaries assumed that MPs retained independent critical judgement even while they were associated with a parliamentary party. Independence, then, was not simply hustings rhetoric, but justified voting against the parliamentary leadership. It was this behaviour that led Thomas Thornely, MP for Wolverhampton and a reliable supporter of successive Liberal govenments, to complain that ‘such people as Muntz [Radical MP for Birmingham] get credit with their constituents for being independent of ministers and voting against them’.12 While principled votes against one’s party or government demonstrated independence, contemporaries did not have a high regard for MPs whose opinions and voting seemed unpredictable, inconsistent or unreliable. As one journalist sarcastically observed of Sir Robert Peel, maverick son of the prime minister, ‘he is an “independent member”; that is, no one knows how he’ll vote until they see him in the division lobby’.13 Accordingly, hustings speeches devoted time to explaining seemingly erratic or deviant votes. Independence meant that MPs were expected to exercise their critical judgement at Westminster and act on it, even if this meant opposing the party with which they usually acted. An important consequence of ‘parliamentary government’ was that party ties at Westminster remained relatively loose. Clear partisan dividing lines on religious and constitutional issues emerged in the 1830s, but both parties were internally divided on economic and social matters.14 Before the late 1840s, Liberal MPs variously identified themselves as Radicals, Reformers, Whigs, Liberals and Radical Reformers, suggesting a broad, loose, yet coherent identity.15 A second reason why MPs retained considerable independence was that much of the work that Parliament did, such as petitions, committee work, or processing the mountain of private, local and railway bill legislation, was done without any reference to party. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, MPs were valued as local representatives and not just as delegates of parties. They were expected to represent and defend local interests at Westminster, including lobbying for and initiating legislation to develop local infrastructure, although their ability to do this was curtailed by procedural reforms in the mid-1850s.16 Older accounts of Victorian elections, such as John Vincent’s Pollbooks, perhaps overstated the extent to which these contests were primarily about local interests rather than national debates and party labels.17 Constituencies did not exist in isolation from national politics; there was always a dynamic interplay between local political cultures, traditions and interests, and broader issues.18 Even so, there is no doubting the salience of local issues in many constituencies and the importance candidates attached to them is borne out by the space they occupied in their speeches and addresses. Acting as local representatives was particularly important in a period of considerable

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 142

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

143

economic regionalisation, when constituencies were often strongly identified with particular trades or sectors. For example, in 1853 the Liberal shipowner William Schaw Lindsay told the electors of Tynemouth that ‘as a Shipping and Commercial Port your interests are mine’.19 In this way, an older eighteenthcentury concept of ‘interest’ was adapted, extended and able to co-exist with the new but still loose party labels that emerged in the post-1832 period. MPs also carried weight as they represented historic boroughs and counties and great provincial cities, that is, traditional communities of interest, the notion upon which the post-1832 representative system was based. This was no longer the case after the electoral system was radically reshaped in 1885, when historic constituencies were carved up into single-member electoral districts of roughly equal population.20 One of the main aims of the 1832 Reform Act had been to reconnect and strengthen the bond between MPs and localities by making representatives more accountable to their constituencies.21 As in any other period, there were ‘carpetbaggers’, ambitious and opportunistic candidates with no local connections seeking a safe seat, and there were also aristocratic scions who had been groomed for political careers from infancy. But MPs did not need to be local men to forge strong bonds with their constituencies or to be highly valued as representatives. After 1832 a number of large boroughs, some recently liberated from the domination of corporations or other local influences, looked to Whig politicians and Reformers with national reputations to represent them. These MPs were prized for providing a guarantee of the constituency’s independence from local sectional interests.22 However, for a significant proportion of middle-ranking and lesser-known MPs, serving in Parliament was the culmination of a long record of local public service. In counties, MPs were frequently landowners, magistrates and poor law guardians. In boroughs, businessmen were often involved in the local staple trade, and had held local office in the town council, improvement commission or one of the myriad elective urban bodies that existed in the Victorian period.23 MPs were also local celebrities, patrons of charities and were regularly pressed to subscribe to local philanthropic causes and attend ceremonies, meetings and events. As Charles Adderley, MP for North Staffordshire, complained in 1842, ‘a County Member is expected to give to everything’.24 In this era there were no central lists of approved party candidates, although political clubs played an informal role in connecting ambitious aspirants for office, often lawyers, with vacant constituencies.25 Even if they were not local men or had poor local connections, parliamentary candidates and MPs were usually persuaded to stand and backed by local supporters and party activists rather than a central party headquarters. MPs had to cope with growing demands in this period. Firstly, there was a huge increase in the volume of public and private business. For example, in the 1847–48 session, there were no fewer than 44 committees on public matters,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 143

23/09/2014 11:54

144

Politics personified

28 election committees, 14 committees on railway bills and 112 other committees on private bills.26 In 1853 330 private bills were introduced to the House of Commons and 173 public bills.27 The growth of select committee investigations and demands for information through parliamentary returns was reflected in the increased volume of parliamentary papers. The 1824 session had produced twenty-four volumes of parliamentary papers; by the 1850s usually sixty to seventy volumes were published each year.28 Although procedural reforms eased some of the pressure on MPs in this period, much of the public and private business was processed only by MPs working harder and for longer, both in committees and in debates. They also had to respond to demands from extra-parliamentary pressure groups, electors and non-electors, present petitions to Parliament and memorials to ministers to reflect local concerns, as well as accompany deputations. This was in addition to voting and attending debates. Although many MPs were silent or spoke rarely in debate, this could be a poor indication of political activity, as they were often very busy in select and private bill committees, and diligent in answering correspondence. Secondly, MPs were more accountable than ever before. By redrawing constituency boundaries and disenfranchising non-resident electors, the 1832 Reform Act had significantly reduced the cost of elections: this made it easier and cheaper to oust unpopular MPs.29 At the same time MPs faced greater scrutiny, particularly as more and more information about their parliamentary performance and conduct was made available through print.30 The public could now monitor, and indeed compare, the performance of their MP as never before. Parliamentary debates were published and formed a large and, to modern eyes, astonishing proportion of newspaper content. After 1836, divisions were formally recorded and although these were not widely published, they provided a basis for newspapers and pressure groups to calculate parliamentary attendance. The voting records of MPs on select committees were systematically recorded after 1836, meaning that activity in this increasingly important parliamentary arena could be subjected to outside scrutiny. MPs were also pressed by Charles Dod and others to provide brief biographical notices of themselves and their political opinions in contemporary political guides.31 This proliferation of textual representations of MPs was matched by the growth of visual representations of parliamentarians. MPs, illustrated newspapers and the creation of national reputations The development of visual technologies after 1830 meant that likenesses of ordinary backbench MPs, as well as those of the leading politicians, were increasingly available. Fine engraved prints were often derived from original sketches or paintings that had been commissioned by MPs themselves. As businessmen or landowners, MPs could usually afford to commission painted

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 144

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

145

portraits, if not always from Royal Academicians, who were at the top of the artistic hierarchy and, accordingly, the most expensive. The middle-ranking painter John Partridge produced many paintings of MPs, which typically cost between £94 10s and £262 10s, the price varying according to the size of the painting. His parliamentary clients included Henry Tancred (1853) and John Smith (1828), whom he painted for £210 and £157 10s, respectively.32 Drawings were cheaper. The prices of George Richmond, draughtsman and painter, grew steadily during his fifty-year career.33 In 1831 he charged 3 guineas for a drawing, but five years later this had risen to 7 guineas. Painting was to prove even more lucrative. Richmond noted that in 1832 he drew Sir Robert Inglis, Conservative MP for Oxford University, for 3 guineas, but ‘in 1854 I painted him for 300 guineas’.34 His drawings were often engraved, earning him reproduction fees or, if he chose to sell the copyright, a lump sum. Painted portraits were the result of what art historians call the ‘portrait transaction’, the negotiation between sitter and artist.35 As with other sitters, favourable depictions appealed to MPs’ vanity, but it was considered important that even flattering images should be accurate and recognisable likenesses. Edward Richard Littleton, Whig MP for Walsall, wrote of his portrait by the painter Eden Upton Eddis, ‘He has no doubt improved me, but I can have no objection to be handed down to posterity as a very good looking man … if he retains the likeness.’36 Many of these paintings were private commissions, destined to hang in MPs’ homes, but they could reach a wider audience in two ways. Firstly, the social and cultural status of the sitters and artists meant that portraits of MPs were displayed at the Royal Academy of Art annual summer exhibition, which was a major social and cultural event in this period. In the preceding period, attendances at the summer exhibition had risen from 61,381 in 1780 to 91,827 in 1822.37 Paintings were carefully scrutinised for their artistic merits, and portraits for the quality of likeness. H.W. Pickersgill’s 1833 painting of the speaker Charles Manners Sutton was described as ‘not equal’ to his other portraits, as it was ‘too literal’ and ‘everyday’.38 Pictures of MPs exhibited at the Royal Academy were often family portraits, or portrayed the sitters as country gentlemen rather than public men. Secondly, as noted above, these paintings and drawings could form the basis for prints. Both the exhibition of political portraits at the Royal Academy and the subsequent publication of prints could be traced back to the late eighteenth century. What was more novel about this period was the development of wood engraving and serial publications: these allowed more topical, current images to be circulated in greater quantities to larger audiences. The Illustrated London News (ILN) was crucial in promoting more dynamic imagery and shifting the political likeness away from the more static, iconic portraits associated with steel-engraved prints. Between 1842 and 1855, the ILN’s average weekly circulation was 71,000, but it exceeded 200,000 on occasions, such as during the 1851

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 145

23/09/2014 11:54

146

Politics personified

Great Exhibition.39 Significantly, the default image of Parliament presented in illustrated periodicals, such as the ILN, Pictorial Times (1843–48) and Illustrated Times (1855–72), was that of the individual MP. There were remarkably few pictures of MPs at work, engaged in day-to-day activities at Westminster. There were occasionally pictures of debates or the Commons chamber, such as the fold-out picture of the ‘ministerial side of the House of Commons’ in the ILN in 1854.40 Very rarely MPs were depicted milling around in the division lobby or their club.41 Relatively little documentary evidence survives about the whipping of MPs, but division lobbies and political clubs were probably two key arenas for the organising and disciplining of MPs by party managers. The general absence of such pictures reinforced the image of MPs as individual, private members rather than organised blocs. There were also few images of select committees in session.42 Neither were MPs grouped together as an indistinct mass. Even representations of groups of MPs, most famously Sir George Hayter’s The House of Commons, 1833 (1833–43), were based on the painstaking accumulation of individual likenesses, which contributed to their stilted composition. The ILN provided regular wood engravings of the New Palace of Westminster, which was being constructed during this period, but the pictures were generally of empty rooms and buildings rather than working spaces. Plenty of attention was given over to the annual state opening of Parliament, which dovetailed with the ILN’s practice of providing extensive coverage of royal media events.43 These pictures emphasised the ceremonial or dignified part of the constitution, to use Walter Bagehot’s terminology, rather than the efficient, working part of the political system. For these reasons, portraits of MPs in illustrated periodicals were largely divorced from the environment in which they worked and from each other. This genre of parliamentary portraiture served to emphasise MPs as distinctive individual characters and representatives. Although occasionally derived from fine prints, these portraits were generally based on original drawings, and, from the late 1840s, daguerrotypes and photographs. MPs were typically presented in half-length or bust portraits. Illustrated newspapers, as John Plunkett has noted, provided fluid, dynamic images rather than fixed, iconic portraits or representations.44 Illustrated newspaper portraits had a greater affinity to contemporary cartoons, presenting a current likeness or snapshot rather than placing a sitter in an atemporal setting as with many paintings and engraved portraits. The sitters were more lively and less stilted. The images had an ordinary quality, shorn of the grand style of steel-engraved prints with their classical allusions, such as columns and heavy draperies. Combined with the accompanying biographical notices, these portraits gave a sense of MPs as public performers and personalities: their manner, expression, physique and voice, as well as how they were received, all of which were rarely conveyed by the official reports of parliamentary debates. They therefore provided new

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 146

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

147

insights into the character and manner of MPs, and went beyond existing sketches by parliamentary reporters such as James Grant.45 Given the large circulations of the pictorial press, it was perhaps understandable that portraits in them could arouse anxiety. Furthermore, as these images were mediated through draughtsmen, wood engravers and the newspaper itself, politicians could exert some influence and control over their image. In the 1840s the wood engraver Henry Vizetelly was responsible for a portrait of John Bright in the Pictorial Times, an early rival of the ILN. Vizetelly later recalled that Bright was very unhappy about the expression of the mouth: ‘Although the face in the woodcut was no bigger than one’s finger-nail, I had to make repeated attempts before I succeeded in satisfying John Bright whose childish vanity amused me immensely.’46 Illustrated periodicals had an important impact on the formation of national political reputations. There had traditionally been a lengthy delay between individuals achieving political renown and their likeness being widely circulated and identifiable.47 The ILN and its imitators closed this gap. Weekly illustrated periodicals provided a running commentary on politics and the contemporary world: parliamentary portraits were thus embedded into current events rather than detached from them. The MPs who featured were often those who had recently been in the news. For example, the young John Bright was portrayed in the ILN in October 1843 shortly after his election for Durham City, having previously made his name as an Anti-Corn Law League lecturer. In that month the newspaper’s weekly circulation averaged 49,000, meaning that Bright’s likeness would have been seen by a large readership.48 Biographies and portraits of MPs generally focused on their distinctiveness and individuality and played down their party labels. Indeed, MPs who featured were often those who had taken an independent line against their party leadership, such as Lord Worsley, the leading protectionist Whig MP in the 1840s.49 This was a deliberate choice, as the rival Illustrated Times had no qualms about grouping rows of portraits of MPs according to their party after the 1857 general election.50 If the ILN portrayed MPs as individuals it is nevertheless possible to view them as conforming to particular ‘types’ of parliamentarians. Art historians have noted that the meaning of portraiture rests on a balance between individual character and likeness and type. Portraits do not merely depict individual sitters, but place them in a social or cultural context, which depends upon the conventions regarding their type: their profession, social class or cultural status.51 The ILN’s proprietor, Herbert Ingram, was a self-made businessman and in the first decade (1842–52) of the newspaper he gave particular prominence to MPs who had a similar background to himself. In 1846 the newspaper argued that the 1832 Reform Act had opened the door to ‘practical men of business’. These men had had ‘a visible influence on the tone of the House and the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 147

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

148

debates, in which there is less declamation, less of eloquence, perhaps, than of old; but more terseness and direct applicability to the matter in hand’.52 In many respects these MPs, often businessmen, were the unsung heroes of the Victorian Commons. Diligent, industrious and commonsensical, these MPs spoke rarely in debate and usually only on matters about which they were knowledgeable. They were often active committee men. Yet their expertise and practical experience was recognised and valued. James Pattison, a City banker and ex-governor of the Bank of England, was praised as a ‘plain, clear, business-like speaker’. His straightforward, solid qualities were reflected in his ‘square and massy’ appearance.53 As in Victorian novels, appearance was linked to and seemed to reveal personal character. The infusion of ‘working’ MPs who had practical business experience enhanced the expertise available in debates on social and economic questions, in the ILN’s view.54

Figure 5.1  Portrait of Baillie Cochrane. Illustrated London News, 4 (1844), 156. Wood engraving. 4 x 3¼ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 148

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

149

The ILN looked favourably on self-made businessmen, but other parliamentary types were less praiseworthy. In 1844 the ‘Young England’ group of Conservative MPs, consisting of Benjamin Disraeli, Lord John Manners, George Smythe and Henry Baillie Cochrane, were portrayed in its pages.55 The credo of ‘Young England’ was a romantic Tory veneration for a Gothic past. In contemporary politics this translated into a paternalistic belief in the obligations of the nobility and landed classes to the poor and a dislike of the selfish Utilitarianism and middle-class liberalism that they held accountable for the grim condition of the urban working classes. The Young England portraits in the ILN represent the MPs as immature, frivolous politicians. All have dark hair and elegant gentlemanly appearances, yet they lack the solid, rugged qualities of the industrious MPs noted above. Cochrane has a weak chin (figure 5.1), while Smythe was portrayed after he had recently been involved in a duel. However well-intentioned and clever they may be, these men are not serious politicians, the portraits suggested. This applied above all to Disraeli, whose opinions were deemed ‘too peculiar’ to ever gain widespread political influence.56 ILN portraits and biographies consistently emphasised the speaking style and manner of MPs. The portraits could convey something of MPs’ style of personal address in the House, magnifying their distinctiveness and individuality. Such a focus also underlines how crucial personal qualities, such as their physique or voice, could be for their parliamentary performance. The popular Radical MP for Finsbury, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, was described as ‘handsome, his voice good, his bearing bold, manly and unaffected’.57 Indeed, given the workload of parliamentarians at this time, a strong constitution and stamina were essential qualifications for the job. Despite his administrative talents, Sidney Herbert, one of Peel’s protégés, was ‘slenderly made, neat and genteel’, and lacked a strong voice and commanding presence in the House, which was reflected in his slight, even feminine, figure.58 By contrast, Augustus Stafford O’Brien, a combative backbench critic of Peel over the Maynooth grant and the corn laws, possessed a firm nose and jaw, hinting at his direct language, clear voice and delivery, all of which were to his advantage.59 The manner, pose and look of MPs in their portraits could also be revealing of their background. In his upright, stern bearing Sir George Murray was unmistakably a military man.60 His fellow soldier, Sir George De Lacy Evans, Radical MP for Westminster, was portrayed in a more dashing, stylised manner.61 The great admiral Sir Charles Napier was depicted not in the romantic manner of past British naval heroes such as Nelson, but as short, stout and bald, a bluff ‘old salt’, reflecting his ‘very amusing, plain speaking, blunt’ oratorical style.62 Both Evans and Napier were immortalised as Staffordshire figurines, probably for their military and naval exploits rather than their political careers, which was another sure sign that they had gained national reputations.63 Very few

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 149

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

150

Figure 5.2  Portrait of Joseph Hume. Illustrated London News, 2 (1843), 108. Wood engraving. 4½ x 3¼ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 150

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

151

figurines survive of public figures whose renown was confined to a particular locality, implying that manufacturers sought a wide, national audience rather than localised markets.64 Like illustrated parliamentary portraits, Staffordshire figures gave a sense of MPs’ gestures, pose and manner. The background and talents of other MPs was also indicated by their appearance in likenesses in the illustrated press. George Thompson, MP for Tower Hamlets, and Charles Perronet Thompson, MP for Hull, were better known as platform speakers, and were particularly associated with the anti-slavery and anti-corn law campaigns. Both were portrayed in the ILN with open countenances and, in the former’s case, handsome features that contributed to his attractiveness as an out of doors orator.65 James Wilson, editor of the Economist and MP for Westbury, was an expert on political economy who dealt in statistics rather than rhetoric. His formidable intellect was represented in his high forehead, which reflected contemporary physiognomical and phrenological assumptions.66 In the Illustrated Times, a side-profile of Wilson gave him a head so disproportionately large that it was almost deformed.67 The Radical MP Joseph Hume was best known for his indefatigable campaign against wasteful public expenditure. His ILN portrait in the early 1840s captured Hume in a pose that would have been familiar to many other MPs and represented them to a much larger audience (figure 5.2). Hume was presented standing as if addressing the House, with one hand open and the other clutching the estimates, the annual itemised votes of supply that made up public expenditure. The portrait depicted Hume as a rugged, energetic individual, with a stout figure and thick and bushy hair, rather than as a refined or slick orator. Indeed it was noted that as a speaker ‘he cannot rank high’. ‘Though few men speak more frequently or at greater length, he can better manage the figures of arithmetic than figures of speech’, with his language ‘involved and his sentences almost always incomplete.’68 Hume’s chief parliamentary qualities, in this portrayal, were persistence and determination rather than rhetorical fluency. In portraying different individual MPs and types of parliamentarians, illustrated newspapers gave a sense of the diverse interests that were represented in the House of Commons. MPs did not just represent their constituents or their parties, but often their reputation rested on their association with other interests or causes. The Victorian period was the era of agitation par excellence, distinguished by numerous well-organised extra-parliamentary campaigns, which made use of petitioning, the press, public meetings and lobbying elite politicians to force their issues on to the political agenda.69 This placed a premium on having articulate spokesmen in the House. The success or failure of such campaigns rested in no small part on the persuasiveness and tactical nous of these MPs. Individual MPs often secured a national reputation in this way, such as Charles Pelham Villiers’s role in annually moving the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 151

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

152

repeal of the corn laws between 1838 and 1846, or Sir John Trelawny’s position as the leading advocate of the abolition of church rates in the 1860s. Lord Dudley Stuart, Radical MP for Marylebone, earned distinction as the parliamentary champion of Polish independence, despite not being a ‘prominent politician or party man’. Although his aristocratic lineage was displayed in his aquiline nose, ‘well-marked features and fair hair’, he was portrayed as a more credible political figure than the Young England dilettantes.70 There were also MPs who took up causes independent of extra-parliamentary pressure groups and fought a lonely battle to get the legislature or government to take action. Focused, single-issue campaigns were one way in which MPs could make a name for themselves within and without the House. In 1853 the ILN depicted Benjamin Oliveira, MP for Pontefract, who was campaigning for the remission of wine duties. The newspaper commented that this showed how the ‘unremitting advocacy of an individual’ could achieve changes in policy.71 However, the financial implications of the Crimean War scuppered Oliveira’s campaign, which neatly underlines the point that the ILN biographies and portraits provided a snapshot of their subjects at a particular time. Given the ILN’s emphasis on parliamentary portraiture it was fitting that its proprietor and founder, Herbert Ingram, himself represented his native town of Boston from 1856 until his death in 1860. Although he was a Liberal, he displayed his independence by voting in the majority that defeated Palmerston over the conspiracy to murder bill on 19 February 1858, which prompted the resignation of the government. In the Commons, Ingram championed the cause of the press, including pressing for the repeal of the paper duty, the last of the remaining ‘taxes on knowledge’. After Ingram’s death, the ILN’s portraits of MPs became more stereotyped and infrequent. The biographies became detailed records of lives and careers and were less illuminating of the distinctive characteristics of MPs than hitherto. After the 1874 and 1880 general elections, MPs’ portraits in the newspaper were printed in rows, with perfunctory biographical notices comprising a few sentences.72 Interestingly, these biographies still rarely mentioned the party label of the MP, but the overall effect was to diminish their individual character and distinctiveness. This was perhaps appropriate given the increase in party cohesion in whipped votes and the corresponding decline of independence after 1867.73 Constituency commemoration, portrait testimonials and  local  public  service The nineteenth century was the golden age of the public testimonial. Local committees organised and canvassed subscriptions to pay for a gift or worthy token of gratitude to an individual as a reward for their public service. The resulting object was typically presented at a public ceremony or ritual.74 This

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 152

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

153

Figure 5.3  R. Barton (designer) and J. Caldicott (manufacturer) after Sir F. Grant, Rt. Hon. Edward Ellice, 1858. Woven silk. 9½ x 7 inches. Reproduced with the permission of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 153

23/09/2014 11:54

154

Politics personified

accorded with the climate of the time. Many public roles, including that of MP, were unsalaried, and a sense of public duty was an important motivation in serving in such positions. The testimonial depended upon voluntary efforts and subscriptions, reflecting the free and independent approbation of the community. Even if they had a low profile at Westminster, MPs were frequently local celebrities and major figures in their constituencies, often performing an overlapping series of important roles as employers, landowners, patrons of religious and philanthropic causes, magistrates and holders of other public offices. Examining the image of MPs in the local context sheds significant light on the relationship between parliamentary representatives and their constituents and reveals how local political cultures venerated MPs as independent representatives and defenders of local interests. Long-serving MPs came to be personally identified with their constituencies and their distinctive political cultures. For example, the Whig Edward Ellice represented Coventry from 1826 until his death in 1863. The 1854 portrait of Ellice by Sir Francis Grant was exhibited in Coventry and was hailed by the local press for its ‘truthfulness’.75 Grant’s painting provided the basis for a silkwoven portrait of Ellice produced in 1858 by John Caldicott (figure 5.3). The design was described as a ‘likeness so life-like as to be at once recognised’.76 As a piece of material culture the portrait connected Coventry’s veteran MP with its staple trade. Indeed, notwithstanding his general support for free trade, including repeal of the corn laws, Ellice’s commitment to local interests meant that in the past he had defended the protection of the domestic silk industry against foreign competition.77 This was politic given that the local freemen, many of them silk weavers, accounted for 83 per cent of the 4,502 electors in 1852.78 In this case, as in others, economic regionalisation, the need to uphold and defend local staple trades, and the survival of older franchises combined to give distinctive colour to local political identities and cultures. The silk portrait was hailed locally as a sign of the quality and skill of Coventry manufacturers and designers.79 Yet the portrait commemorated an era that was passing. Neither the silk trade nor the Liberal hegemony Ellice embodied were as fixed as the portrait suggested. The widespread distress of the Coventry silk trade in the early 1860s was attributed to the 1860 CobdenChevalier Commercial Treaty that gradually led to the free import of French silks. The distress of local ribbon weavers was blamed on the Treaty and free trade. The political beneficiaries were the Conservatives, who captured one seat at the by-election caused by Ellice’s death in 1863, and the other in 1865.80 The circulation of portraits in different localities became increasingly commonplace after 1830. With characteristic enterprise, the Manchester dealer and print-seller Thomas Agnew commissioned a series of prints of Lancashire and Cheshire MPs in the late 1830s and 1840s to appeal to a regional market, and seems to have continued the practice thereafter.81 By the 1870s, the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 154

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

155

spread of wood engraving meant that cartoons and portraits of MPs and other public figures were a regular feature of the local comic periodicals that proliferated in the last third of the century.82 These illustrations familiarised local readers with civic elites and local worthies. As Glasgow’s Bailie declared of its ‘Men you know’ series in 1874, the aim was ‘to make a man whom you only half know, emphatically a “Man you Know”’.83 In larger cities such as Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester or Dublin the circulation of these periodicals was between 10,000 and 20,000.84 Some MPs were well aware of the desirability of circulating their image to constituents, particularly before or during elections. In May 1831 the stylish Radical Thomas Slingsby Duncombe appears to have commissioned a portrait of himself clutching a local petition for parliamentary reform. The print was addressed to the ‘Independent Electors of the Borough of Hertford’.85 By the 1870s, photographic portraits of candidates were feasible, if not as commonplace as they were to become by the end of the century. They had their attractions, however, for politicians who were outsiders to a constituency, especially as those who had yet to gain national reputations could be little known outside their own locality. After Joseph Chamberlain, radical mayor of Birmingham, became the prospective Liberal candidate for Sheffield in 1873, Henry J. Wilson, president of the Sheffield Reform Association, informed him that ‘we have a little over-estimated the political knowledge & interest of the people’ and ‘fewer … intelligently know your reputation than supposed’.86 Shortly ­afterwards, a local activist wrote to Chamberlain: ‘If Mr. Whitlock has a copy of yr ­photograph of which you approve I should like with yr permission to get it introduced into the windows here. People are anxious to see what you are like.’87 Chamberlain’s unfamiliarity and non-residence was to be overcome by publicly displaying his likeness in the city in the hope of making him a recognisable figure. This example illustrates two further points, both of which highlight the importance and cultural resonance of political likenesses in this period: firstly, the desire of people to ‘see’ who sought to represent them and, secondly, the sense that portraits offered unique insights into the personal character of politicians. However, the extraordinary cultural prestige of MPs as local public figures and independent representatives is shown most clearly by the proliferation of testimonials and memorials. These rewarded parliamentarians’ public service through gifts, including likenesses, or posthumous memorials, often statues, in strategically significant spaces such as civic squares. Testimonials to MPs were commonplace in the Victorian period and were usually presented on the termination of their career due to electoral defeat or retirement. The ILN regularly carried pictures of the ornate silver salvers, vases and table centrepieces that constituents subscribed for and presented to their MPs.88 Of more relevance here are instances in which testimonials culminated in visual or material likenesses of MPs being presented. Portrait testimonials

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 155

23/09/2014 11:54

156

Politics personified

reflected local party support. In 1835 the supporters of the newly elected Conservative MP for Leeds, Sir John Beckett, commissioned a painting to celebrate their victory. Subscribers were to receive an engraving, with steel specifically chosen due to its ability to produce ‘a much larger number of proof impressions’ than copper.89 The finished portrait became a feature at local party meetings, adorning the room alongside draperies with the names of national Conservative politicians such as Peel, as well as the Beckett family crest and the Leeds coat of arms. In this way Beckett’s image was connected to national party identities and local civic culture.90 The context of the Beckett portrait was the increasingly fierce partisanship of the 1830s. There later developed a culture of testimonials that was less explicitly partisan, and Simon Morgan has argued that after 1850 they generally aimed to promote civic unity and pride rather than narrower party goals.91 The main impetus and financial contribution for such testimonials came from MPs’ political supporters, but not exclusively so. Political opponents could acknowledge their qualities as local representatives distinct from their party behaviour. For example, the Liberal Birmingham Daily Post could not have disagreed more with the ultra-Tory and anti-Catholic opinions of Richard Spooner, Conservative MP for North Warwickshire. Yet after his death in 1864 it acknowledged that his diligence in local matters meant that ‘for all purposes of Ministerial or Parliamentary business Birmingham enjoyed all the advantages of a third Member’.92 Through presenting petitions, securing private and local bill legislation, and accompanying deputations to ministers, MPs could prove themselves effective local representatives and win acclaim from, if not the votes of, their political opponents. After the Whig George Wilbraham was defeated for South Cheshire at the 1841 general election, his supporters organised a testimonial ‘in admiration of the integrity and manly independence which characterised his political conduct’. The portrait was painted by Sir Martin Archer Shee, president of the Royal Academy, and was displayed at the 1842 summer exhibition.93 At the public ceremony in December 1842, Wilbraham’s fellow Whig Lord Robert Grosvenor presented the painting to Wilbraham’s sister. The picture was a ‘pleasing’ likeness, Grosvenor observed, and would encourage and provide an example to future representatives of Cheshire. The dinner that followed was essentially a party affair to rally local Liberals, but the episode was not an exclusively partisan event. In his speech at the ceremony Wilbraham largely avoided politics as he saw a number of people in the crowd who had attended out of personal respect for him rather than from agreement with his political opinions.94 A similar impression is left by the presentation of a portrait to Richard Bethell after his retirement as Conservative MP for the East Riding of Yorkshire in 1841. As Bethell did not want for ornamental silver, the testimonial committee

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 156

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

157

decided to commission a portrait that could be passed down as an hereditary heirloom, preserving for posterity Bethell’s qualities and the esteem in which he was held by the county. The portrait was painted by John Partridge at a cost of £262 10s, which was raised by a subscription from several hundred people.95 The painting was exhibited at the 1843 RA exhibition and was presented to Bethell in November that year at a ceremony in Beverley.96 Due weight was given to the non-partisan side of his parliamentary duties at the presentation ceremony. The chairman of the testimonial committee observed that ‘by his unremitting attention to the business entrusted to him, he had secured the good wishes of all’. Bethell declared that representing the county was a ‘serious responsibility’, and he had ‘ever attended with anxious care’ to local and private affairs. The strain of parliamentary duties was the reason for his retirement. ‘The labours annually increased, whilst his own strength was less than before’, he reflected.97 Portrait testimonials could be disseminated to a wider audience through reproductions. On Lord Marcus Hill’s retirement in 1852 after representing Evesham for fifteen years, his late constituents presented his wife with a portrait in July 1853, funded by 221 subscribers ‘of all political opinions’. The painting of Hill was notable for including constituency landmarks in the background, such as church spires.98 A wood engraving after the painting was published by the ILN, circulating Hill’s portrait to a readership of 74,165.99 Although testimonials, including portraits, continued after mid-century there also developed a culture of memorialising MPs (and other local public figures) through statuary and public sculpture that further demonstrates their prestige. This was part of a broader renaissance in much of urban, provincial Britain, during a period in which fine civic buildings such as town halls, art galleries, museums and public libraries were built under the management of self-confident, public-spirited local urban elites.100 In larger cities such as Manchester, the commissioning and collecting of statues, busts and portraits of local public men symbolised local political and civic identities.101 The busts and statues in Manchester town hall and Albert Square formed a local pantheon that was heavily political and reflected the values of the ‘local Liberal elite’, namely free trade liberalism. Significantly, the national politicians who were included, such as William Ewart Gladstone and Charles Pelham Villiers, were strongly associated with free trade as well.102 In some smaller towns, such as Ashton-under-Lyne, Stockport and Oldham, the only public statues were of politicians or public figures who had combined representing the town in Parliament with other economic, civic and philanthropic roles.103 Typically such statues presented their subjects in contemporary dress rather than classical robes and often portrayed them in their public role, addressing a crowd or a public assembly.104 There were important differences between portrait testimonials and statues or monuments, which were often posthumously erected. Statues and sculpture

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 157

23/09/2014 11:54

158

Politics personified

were a permanent embodiment of certain values and were sited in strategically important public places, and, for these reasons, could be contentious. At the risk of stating the obvious, once politicians were dead they lost any power to control and manage their image. Accordingly, their political careers could be selectively interpreted to serve particular purposes. After the death in 1856 of Thomas Attwood, Radical MP for Birmingham from 1832 to 1839, a local campaign for a monument was organised. The 9-foot-high marble statue, which cost £800, was unveiled in June 1859, and was prominently located in the centre of New Street. Attwood was presented addressing a public meeting and clutched a scroll inscribed ‘reform’, while he rested one arm on a fasces representing ‘Liberty, Unity, Property’, the motto of the Birmingham Political Union. The statue thus depicted Attwood at the height of his powers as leader of the popular agitation for reform in 1831–32, rather than during his later disappointing parliamentary career.105 The speakers, including the mayor, all stressed Attwood’s role in securing the passage of reform at the unveiling ceremony.106 No mention was made of Attwood’s unorthodox economic theories, which argued that a more flexible monetary system was necessary to achieve permanent prosperity, even though he had only taken up parliamentary reform as a means to achieve currency reform, having found the unreformed Commons unreceptive to his arguments. However, by the late 1850s, the currency issue had lost its salience even in Birmingham, and local radicals, including working men, were seeking to rally around a new campaign to extend the franchise, following the lead of their newly elected MP, John Bright.107 Presenting Attwood in this light and playing up the continuity between the present and past reform campaigns served to further the current aims of Birmingham radicals and reformers. To give another example, after his premature death from a riding accident in July 1850, statues of Sir Robert Peel, funded by public subscription, were erected all over the country.108 These provide a remarkable indication of Peel’s popularity after his death, which was chiefly due to his association with cheap bread. Public statues of Peel, above all in northern towns, emphasised his connection with the repeal of the corn laws. When Matthew Noble’s statue of Peel was unveiled in Salford in May 1852, the local Radical MP declared that they had not come to ‘deify a man’ but to erect ‘a symbol of a great principle – that principle was free trade’.109 Peel memorials, such as the one at Bury unveiled in September 1852, incorporated free trade motifs, such as wheatsheafs, or allegorical figures representing trade, commerce and manufacturing.110 The statue of Peel in his own constituency of Tamworth differed significantly. As the dominant landowner, Peel had been the electoral patron of Tamworth, as well as serving as MP since his father’s retirement in 1830. He high-mindedly refused to use his influence to control the second seat, much to the exasperation of local Conservatives and his own brothers.111 Although

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 158

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

159

Peel had been re-elected at the 1847 general election with little difficulty, his conversion to free trade was not at all popular in the constituency, a market town that included the surrounding agricultural district. In February 1846 local farmers had publicly denounced Peel and resolved to replace him with a protectionist.112 There was no chance of ousting Peel, so local protectionists contented themselves with forcing out his Conservative colleague, who had also backed repeal of the corn laws. The Tamworth statue of Peel accordingly reflected a very different political culture to the Lancastrian mill towns, and was notable for making no allusion to free trade or cheap bread; nor did it feature allegorical figures representing commerce and industry as in other cases.113 Public statues of MPs demonstrated their cultural prestige in three respects. Firstly, they relied upon voluntary subscriptions. After the death of Joseph Brotherton in 1857, admirers from Salford and Manchester raised £2,550, which was eventually spent on three memorials, a statue, a bust in the town hall and a memorial by his grave.114 A subscription of £1,000 was quickly raised in Sunderland after the death of its former councillor, mayor and MP John Candlish in 1874, and a bronze statue was erected the following year.115 Some schemes were bedevilled by difficulties and delays. Stockport finally erected a statue of Richard Cobden in 1886, over twenty years after it had originally been proposed.116 Subscriptions were often drawn from a broad range of donors rather than just the deep pockets of the local bourgeoisie. The marble statue of John Biggs, late Radical MP for and mayor of Leicester, was funded by 1,400 subscribers, of whom 1,070 contributed small sums.117 Secondly, the memorials and statues of MPs were prominently sited in major public spaces, such as town squares and newly opened public parks. The statue of James Oswald, MP for Glasgow 1832–37 and 1839–47, was erected in 1856, three years after his death, near Sauchiehall Street. But the memorial was eventually moved to a more prominent site in George Square, near the Peel statue, in 1875 after an incessant lobbying campaign by Oswald’s family and supporters.118 The siting of memorials and statues not only indicated the importance of the individuals depicted, but reflected the contemporary belief that such statues had an exemplary purpose, and were educative and instructive. Statues of public figures represented the permanent embodiment of public and private values: the more visible they were, the more people would benefit from their lessons.119 Thirdly, the unveilings were often attended by crowds in their thousands, and were notable for music bands and flag-waving.120 When the statue of John Platt, late manufacturer and MP for Oldham, was unveiled in 1878, it was preceded by a procession of 10,000 people and medals were struck to commemorate the event.121 When the statue of John Candlish was unveiled in Sunderland in 1875, 15,000 people attended.122

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 159

23/09/2014 11:54

160

Politics personified

Figure 5.4  Maull and Polyblank, Michael Thomas Bass [c. 1866–69]. Albumen print. 7¾ x 5¾ inches. Reproduced with the permission of the Parliamentary Archives, London, PHO /2/2/97.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 160

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

161

Self-fashioning and photography Photographic portraits of MPs, increasingly common from the late 1850s as cartes de visite or in other formats, provided another medium for the projection of their individuality. Particularly significant were the photographic portrait albums apparently commissioned by the House of Commons Library in the late 1850s and 1860s. These provide insights into the men who formed the House of Commons in its heyday and how they presented themselves. The albums documented MPs, preserving their likeness, including their physique, for the present as well as posterity. The photographs offered MPs a considerable opportunity for self-fashioning. Sitters for cartes de visite sought to exercise control of their image by insisting on having their photograph taken a number of times, and deciding on a pose beforehand.123 Photographic portraits were therefore about peforming a role, but a detailed understanding of the individual MP’s personality and political career is necessary to unlock these layers of meaning. A good example is the albumen print of Michael Thomas Bass, Liberal MP for Derby, 1848–83, taken in the 1860s as part of Maull and Polyblank’s threevolume series of photographs of MPs commissioned by the House of Commons Library (figure 5.4). A brewer and one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs at this time, Bass exemplified the common sense, industry and pragmatism of many mid-Victorian businessman MPs. He acted upon the belief that ‘unless a man had something to say which the House had not heard before, he should hold his tongue’ and he generally limited his speeches to his areas of expertise.124 He maintained that a great deal of the most important parliamentary work was done outside the debating chamber. He often stayed at Westminster from midday until two o’clock in the morning working on ‘public business’.125 This is the image of Bass captured in the photograph. Seated, swivelling away from a desk, Bass clutches papers in his hand. These props are generic, but in Bass’s case imply diligently answering correspondence and reading official papers, that is to say, his role as a hard-working private member. Conclusion Likenesses of MPs, whether produced for national audiences or for local consumption, emphasised their individuality and role as independent representatives, rather than as lobby fodder for party majorities at Westminster. This was generally a flattering filter through which to view contemporary parliamentarians, and amply testifies to their cultural prestige. However, there could be a fine line between individual MPs forcing an issue on to the political agenda and gaining an unwanted reputation as a parliamentary bore or monomaniac. Similarly, independence was venerated, but a dim view was taken of ­inconsistent or random shifts of opinion by MPs. The spread and themes of parliamentary

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 161

23/09/2014 11:54

162

Politics personified

portraiture demonstrates that Victorian political culture was heavily individualised, with even political small fry becoming recognisable through the expansion of visual media. While this was important for promoting a favourable perception of MPs and Parliament, visual culture, as the next chapter shows, was increasingly influential in projecting images of leading politicians. Notes 1 A. Hawkins, ‘“Parliamentary Government” and Victorian Political Parties, c. 1830–c. 1880’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989), 638–69. 2 Although see B. Trinder, A Victorian MP and His Constituents: The Correspondence of H.W. Tancred, 1841–1859 (Banbury: Banbury Historical Society, 1969); J. Coohill, Ideas of the Liberal Party: Perceptions, Agendas and Liberal Politics in the House of Commons, 1832–1852 (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), pp. 46–76. 3 M. McCormack and M. Roberts, ‘Conclusion: Chronologies in the History of British Political Masculinities, c. 1700–2000’, in M. McCormack (ed.), Public Men: Masculinity and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 187–202 (at 190, 194). 4 S. Pearl, About Faces: Physiognomy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 5, 7. 5 F. O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons and Parties: The Unreformed Electoral System of Hanoverian England, 1734–1832 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 259–85. 6 M. McCormack, The Independent Man: Citizenship and Gender Politics in Georgian England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005). 7 J. Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics, 1867–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 163–93; J. Owen, ‘Triangular Contests and Caucus Rhetoric at the 1885 General Election’, Parliamentary History, 27 (2008), 215–35. 8 D. Beales, ‘Parliamentary Parties and the “Independent” Member, 1810–60’, in R. Robson (ed.), Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain: Essays in Honour of George Kitson Clark (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967), pp. 1–19. 9 G.W. Cox, ‘The Development of a Party-Orientated Electorate in England, 1832–1918’, British Journal of Political Science, 16 (1986), 187–216. 10 P. Fraser, ‘The Growth of Ministerial Control in the Nineteenth Century House of Commons’, EHR, 75 (1960), 444–63; J. Redlich, The Procedure of the House of Commons, trans. Sir C. Ilbert (3 vols., London: A. Constable, 1908), I, pp. 206–12; Sir T.E. May, A Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament (12th edn, London: Butterworth and Co., 1917), p. 236. 11 Hereford Times, 7 Aug. 1847, p. 4. 12 London School of Economics, British Library of Political and Economic Science, Thornely–Villiers correspondence transcripts, R (SR) 1094, Thomas Thornely to Charles Pelham Villiers, 18 Nov. 1856, II, fo. 38. 13 E.M. Whitty, The Derbyites and the Coalition (London: Trübner, 1854), p. 173. 14 B. Hilton, A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006), pp. 374–5, 517–24.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 162

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

163

15 Coohill, Ideas of the Liberal Party, pp. 13–45. 16 After 1855 MPs on private bill committees had to declare that they had no local (i.e. constituency) or personal interest in the proposed legislation: Cox, ‘PartyOrientated Electorate’, pp. 210–11. 17 J. Vincent, Pollbooks: How Victorians Voted (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). 18 M. Baer, The Rise and Fall of Radical Westminster, 1780–1890 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012); J.A. Phillips, The Great Reform Bill in the Boroughs: English Electoral Behaviour, 1818–1841 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); B. Weinstein, Liberalism and Local Government in Early Victorian London (London: Royal Historical Society, 2011). 19 Bodleian Library, John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, Elections box 4, W.S. Lindsay, ‘To the Electors of Tynemouth’, 23 Apr. 1853. 20 D. Read, The English Provinces, c. 1760–1960: A Study in Influence (London: Edward Arnold, 1964), p. 227. 21 J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 78–80, 87–8. 22 M. Taylor, ‘Interests, Parties and the State: The Urban Electorate in England, c. 1820–72’, in J. Lawrence and M. Taylor (eds), Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820 (Aldershot: Scolar, 1997), pp. 50–78 (at 63, 65–6); M. Taylor, The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), pp. 62, 70. 23 D. Fraser, Urban Politics in Victorian England (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1976). 24 C.B. Adderley to Julia Leigh, 27 May 1842, qu. in W.S. Childe-Pemberton, Life of Lord Norton (London: J. Murray, 1909), p. 43. 25 S.A. Thévoz, ‘The Political Impact of the London Clubs, 1832–1868’, PhD thesis, University of Warwick, forthcoming, ch. 5. 26 Parliamentary Papers 1847–48 (644), Report of the Select Committee on Public Business, XVI, p. 141. 27 PP 1854 (212), Report of the Select Committee on Public Business, VII, p. 13. 28 B. Harrison, Peaceable Kingdom: Stability and Change in Modern Britain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), pp. 264–5. 29 Parry, Liberal Government, pp. 80–1. 30 K. Rix, ‘“Whatever Passed in Parliament Ought to be Communicated to the Public”: Reporting the Proceedings of the Reformed Commons, 1833–1850’, Parliamentary History (forthcoming). 31 Coohill, Ideas of the Liberal Party, pp. 24–5. 32 NPG, London, MS 92, J. Partridge, Sitters book, c. 1823–65, fos. 1, 33. 33 NPG, London, MS 30, G. Richmond, Extracts from Diary, 1830–93, typescript, pp. 2–3, 17. 34 Ibid., p. 4. 35 S. West, Portraiture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 11–12. 36 Staffordshire Record Office, Hatherton Papers, D260/M/F/5/27/24, Edward Richard Littleton to Lord Hatherton, 3 Mar. 1852. 37 D. Solkin ‘“The Great Mart of Genius”: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836’, in D. Solkin (ed.), Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 163

23/09/2014 11:54

164

Politics personified

at Somerset House (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 1–8 (at 5). 38 Morning Post, 8 May 1833, p. 3; Athenaeum, 11 May 1833, p. 298. 39 Calculated from newspaper stamp returns in H. Miller, ‘Printed Images and Political Communication in Britain, c. 1830–1880’, PhD thesis, University of London, 2009, pp. 84–5. 40 ILN, 24 (Jan.–June 1854, unpaginated before volume indexes). Copy consulted in Senate House Library, University of London. 41 ILN, 22 (1853), 4; 62 (1873), 261. 42 ILN, 22 (1853), 193; 26 (1855), 241. 43 J. Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 14. 44 Ibid., p. 98. 45 [J. Grant], Random Recollections of the House of Commons (4th edn, London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1836). 46 H. Vizetelly, Glances Back Through Seventy Years (2 vols., London: Kegan Paul, 1893), I, p. 260. 47 S. Morgan, ‘Material Culture and the Politics of Personality in Early Victorian England’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 17 (2012), 127–46 (at 131). 48 Calculated from PP 1844 (55), Newspaper Stamp Returns, July–Dec. 1843, XXXII, p.  429. 49 ILN, 10 (1846), 397. 50 Illustrated Times, 4 (1857), 312–13, 341, 344, 365. 51 West, Portraiture, pp. 21–9. 52 ILN, 9 (1846), 45. 53 ILN, 3 (1843), 265. 54 ILN, 22 (1853), 237–8. 55 ILN, 4 (1844), 156, 268, 292, 404. 56 Ibid., p. 404. 57 ILN, 5 (1844), 5. 58 ILN, 4 (1844), 137. 59 ILN, 8 (1846), 119–20. 60 ILN, 2 (1843), 57. 61 ILN, 9 (1846), 128. 62 ILN, 2 (1843), 175. 63 P.D. Gordon Pugh, Staffordshire Portrait Figures of the Victorian Era (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1981), pp. 244, 247–8. 64 Ibid., p. 96. 65 ILN, 14 (1849), 101, 141. 66 ILN, 11 (1847), 369. 67 Illustrated Times, 2 (1856), 252. 68 ILN, 2 (1843), 108. 69 P. Hollis (ed.), Pressure from Without in Early Victorian England (London: Edward Arnold, 1974); J.T. Ward (ed.), Popular Movements, c. 1830–1850 (London: Macmillan, 1970). 70 ILN, 3 (1843), 335. 71 ILN, 22 (1853), 277–8. 72 ILN, 64 (1874), 416, 522; 76 (1880), 421, 441, 468, 500–1, 516–17, 544–5, 580–1, 589,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 164

23/09/2014 11:54

MPs and portraiture

165

629. See also The Graphic, 9 (1874), 196, 295–7. 73 G. Cox, The Efficient Secret: The Cabinet and the Development of Political Parties in Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 25; S.H. Beer, Modern British Politics: A Study of Parties and Pressure Groups (London: Faber, 1965), pp. 256–7. 74 S. Morgan, ‘The Reward of Public Service: Nineteenth-Century Testimonials in Context’, Historical Research, 80 (2007), 261–85. 75 Coventry Times, 7 Nov. 1855, p. 8; 21 Nov. 1855, p. 1; Sir Francis Grant, Rt. Hon. Edward Ellice, oil painting, c. 1854–55, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, VA.1955.0002. 76 Coventry Times, 12 May 1858, p. 2. 77 P. Searby, ‘Weavers and Freemen in Coventry, 1820–1861: Social and Political Traditionalism in an Early Victorian Town’, PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 1972, p. 309. 78 PP 1852 (8), Return of the Number of Parliamentary Electors, According to the Registers of 1850 and 1851, XLII, p. 319. 79 Coventry Herald, 7 May 1858, p. 4. 80 Searby, ‘Weavers and Freemen’, pp. 546–7. 81 Prints were certainly published of William Ewart (MP for Wigan), Lord Stanley (North Lancashire), Lord Francis Egerton (South Lancashire) and Thomas Thornley (the Liverpudlian MP for Wolverhampton): Art-Union, 1 (1839), 79; Manchester Courier, 12 Mar. 1842, p. 2; S. Bellin after P. Westcott, James Kershaw, mezzotint, pub. T. Agnew 18 June 1852, NPG, London D36857. 82 H. Miller, ‘The Problem with Punch’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), 285–302 (at 294–5). 83 The Bailie, 18 Nov. 1874, pp. 1–2. 84 Newspaper Press Directory (1886), p. 254; Dart and Midland Figaro, 13 Aug. 1886, p. 3; Printer’s Register, 9 (1870), 150; 15 (1875), 118. 85 A. Whitman, Samuel William Reynolds (London: George Bell & Sons, 1903), p. 40. 86 University of Birmingham Special Collections, Chamberlain Papers, JC 6/5/2/10, Henry J. Wilson to Joseph Chamberlain, 16 Dec. 1873. 87 University of Birmingham Special Collections, Chamberlain Papers, JC 6/5/2/17, J. Paynter Allen to Joseph Chamberlain, 17 Dec. 1873. 88 ILN, 37 (1860), 208. 89 Leeds Intelligencer, 10 Oct. 1835, p. 2. 90 Leeds Times, 21 Nov. 1835, p. 3; Leeds Intelligencer, 7 Mar. 1836, p. 5; 29 Oct. 1836, p. 6. 91 Morgan, ‘Reward of Public Service’, pp. 269–71. 92 Birmingham Daily Post, 25 Nov. 1864, p. 3. 93 The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts (1842), catalogue no. 74. 94 Cheshire Chronicle, qu. in Morning Chronicle, 17 Dec. 1842, p. 3. 95 Hull Packet, 3 Nov. 1843, p. 3; NPG, London, MS 92, J. Partridge, Sitters book, c. 1823–65, fo. 26. 96 The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts (1843), catalogue no. 186. 97 Hull Packet, 3 Nov. 1843, p. 3. 98 Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 23 July 1853, p. 8. 99 ILN, 23 (1853), 105–6. The circulation figure is calculated from PP 1854 (238), Newspaper Stamp Returns for Each Quarter in the Years 1851, 1852, and 1853, XXXIX, p. 507.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 165

23/09/2014 11:54

166

Politics personified

100 S. Gunn, The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and Authority in the Victorian City, 1840–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); T. Hunt, Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005). 101 L. Purbrick, ‘The Bourgeois Body: Civic Portraiture, Public Men and the Appearance of Class Power in Manchester, 1838–50’, in A. Kidd and D. Nicholls (eds), Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle-Class Identity in Britain, 1800–1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 81–98. 102 T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004), pp. x, 32–46 (at 32). 103 Ibid., pp. 283–5, 335, 364–5. 104 P. Pickering and A. Tyrrell, Contested Sites: Commemoration, Memorial and Popular Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), p. 14. 105 D.J. Moss, ‘A Study in Failure: Thomas Attwood, M.P. for Birmingham, 1832–1839’, HJ, 21 (1978), 545–70. 106 ILN, 34 (1859), 600. 107 H. Miller, ‘Radicals, Tories or Monomaniacs? The Birmingham Currency Reformers in the House of Commons, 1832–1867’, Parliamentary History, 31 (2012), 354–77 (at 375). 108 D. Read, Peel and the Victorians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), pp. 294–301. 109 Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, p. 196. 110 Ibid., pp. 250–2. 111 H. Miller, ‘Tamworth’, History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1832–1868 (draft entry). 112 Morning Post, 2 Feb. 1846, pp. 5–6. 113 G.T. Noszlopy and F. Waterhouse, Public Sculpture of Staffordshire and the Black Country (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), pp. 158–60. 114 Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, pp. 51–2. 115 P. Usherwood, J. Beach and C. Morris, Public Sculpture of North-East England (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), pp. 181–2. 116 Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, pp. 335, 344–6. 117 T. Cavanagh and A. Yarrington, Public Sculpture of Leicestershire and Rutland (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), pp. 177–81. 118 R. McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002), pp. 131–2. 119 Pickering and Tyrrell, Contested Sites, pp. 16–17; McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow, pp. 183–5. 120 McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow, p. xiii. 121 Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, pp. 283–5. 122 Usherwood et al., Public Sculpture of North-East England, pp. 181–2. 123 L. Perry, ‘The Carte de Visite in the 1860s and the Serial Dynamic of Photographic Likeness’, Art History, 35 (2012), 728–49 (at 733–4). 124 Hansard, 21 June 1854, vol. 134, col. 458. 125 Ibid., 9 Apr. 1861, vol. 162, col. 348.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 166

23/09/2014 11:54

6

Palmerston and his rivals

Commercial mass-produced images of leading politicians became ubiquitous after 1850. Likenesses in illustrated periodicals and photographic formats were a crucial element in shaping the perception of prominent politicians, whether positively or negatively. This chapter shows how a highly favourable persona of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Liberal prime minister 1855–58, 1859–65, was projected through a range of visual media. A study of these images is of considerable significance in understanding Palmerston’s popular appeal. Historians have long recognised that his courting of public opinion through the press was crucial in sustaining his political position.1 This was all the more necessary as he had a relatively small personal following in Parliament, with no shortage of enemies in Whig and Liberal cabinets and in the court. Studying the role of pictorial and photographic likenesses adds a new dimension to existing accounts of Palmerston’s political career and of the high politics of the time. In presenting Palmerston as much younger than he actually was, pictorial representations emphasised his physical and political vigour. The example of Palmerston underlines the fact that political portraits could be resonant because of what they represented, even though they might lack realism or accuracy as likenesses. Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates how Palmerston’s favourable image was strengthened through comparisons with his political rivals in the period between 1850 and his death in 1865. While these politicians were flattered or portrayed favourably in conventional portraits, cartoons could be more critical and helped to reinforce and encapsulate negative perceptions in a visually arresting way. Palmerston, who seemed to embody patriotic, manly qualities, was regularly contrasted, implicitly or explicitly, with other statesmen in cartoons. The chapter does not examine Palmerston in isolation from his contemporaries, but breaks new ground in also critically analysing likenesses of his chief rivals. These include Lord John Russell, prime minister 1846–52, 1865–66, and Palmerston’s main competitor for the Liberal leadership in the 1850s; George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, the prime minister of the Whig–Peelite coalition government of 1852–55; and Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Conservative leader and prime minister 1852, 1858–59, 1866–68.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 167

23/09/2014 11:54

168

Politics personified

This chapter fills an important gap in the literature. While images and popular portraits of Gladstone have been noted by historians of popular ­liberalism, little or no attention has been given to the visual imagery associated with his contemporaries and predecessors. This chapter aims to rectify this oversight, and shows how these images were shaped by political developments and the visual technologies available. The focus is on individual politicians because of the lack of the clear party dividing lines that had characterised the 1832–46 period. In the period between the split in the Conservative party in 1846 and the re-emergence of clearer party distinctions in the 1860s, divisions within the parties were perhaps more important than those between them. The Liberals retained a majority of parliamentary seats throughout and the Conservatives remained a minority because, unlike in the 1830s, they were unable to make sufficient electoral gains. However, Liberal disagreements over policy and personnel allowed the Conservatives to form minority governments on three occasions in 1852, 1858–59 and 1866–68. To give one example, Liberal MPs disagreed on the nature, extent and timing of further electoral reform, particularly regarding extending the franchise. This was why Liberal ­governments failed to carry a reform bill between 1846 and 1867, despite Russell’s best efforts.2 Visual media after 1850: from iconic portraiture to dynamic imagery After 1850 there was a shift in the portrayal of public figures from iconic portraits to dynamic images. The development of the illustrated press, especially the Illustrated London News, was crucial in this respect. Instead of newspapers giving away prints occasionally to commemorate events, the ILN needed to produce a constant series of news events to illustrate and depict. Increasingly, the picture of contemporary figures was not fixed, but dynamic: their image changed over time and was presented in different ways through different media.3 Crucially, the proliferation of wood engravings in illustrated periodicals as well as photographic portraits meant that likenesses were more current, without the traditional delays associated with paintings and steelengraved prints, and they were located within current events to a greater extent than before. As we have seen in previous chapters, before 1850 political portraits often took the form of steel-engraved prints. Following the well-established conventions of eighteenth-century portraiture, they tended to fix sitters in an atemporal environment.4 They did not aim for currency, in part because steel engraving was a lengthy process and the paintings they were based on could be very old indeed. For instance, one 1834 steel engraving of Lord Stanley (the future 14th Earl of Derby) was a reissue of an 1818 portrait after George Harlow’s painting of him as an Eton schoolboy.5 To give another example, Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 1828 portrait of Sir Robert Peel was reproduced as an engraving by the print-

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 168

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

169

seller Dominic Colnaghi (who owned the copyright) in 1835, 1841 and 1850, that is, on both occasions when Peel became prime minister and on his death.6 By the 1840s, however, the portrait bore little resemblance to Peel, but was still recommended as the definitive depiction of the statesman for posterity.7 The nature of contemporary portraiture created a gap in the market for more current likenesses, which was one reason for the popularity of HB’s Political Sketches in the 1830s and 1840s. After 1850 the expansion of the illustrated press and photographic likenesses meant that portraits of public figures could be produced in greater quantities and seen by more people. Wood-engraved portraits in the ILN were either based on recent photographs or portrayed politicians at public events, and were incorporated into a letterpress that provided coverage of the contemporary world. They therefore located politicians in a current context, rather than a timeless one. The phenomenally popular cartoons in Punch provided a running visual commentary on political events, and familiarised its audience with particular representations of leading politicians in the process. Equally significantly, the pictorial press and photographic likenesses presented politicians in a variety of different ways, rather than fixing them. To give one example, photographic likenesses, such as cartes de visite, often captured an individual in a series of poses or expressions from one sitting.8 Visual media could still shape the popular perception of politicians. However, this was no longer achieved through a handful of definitive portraits, but through the repetition and reiteration of certain themes, visual tropes or physical features through a variety of visual media over time. Cartes de visite, illustrated periodicals and Punch cartoons were all serials, published continually or in series, and intended to be collected. In this way, images of politicians were reiterated, in some cases continually, and did not work as single images. Furthermore, images could build on and reinforce existing perceptions and graphic stereotypes. Derby, Russell and Palmerston: the legacy of earlier likenesses Jonathan Parry has suggested that the careers of Lord Derby, Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston must be ‘studied in parallel’.9 The three men were all members of Earl Grey’s reform ministry of 1830–34 and between them held the premiership for all but two of the years between 1846 and 1868.10 Although they were undoubtedly rivals in the 1850s, for much of their long political careers Palmerston and Russell cooperated effectively and formed ‘a very successful partnership’.11 However, before considering the development of Palmerston’s image through visual media after 1850, we must consider the legacy of earlier representations. It was to Palmerston’s advantage that, unlike Russell or other leading politicians, he had no clearly established visual persona before 1850.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 169

23/09/2014 11:54

170

Politics personified

In 1850 The Critic observed with pardonable exaggeration that a recent painting of Palmerston was ‘the only existing likeness of this great statesman’.12 This was not entirely accurate. A number of published portraits had been derived from Sir W.C. Ross’s 1838 painting, which represented Palmerston with a cane in his hand. Given the complaints of Foreign Office clerks about his punishing regime, the cane was perhaps a fitting mark of distinction. A number of engravings and lithographs based on Ross’s painting were published between 1838 and 1840, including the portrait of Palmerston in Portraits of Eminent Political Reformers (1837–40), which was discussed in chapter 2.13 However, there were fewer likenesses of Palmerston in circulation before 1850 compared to Peel, Derby or Russell, even though his ministerial career dated back even further than theirs. He had been a junior member of the Tory governments from 1809–27, and, after gravitating to the Whigs from the late 1820s, had served as foreign secretary on three occasions, 1830–34, 1835–41 and 1846–52. By any measure he was a front-rank politician, yet this was not translated into a commensurate prominence in visual media. Although he featured in HB’s Political Sketches and other cartoons, it is fair to say that before 1850 Palmerston had not obtained the same popular recognition as Peel or Russell. Indeed, as late as the early 1850s he was poorly and inconsistently characterised in Punch cartoons.14 When he was later asked why Palmerston ‘was always drawn in Punch with a straw in his mouth’, the cartoonist John Tenniel replied that ‘being a difficult likeness to catch, they were obliged to do something which the public would always recognise’.15 All this suggests that political prominence alone was not always sufficient for politicians to secure proportionate recognition in visual media. In Palmerston’s case, it may be explained by his occupation of the Foreign Office during a time when many of the major political debates revolved around domestic issues, such as reform, Irish church appropriation and free trade. Furthermore, he was not yet publicly associated with a clear or distinctive political agenda in the way that Russell, Peel, Derby or radical politicians were. Although Palmerston lacked a strong visual image before 1850, this turned out to be to his advantage thereafter. This was because, as indicated by other cases, having an established visual reputation could be something of a burden. This is most clearly shown by the example of Lord John Russell. Russell was one of the Whig ministers who gained an iconic status in popular political prints, portraits and material culture during the reform agitation. Russell had not only helped draft the bill, but had introduced the first bill in March 1831. This was not only a seminal moment in British politics, but also a great piece of parliamentary theatre. The extent of the proposed reform, above all the disenfranchisement of rotten and nomination boroughs, was breathtaking and caused uproar among many anti-reform Tories.16 Political objects often linked a politician to a particularly significant moment

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 170

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

171

Figure 6.1  J. Bromley after G. Hayter, Lord John Russell, 1836. Mezzotint. 13½ x 8⅞ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 171

23/09/2014 11:54

172

Politics personified

in their career. Staffordshire figurines of Richard Cobden and Sir Robert Peel, for example, associated them with the repeal of the corn laws. Politicians were thereby connected with larger causes and principles.17 In Russell’s case the defining moment was the passing of the 1832 Reform Act. He featured prominently both in Benjamin Robert Haydon’s The Reform Banquet (1834) and Sir George Hayter’s The House of Commons, 1833 (1843). Individual portraits of Russell, such as James Bromley’s 1836 mezzotint, which was re-issued in 1843, portrayed him clutching the reform bill (figure 6.1).18 The original by Hayter had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1832 and was owned by Russell’s father, John, 6th Duke of Bedford. The portrait associated Russell with reform but also with his family’s illustrious history of defending liberty. It was a companion piece to an 1828 engraving, also by Bromley, of Hayter’s The Trial of William, Lord Russell, which was also owned by the duke.19 Russell’s ancestor had been tried and executed for plotting against Charles II in 1683, and became a Whig martyr after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, a view Russell helped promote through his The Life of William, Lord Russell (1819). Increasingly, Russell’s association with reform was placed in sharper relief by the fact that many of the other politicians responsible for the passing of the Act, such as Earl Grey or Lord Althorp, had retired from government by the mid and late 1830s or had changed party allegiance, like Sir James Graham. This was neatly illustrated in Haydon’s painting of the Reform banquet of 1832, commissioned by Earl Grey. By the time the engraving was published in July 1837, many of the figures represented were no longer active in frontline Liberal politics, as newspapers were quick to point out.20 Other likenesses of Russell published in the 1830s and 1840s featured him clutching a blank scroll, and were presumably derived from earlier reform portraits. This was a theme of later likenesses in the pictorial press. For example, the first portrait of Russell in the ILN had him clutching a scroll and resting his hand on a desk, or possibly the Commons dispatch box.21 Sir Francis Grant’s 1853 painting of Russell also portrayed the statesman clutching a scroll, a common enough accessory in political portraiture, but in this case recalling the sitter’s role in the passing of the reform bill.22 Russell admired Grant’s portrait. When viewing the painting at the 1854 Royal Academy, Russell was congratulated by his political colleagues and adversaries upon ‘the spirited and characteristic likeness, the merits of which the Noble Lord appeared to take a pleasure in acknowledging’.23 A mezzotint engraving after the painting was published by Graves, with 325 prints being sold at different prices.24 However, portraying Russell clutching a piece of paper, or standing at the dispatch box, not only recalled his role in passing the 1832 Reform Act but also made a more general point about him as a politician. Time and again throughout his long career Russell displayed an unmatched skill for seizing the political initiative by framing legislation or policy proposals

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 172

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

173

to appeal to a broad spectrum of parliamentary opinion. More successfully than any other politician before Gladstone, he was able to craft measures that rallied, energised and gave focus and direction to parliamentary liberalism.25 The most famous example was his promotion of Irish church appropriation in 1834–35 as an issue to bind together Whigs, Radicals and Daniel O’Connell’s Irish party, but there are plenty of other instances.26 It was Russell’s wrecking amendment on the Conservatives’ 1859 reform bill that turned out Lord Derby’s administration. Of course, he was not always successful.27 In his desperation to regain the initiative and make a bold statement he could act precipitately and rashly, alienating supporters and colleagues.28 After 1832, then, portraits of Russell explicitly or implicitly recalled his role in passing reform and, more generally, his talent for introducing bold legislative measures. It was of course greatly to Russell’s advantage to be perceived as one of the architects of a measure that was widely venerated for securing good, cheap and effective parliamentary government. On the other hand, as we shall see, his later measures were frequently compared to the Reform Act, and found wanting. Like Russell, but unlike Palmerston, Lord Derby (or Lord Stanley as he was known before he succeeded to the earldom in 1851) had a well-established visual persona. As a member of Grey’s reform government of 1830–34, Lord Stanley was widely regarded as the most brilliant and promising of the cohort of young Whig ministers.29 Stanley crossed the floor in the mid-1830s after an abortive attempt to rally moderate opinion to the centre ground by forming an independent third party. He parted company with his erstwhile Whig colleagues over the issue of Irish church appropriation. Henry Perronet Briggs’s painting of Stanley, engraved in the late 1830s by Henry Cousins, presented him preparing to make one of his pungent and combative speeches.30 The picture captured what was perhaps Stanley’s foremost quality as a politician: his oratory, particularly his ability to rouse his party through powerful critiques of his opponents.31 F.R. Say’s 1844 portrait of Stanley, commissioned by Peel for his portrait gallery at Drayton Manor, projected a similar view of its sitter but had the nobleman facing the other way.32 If Palmerston’s political importance was poorly reflected in visual media in the 1840s, portraits of Stanley perhaps exaggerated his importance in Peel’s Conservative government. After the Conservatives took office in 1841, the leading print-seller Henry Graves republished engravings after Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits of Peel and Wellington, and gave equal billing in his adverts to an engraving of Stanley, the new colonial secretary.33 When Cousins’ print was republished shortly after, the print-seller Thomas Agnew again emphasised that it was comparable in quality and size to the prints of Peel and Wellington.34 This marketing puff reveals that Stanley was presented as one of the three leading figures in the Conservative government, on a par with Peel and Wellington. However, the domestic and financial priorities of

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 173

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

174

Figure 6.2  J. Mayall, The Earl of Derby, 1861. Albumen carte de visite. 3½ x 2⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 174

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

175

Peel’s government meant that Sir James Graham, home secretary, and Henry Goulburn, chancellor of the exchequer, came to have greater political weight than Stanley.35 The sense that he was becoming a marginal figure in the government was one reason why Stanley asked to be raised to the House of Lords in 1844.36 Stanley modified his speaking style for the upper House, so that it was more restrained and less partisan.37 Even so, earlier likenesses, notably that of Briggs, which pictured him from the time when he was a cutting, rousing orator in the Commons continued to provide the basis for images in the popular pictorial press into the 1850s. For example, in 1858 the Illustrated Times’s wood engraving of Derby, who had just become prime minister for the second time, was clearly based on Briggs’s painting or engravings derived from it. However, perhaps in a concession to Derby’s ageing since the late 1830s or maybe to avoid breaching copyright, the wood engraving added pince-nez spectacles and gave him tight, curly hair.38 Arguably, Derby’s image did not keep pace with his political evolution. We have already noted how a portrait of him as an Eton schoolboy was re-issued in 1834, when he was in his mid-thirties and a member of the cabinet. It was photography that eventually closed this gap by presenting Derby as a sagacious elder statesman in the 1860s (figure 6.2). The making of Palmerston’s public image Russell’s 1846–52 minority Whig government was vulnerable to pressure from Radicals for retrenchment, but its weakness was partly offset by the popularity of Palmerston’s foreign policy.39 The paradox was that Palmerston’s growing prestige and habit of acting without the cabinet’s approval undermined Russell’s authority.40 Palmerston was strongly associated with promoting liberal constitutionalism and free trade abroad, a policy that was increasingly attractive to a broad spectrum of public and parliamentary opinion by the early 1850s.41 Palmerston actively contributed to creating this perception. He cultivated the press to appeal to public opinion and strengthen his position against his critics in the cabinet, the court and Parliament.42 This was all the more necessary as he had no organised parliamentary faction behind him; indeed in 1856 one critic sniped that Palmerston had ‘no following’ in the Commons.43 Despite his personal popularity in the country, Palmerston occupied a vulnerable parliamentary position during his first spell as prime minister. This was demonstrated most clearly in early 1858 when he was defeated by a combination of parliamentary opponents, including Russell, the Peelites, Conservatives and Cobdenite Radicals, over the conspiracy to murder bill. This reversal came barely a year after Palmerston had called a snap general election, which had apparently offered an almost unparalleled personal endorsement of a Victorian prime minister, as candidates competed to associate themselves with him.44

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 175

23/09/2014 11:54

176

Politics personified

When Palmerston became premier for the second time in 1859, he formed a much more broadly based government, with Russell as foreign secretary, Gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer and a number of Radicals.45 The political climate after 1846 worked in Palmerston’s favour. The split in the Conservative party, the triumph of free trade, the return of economic prosperity and the 1848 liberal national revolutions in Europe created a more optimistic political context. Although many Radicals and Liberals had been sympathetic to European liberal nationalism, the collapse or suppression of the 1848 revolutionary regimes and the reassertion of traditional autocratic rule on the continent seemed to vindicate Britain’s liberal constitutionalism. Through prudent and gradual reforms, Britain had avoided revolution and reaction, and combined liberty with ordered government.46 Presenting Britain as a beacon of liberal constitutionalism and free trade values with a historic and providential mission to promote them against the forces of continental autocracy played well with a domestic audience, as both Palmerston and Russell recognised. Opponents, notably Conservatives and Radicals, who did not stand up for liberal (i.e. British) values against foreign states could be portrayed as unpatriotic.47 It was also assumed that the spread of liberal constitutional monarchies would promote peace, trade and commerce, all to Britain’s advantage.48 John Partridge’s 1850 portrait was an important moment in the shaping of Palmerston’s public image through visual media. It also had considerable political implications. Originally conceived in August 1849, the painting was funded by a subscription of 500 guineas raised from over a hundred MPs and was publicly presented to Lady Palmerston in late June 1850.49 The timing was significant, coming shortly before Palmerston was forced to defend the deployment of a gunboat to bully the Greek government into paying compensation to Don Pacifico, a Gibraltarian Jew whose property had been damaged in an anti-Semitic riot. Palmerston’s response to his assorted critics came through his celebrated ‘Civis Romanus Sum’ or ‘Don Pacifico’ speech in the House of Commons. The portrait was not merely a flattering representation of Palmerston but a welcome declaration of parliamentary support before what was essentially a vote of confidence in his foreign policy and the government. Of the 107 subscribers, 95 supported Roebuck’s motion endorsing Palmerston’s foreign policy on 28 June 1850, two voted against and ten were absent. The subscription list highlighted the attractiveness of Palmerston’s foreign policy to a broad spectrum of political opinion, containing Radicals otherwise critical of Russell’s government and protectionists. It included four MPs who subscribed in acknowledgement of Palmerston’s anti-slavery record, rather than necessarily supporting his wider foreign policy. Palmerston was ‘not a little affected’ by the presentation and told the subscribers that he greatly welcomed ‘such a flattering mark of approval and esteem from so large a number of independent

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 176

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

177

Figure 6.3  Portrait of Lord Palmerston after J. Partridge, Illustrated London News, 16 (1850), 457. Wood engraving. 9¼ x 5⅞ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 177

23/09/2014 11:54

178

Politics personified

members of the popular branch’ of Parliament, especially in the present circumstances.50 The portrait was satisfactory to the subscribers, even though Partridge had struggled to have a decent number of sittings with Palmerston due to the foreign secretary’s busy schedule.51 Partridge painted Palmerston in an ‘erect posture’ in his office of state, wearing the bright red ribbon of the Order of the Bath.52 His relatively youthful appearance belied his 65 years and bore a strong resemblance to Partridge’s earlier portrait.53 The painting was well received as a ‘striking likeness’ that accurately conveyed Palmerston’s ‘conscious power’.54 Tellingly, the painting included a bust of George Canning, a­ ssociating Palmerston with a foreign policy tradition that emphasised the promotion of liberal constitutionalism and trade abroad and engagement with public opinion at home.55 Not surprisingly, the picture was gratifying to Palmerston, who hung it prominently in Cambridge House, his London home.56 A wood engraving derived from the painting appeared in the next issue of the ILN, disseminating this image of Palmerston to a much larger audience (figure 6.3). The ILN’s weekly circulation averaged 66,753 at this time.57 The painting was also exhibited at Colnaghi’s print shop in the West End to promote interest in the planned steel engraving.58 The publication of the engraving in early 1852 again coincided with a critical phase of Palmerston’s political career. Goaded by the court, Russell had dismissed Palmerston in December 1851 for approving the coup d’état against the French president Louis Napoleon without consulting his cabinet colleagues. Palmerston had his revenge by helping defeat Russell’s ministry in February 1852 over the militia bill. Although Palmerston had no intention of joining Derby’s new Conservative government, he offered no factious opposition to it and sought to strengthen his personal position by playing Derby and Russell off against each other to demonstrate his political indispensability.59 There were 625 prints of the engraved portrait produced, sold at prices varying from 2 to 5 guineas.60 The complimentary reviews again noted the Canning connection.61 This is significant because although reviews and press critics may not have reflected how the audience responded to these images, they do give a strong indication of what caught the contemporary eye. An equally favourable image of Palmerston was presented in the cheap radical press, demonstrating that the positive, manly image of him was not limited to expensive steel engravings or the 6d ILN. Palmerston appealed to radicals for a number of reasons. Firstly, he was not associated with legislative activism and interventionist social reforms like Russell. This made Palmerston much more attractive to radicals who venerated cheap government and had a horror of the centralising schemes encouraged by Russell, such as the central board of health. In this view, Palmerston would not jeopardise the parochial institutions and principles of local self-government that were cherished by

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 178

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

179

Figure 6.4  ‘Viscount Palmerston’, Reynolds’s Miscellany, 8 (1852), 141. Wood engraving. 5 x 5 inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 179

23/09/2014 11:54

180

Politics personified

London radicals in particular.62 Secondly, Palmerston’s sympathy for European liberals and nationalists and hostility towards despotic continental regimes, notably Russia, was a natural point of overlap with radicals in the early and mid-1850s.63 An inky wood engraving in Reynolds’s Miscellany in March 1852 provides an interesting insight into how Palmerston was portrayed in the popular radical press (figure 6.4). Reynolds’s Miscellany was owned and edited by George Reynolds, who is best known for his melodramatic fiction and radical politics.64 Portraits of politicians were a very occasional feature in the weekly periodical. Palmerston’s appearance, and particularly the timing, shortly after he had helped engineer the defeat of Russell’s government, was significant. The picture was published in a penny-periodical and would have been seen by a large readership. It has been suggested that Reynolds’s Miscellany had a circulation of as much as 300,000 by 1855.65 The likeness was much less refined than the wood engravings in the ILN, having a greater affinity with the rudimentary woodcuts that adorned broadside ballads. Although the commentary noted his age, the picture seemed to take its cue from a physical description of Palmerston quoted from twenty years previously. The picture had strong dark lines, strong eyebrows and black hair, and smooth skin, again implying a strong, vigorous physique and policy. Another inky wood engraving in the London Journal was published a few months before the fall of the Aberdeen ministry in early 1855. Although he was home secretary in Aberdeen’s coalition government, Palmerston was widely regarded as the leading cabinet spokesman for a more aggressive prosecution of the Crimean War against Russian autocracy. The woodcut presented a strong, vigorous appearance, the accompanying text describing him as ‘the most popular man in the House of Commons and probably in the country’.66 As the London Journal had a circulation of 500,000, which was huge by contemporary standards, this likeness of Palmerston would have been seen by an extremely large number of people.67 A feature of portraits of Palmerston in radical periodicals and those derived from Partridge’s painting was an emphasis on his physical qualities and his vigour. This was largely done by understating his age. Such pictures were more important for what they represented about Palmerston than as accurate likenesses. Jonathan Parry has rightly noted that Palmerston’s manly characteristics symbolised his assertive, patriotic and liberal foreign policy.68 In cultural terms, manliness implied plain-spoken independence and simplicity, as opposed to mannered and effete politeness, and it was not seen as the property of any particular class.69 Given the widespread cultural resonance of manliness, projecting a manly persona allowed elite politicians, especially Palmerston, to have a greater populist appeal in the 1850s.70 However, there was also a practical dimension to the focus on Palmerston’s physical qualities: they were taken as essential qualifications for political and parliamentary

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 180

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

181

leadership. His ‘wonderful physique and … excellent constitution’ not only enabled him to outlast his rivals, but were necessary in an era when ministers had to manage heavy administrative workloads without the help of a large professionalised bureaucracy, as well as attending long and late sittings in the House to keep together a fractious parliamentary party.71 Palmerston and photography As we have seen, the visual image of Palmerston that emerged in the 1850s emphasised his physical qualities. A man who was 70 by the time he became prime minister for the first time in January 1855 was frequently portrayed as considerably younger to underline his physical and political vigour. The arrival of photographic likenesses, with their greater claims to realism, in the mid-1850s presented a challenge to this image. Photographs were not representations of individuals, but seemed to offer a trace of a real person.72 Nevertheless, although Palmerston was belatedly aged through photographic portraits, they still served to reinforce his existing image in a positive way. Before analysing photographic representations of Palmerston, however, we have to understand the nature of contemporary portrait photography. Although William Fox Talbot (himself a former Whig MP for Chippenham, 1832–35) had invented photography in the 1830s, the development of massproduced commercial photographic portraiture was delayed until the mid-1850s due to technical difficulties and patent restrictions. Daguerreotypes produced sharp unique images but not reproducible ones. Calotypes, the technology pioneered by Talbot, could produce multiple images but these lacked the precision of daguerreotypes. A further problem lay in ‘fixing’ the image on paper or card so that it did not fade. The development of the wet collodion process provided sharper photographic images that were reproducible from negatives, but Talbot argued that the new method infringed his patent for calotype technologies. When Talbot lost his attempt to uphold his patent in December 1854, the wet collodion process was opened up for commercial exploitation. Soon specially treated albumen paper was available that enabled the photographic image to be ‘fixed’ more enduringly than hitherto.73 Between the late 1850s and the late 1860s cartes de visite, small photographic studio portraits, usually 2⅛ by 3½ inches, attained a remarkable popularity. Art historians have long noted that photographic portraits, particularly cartes de visite, were formulaic and relied upon many of the long-established conventions of traditional portraiture.74 Significantly, the sitter was usually set back in the distance, to avoid magnifying wrinkles, blemishes or other unflattering features.75 However, before this occurred there was a brief window of experimentation in the mid to late 1850s during which some of photography’s latent potential to present a warts-and-all picture of public figures was

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 181

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

182

Figure 6.5  Herbert Watkins, Lord Palmerston, in H. Fry, National Gallery of Photographic Portraits (1857). Albumen print. 7⅜ x 5¾ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 182

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

183

realised. Chiefly, this was through close-up, frontal pictures of sitters’ heads and shoulders (that is, bust portraits). These types of photographic likenesses not only revealed Palmerston’s age but also provided a fine-grained view of his facial features. A good example of this would be Palmerston’s portrait in Maull and Polyblank’s Photographic Portraits of Living Celebrities (1856–59). This was an 8 by 6 inch albumen print rather than a carte de visite. The Athenaeum commented in its review that the premier had a ‘pumpkin upper-lip, long and heavy’, with small eyes that were ‘cautious, laborious and heavy’. His ‘high round skull, that puckered face, the long, smooth, waved hair; the deep pouches under the eye, and the ruled forehead show age’.76 Palmerston also agreed to be photographed for Herbert Fry’s National Gallery of Photographic Portraits (1857–58), another series of 8 by 6 inch photographic albumen prints (figure 6.5). As Fry’s correspondence survives in the National Portrait Gallery, this series provides some insights into how politicians negotiated photography and the control they could exert over their image in an era before mass-produced party visual propaganda. Securing a sitting from the premier was quite a coup for Fry, and Palmerston’s portrait, with accompanying biography, was the first part published. Sold for 4s, the first part seems to have gone through at least two editions.77 Palmerston himself carefully edited the proof of Fry’s biography before publication. He deleted a reference to ‘something like illegitimate interference’ in his ministerial duties, an allusion to the court’s hostility to him during his third spell as foreign secretary.78 He also struck out a lengthy quote from a journalist that commented that he was popularly regarded as an ‘antiquated dandy’.79 The photographs were more problematic. At this time, the reputation, and therefore the commercial prospects, of photographers and their publishers was heavily dependent upon securing sittings from public figures and celebrities. To safeguard their respectability and good name, most leading photographers did not publish portraits without the express consent of the sitter.80 Lady Palmerston vetoed the first two photographs taken by Herbert Watkins, Fry’s photographer. She wrote that she had ‘received the two Photographs and is sorry to say that she thinks them both very bad and she would advise him by no means to publish them’.81 As Benjamin Haydon had found during the course of painting The Reform Banquet, politicians’ wives had strong opinions on how their husbands should be portrayed and subjected likenesses to close scrutiny. However, in this case, rather than being motivated by vanity, it is hard to believe that Lady Palmerston did not recognise the importance of managing her husband’s image. After all, she has been described by K.D. Reynolds as ‘the most influential and successful political hostess of her generation, a career which coincided with and helped maintain the “Age of Palmerston”’.82 Although the image of Palmerston was undoubtedly aged through photo­ graphy, in other ways a favourable image could still be presented. For example,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 183

23/09/2014 11:54

184

Politics personified

in 1857 the Illustrated Times declared that a steel-engraved print derived from a picture by John Mayall, a leading portrait-photographer, was ‘the best likeness we have seen’. Even though the premier’s hairs were ‘fewer, greyer and more straggling’, it still displayed ‘the old jaunty air’.83 The newspaper published a wood engraving after Mayall’s photograph in the same issue, which came shortly after the 1857 general election. As swagger and jauntiness were prominent characteristics of pictorial portraits of Palmerston, above all in Punch cartoons, the comments suggest that contemporaries could project already established visual assumptions on to photographic likenesses. Significantly, Mayall’s cartes de visite of Palmerston were set back into the distance, presenting a more forgiving picture of his aged features.84 Just as importantly, the steelengraved prints that followed publicised the fact that the original photograph by Mayall was in the possession of Lady Palmerston.85 Again, this suggests that Lady Palmerston had a key role in approving favourable images of her husband for publication. Another copy of the steel engraving after Mayall was published by William Mackenzie in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and New York.86 As well as being widely distributed, Mayall’s image of Palmerston would probably have been produced in large quantities. Millions of cartes were produced during the late 1850s and 1860s. Indeed, between three and four million cartes of Queen Victoria were apparently put into circulation between 1860 and 1862 according to one contemporary account.87 One scholar has claimed that the carte de visite led to the ‘democratisation of the photographic portrait’.88 This was not only due to the large quantities of images that could be produced, but also because the carte implied a more intimate emotional connection between sitter and viewer. The conceit of the carte was that it was a photographic calling card left by a visitor. It dissolved the social distance between sitters and readers, as there was no difference between a carte given by an individual or one purchased from a print-seller, or between images of the great and the good and ordinary individuals.89 In some ways, then, photography reinforced the image of Palmerston that was forged in the early 1850s, and brought it to new audiences. Comparisons, contrasts and cartoons So far this chapter has concentrated largely on individual likenesses of Palmerston. However, his public image should not be studied in isolation from those of other leading politicians. Comparisons and contrasts were frequently made in visual media, most notably cartoons, in ways that were to Palmerston’s advantage. Presenting Palmerston in sporting roles, for example as a pugilist, was something that cartoons could do better than conventional, straight portraits. As David Brown has noted, the perception that Palmerston was an ‘energetic sportsman’ and tolerant of popular sports such as boxing

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 184

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

185

was a significant part of his appeal to a broad public.90 Six months before Palmerston’s death in October 1865, the Liberal backbencher Sir John Trelawny recorded in his diary a conversation with a fellow MP who expressed disbelief at Palmerston’s ‘extraordinary powers at 80’. The notion that Palmerston was still active physically was important to his political image both within and beyond Parliament even at this late stage in his career. Trelawny recognised this, cynically noting that ‘I suspect the hunting & shooting are partly talk – for stage effect’.91 The political cartoons or ‘large cuts’ in the comic periodical Punch, which was founded in 1841, became a particularly striking way of communicating political likenesses to large audiences. As with HB, the avoidance of excessive physical caricature meant that Punch cartoons were seen as good likenesses. In 1851 the Morning Chronicle argued that the cartoons of HB and John Leech, Punch’s main artist, were ‘most valuable as portrait galleries’.92 These images mattered, and through their regular repetition to a large, middle-class audience they were important in representing prime ministers and party leaders to a broad public. This was recognised at the time. Russell’s nephew admitted that, for better or worse, Punch cartoons familiarised many with his uncle’s likeness.93 Punch cartoons have been a valuable source for scholars, both as a repository for illustrations and for apparently showing how middle-class Victorians ‘saw’ particular issues or marginalised minorities. There remains an unspoken, and largely unexamined, assumption that Punch was a ‘national institution’ that reflected the values of the Victorian middle class.94 Too little attention has been paid to who saw these cartoons, the material forms they took and how this shaped the experience of readers. The popularity of the periodical should not be in doubt, however. In the 1840s Punch had a weekly sale of 40,000 and a readership five times that figure, and archival research reveals that its weekly print run had risen to 65,000 by 1865.95 Punch’s revenues were typically £30,000 a year, generating around £9,000 profit.96 It was both culturally influential and commercially successful, enabling it not only to survive but also to thrive in a ferociously competitive publishing environment with a high failure rate for new periodicals. Early rivals, such as the Puppet Show (1847– 49) and Diogenes (1853–55), were short-lived.97 It was no coincidence that the establishment of more enduring competitors such as Fun (1861–1901) and Judy (1867–1907) came after the abolition of the remaining ‘taxes on knowledge’, the growth of advertising and a fall in paper prices, all of which made them more commercially viable.98 Punch came in a variety of formats: weekly 3d issues, monthly parts and half-yearly bound volumes. The enterprising owners and publishers, Bradbury and Evans, also repackaged material from Punch in other formats, generating more money from the same content. The availability of back-issues encouraged

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 185

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

186

Figure 6.6  ‘“I’m afraid you’re not strong enough for the place, John”’, Punch, 10 (1846), 6. Wood engraving. 9⅝ x 7¼ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 186

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

187

readers to collect Punch, and back-volumes were systematically republished from 1861.99 Stereotyping meant that these publications could be produced on demand at relatively little cost and long after their original publication date. The collectability of Punch meant that readers saw the cartoons as providing a visual history of contemporary and past events.100 Typically, the political cartoons were blank on the back to encourage readers to detach them and pin them up or place them in albums. Punch’s political cartoons were the product of extensive conversations and debates among the staff and not the result of a single authorial voice.101 This is relevant, because in Shirley Brooks, Palmerston had an influential supporter at the weekly meetings around the Punch table. Palmerston had cultivated Brooks when he was parliamentary correspondent for the Morning Chronicle, and had given him an autographed copy of his famous Don Pacifico speech.102 Brooks, who eventually became editor of Punch from 1870 until his death in 1874, was a Conservative in politics, but was an admirer of Palmerston, whom he described as a ‘true Englishman’.103 If Brooks exaggerated his role as ‘suggestor-in-chief ’, he was nonetheless a vocal and frequent contributor to the famous weekly debates about the topic and design of the cartoon.104 His Palmerstonian sympathies and influence should be taken into account when studying Punch cartoons in this period. Furthermore, the Punch staff regularly took their cue from The Times’s editorials on Wednesday morning, the day of the weekly meeting.105 Given that The Times adopted a more favourable line towards Palmerston from late 1855, having long been a critic, this was another way in which a subtle Palmerstonian influence was brought to bear on the shaping of Punch cartoons.106 In Punch Russell was invariably portrayed as a small, boyish figure with thinning hair and skeletal facial features. His feeble physique was used as a visual metaphor for political weakness, often in comparison with his rivals, notably Peel in the 1840s and Palmerston thereafter. When Russell was unable to form a government to repeal the corn laws in December 1845, which necessitated Peel’s return to office, Punch pictured the queen telling Russell, represented as a domestic servant with his little chest puffed out, that he was ‘not strong enough for this place’ (figure 6.6). The Morning Chronicle later commented that the cartoon had expressed the truth and the ‘whole country felt it to be so’, while keeping the criticism of Russell ‘thoroughly good-humoured and genial’.107 When Russell succeeded Peel as prime minister in July 1846 he was likened to a dwarf stepping into his predecessor’s giant robes.108 Russell became prime minister for the second time after Palmerston’s death in 1865, prompting the Liberal Fun to portray him yet again as a weak substitute for his predecessor. This time Russell was depicted as Patroclus struggling underneath the mighty armour of Achilles.109 This echoed a Punch cartoon from the previous year. Then Palmerston was represented as Ajax, another powerful Greek

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 187

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

188

warrior from the Iliad, protecting the defenceless Russell from the attack of the maverick Radical MP J.A. Roebuck.110 While Russell’s physique meant he was often depicted as a schoolboy, Palmerston frequently had a more commanding presence, being depicted as a figure of authority such as a schoolmaster or policeman.111 Cartoons also implicitly or explicitly contrasted Russell’s current proposals with his past record, which rarely worked to his advantage. It was here that his association with the 1832 Reform Act could be something of a burden. Russell’s 1852 reform bill was depicted as a sickly child and a later reform scheme was represented as a half-baked pudding, both drawing implicit contrasts with the 1832 Act.112 His reputation for bold, decisive parliamentary manoeuvres was also undercut in pictorial images after 1850. Russell’s 1851 ecclesiastical titles bill, his response to the pope’s establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in England which had aroused much Protestant ire, was favourably portrayed in the ILN. Russell was pictured as forceful and determined in introducing the measure in the House, recalling prints of his proposal of the 1831 reform bill.113 Yet this image was soon eclipsed by Punch’s much more memorable cartoon of Russell as a naughty schoolboy chalking ‘no popery’ on Cardinal Wiseman’s door and then running away.114 It was a picture that Russell himself apparently

Figure 6.7  ‘Seeing the old year out and the new year in’, Punch, 28 (1855), 5. Wood engraving. 9¾ x 7⅜ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 188

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

189

Figure 6.8  ‘Now for it!’, Punch, 28 (1855), p. 65. Wood engraving. 9¾ x 7 inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 189

23/09/2014 11:54

190

Politics personified

described as a ‘fair hit’.115 In 1860 the Illustrated Times recalled earlier portraits of Russell when it pictured him introducing a new reform bill. But this potentially favourable presentation was contradicted by the accompanying letterpress that dismissed the bill as a largely cosmetic exercise.116 Palmerston also came off better when compared with the prime minister Lord Aberdeen before and during the Crimean War. Although he was appointed home secretary to prevent him meddling in foreign policy, Palmerston was generally perceived as the main cabinet advocate of a policy to firmly resist Russian aggression. Before the outbreak of the war in spring 1854, cartoons had portrayed Aberdeen as a reluctant warrior more eager to appease Russia than to unleash the British lion.117 The government came in for increasing criticism as reports revealed mismanagement, poor communication and inadequate supplies, and Aberdeen was a convenient scapegoat for much of the press, including Punch. He was pictured in tartan trousers, implying that he was insufficiently English. As he sat in the House of Lords, Aberdeen was frequently pictured with a coronet. This had previously symbolised the sectional interests of protectionist landowners, but in Aberdeen’s case represented aristocratic incompetence.118 He was likened to a captain asleep at the wheel during a storm.119 Cartoons presented Aberdeen as unmanly, lacking in vigour and un-English, criticisms that echoed wider press opinion.120 The contrast between Aberdeen and Palmerston was not simply made in cartoons, but also in John Gilbert’s 1854 drawing of the Aberdeen cabinet that was engraved and published in June 1857. The picture visualised what became the conventional wisdom regarding the high politics of the outbreak of the Crimean War. As the cabinet debate whether to send troops to the Near East, the prime minister is shown as a passive figure, with Palmerston represented as the central figure and man of action directing plans.121 One Punch cartoon contrasting the two men, published in early January 1855, anticipated Aberdeen’s fall and replacement by Palmerston barely a month later. The picture, ‘seeing the old year out and the new year in’, presented Aberdeen as an old Scottish woman scuttling out, while a swaggering Palmerston, welcomed by Mr Punch, arrives (figure 6.7). Aberdeen’s age, gender and nationality suggest that he cannot offer the energetic leadership required in wartime, unlike Palmerston, who is manly and English. Punch’s mean-spirited depictions of Aberdeen were one of the few criticisms Marion Spielmann made in his otherwise hagiographic official history of the periodical published in 1895.122 The week following the contrast cartoon with Aberdeen, Palmerston was portrayed in a way that exemplified the qualities that he was associated with at this time. He was depicted as a bare-knuckle boxer, ready to fight the Tsar, with Mr Punch in his corner (figure 6.8). The association with sporting pursuits, particularly shooting and horse racing, continued to be a feature of cartoon depictions of Palmerston. For example, a cartoon alluding

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 190

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

191

Figure 6.9  ‘Derbye hys straite fytte’, Punch, 51 (1866), 17. Wood engraving. 9¾ x 7 inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 191

23/09/2014 11:54

192

Politics personified

to the annual Wimbledon rifle tournament visualised Palmerston hitting the target while Disraeli was knocked backwards by the force of his shot.123 Another cartoon portrayed Palmerston sitting and having a smoke with Mr Punch after a day’s shoot.124 Palmerston was more often contrasted with Disraeli, the Conservative leader in the Commons, than Lord Derby, the overall chief. For example, Fun presented the 1865 general election as a stage fight, with Palmerston as Jack Tar, the naval version of John Bull, protecting Britannia from ‘Bendizzi the bandit’. The music hall setting implies that the politicians are playing roles, but nonetheless contrasts Disraeli’s foreignness with Palmerston’s solid, English virtues.125 Derby’s portrayal in cartoons, most of which were in Liberal-leaning periodicals such as Punch or Fun, was less favourable than his image in portraits. After the formation of his first government in 1852, Derby’s membership of the House of Lords meant that he was frequently depicted with a coronet. This suggested that Derby and his cabinet represented ­aristocratic privilege and sectional interests, and were prepared to reinstate the corn laws.126 Derby and Disraeli were presented as the double-headed giant of protection or else as showmen, a trope that had long signified untrustworthiness.127 Unfortunately for Derby he continued to be pictured with the coronet long after protection was abandoned.128 On assuming the premiership for the third time in 1866, he was portrayed as an elderly knight, the heavy armour representing old Tory ideas, while a battered shield represented protection, all of which implied his party was intellectually bankrupt (figure 6.9). Conclusion In 1863 John Phillip’s painting The House of Commons, 1860 was displayed at the Royal Academy exhibition. The picture portrayed Palmerston addressing the House during the debates on the Anglo-French commercial treaty. On viewing the painting, Palmerston apparently remarked, with characteristic humour, that ‘it’s very difficult to look one’s best in a picture’.129 However, through photographic and pictorial likenesses and cartoons a highly favourable image of Palmerston was projected throughout this period that emphasised his vigorous physical and manly qualities, and suggested that he was best able to stand up for British values and interests. His rivals suffered by comparison, particularly through cartoon depictions. This chapter has shown how important visual images were for communicating and reinforcing positive images of Palmerston to large and wide audiences through a diverse range of media. This occurred at a time when distinctive dividing lines between parties were lacking. After Palmerston’s death in 1865, a clearer two-party system emerged. As the next chapter shows, after the passing of the 1867 ­Representation of the People Act, which expanded the electorate and stimulated more sophisticated party

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 192

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

193

organisation at both national and local level, the political likeness performed a different role. Images of Disraeli and Gladstone came to symbolise the two parties that they led. Notes 1 D. Brown, ‘Compelling but Not Controlling? Palmerston and the Press, 1846–1855’, History, 86 (2001), 41–61; S. Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press (2 vols., London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981–84), I, pp. 84–92, 121–66; L. Fenton, Palmerston and The Times: Foreign Policy, the Press and Public Opinion in Mid-Victorian Britain (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012). 2 R. Saunders, Democracy and the Vote in British Politics: The Making of the Second Reform Act, 1848–1867 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 87–9, 122–7, 201–23; R. Saunders, ‘Lord John Russell and Parliamentary Reform, 1848–1867’, English Historical Review, 120 (2005), 1289–1315. 3 J. Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 98. 4 R. Brilliant, Portraiture (London: Reaktion, 1991), pp. 129–32. 5 NPG, London, 13th and 14th Earls of Derby sitter box, H. Robinson after G. Harlow, The Rt. Hon[oura]ble Edward Geoffrey Stanley, Lord Stanley, stipple engraving, copies dated 1818 and 1834. 6 F. O’Donoughue, Catalogue of British Engraved Portraits preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (6 vols., London: Longmans, 1908–24), III, p. 435. 7 Art-Union, 3 (1841), 110. 8 L. Perry, ‘The Carte de Visite in the 1860s and the Serial Dynamic of Photographic Likeness’, Art History, 35 (2012), 728–49 (at 747). 9 J. Parry, ‘Review of A. Hawkins, The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby, volume I’, Parliamentary History, 27 (2008), 302. 10 For accounts of their interrelationships, see J. Parry, ‘Palmerston and Russell’, in D. Brown and M. Taylor (eds), Palmerston Studies (2 vols., Southampton: Hartley Institute, 2007), I, pp. 144–72; D. Brown, ‘The Fourteenth Earl and the “Political Chameleon”: Changing Views of Palmerston from Knowsley’, in G. Hicks (ed.), Conservatism and British Foreign Policy, 1820–1920: The Derbys and their World (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 59–79. 11 Parry, ‘Palmerston and Russell’, p. 144. 12 The Critic, 9 (1850), 361. 13 J.S. Templeton, after Ross, Lord Palmerston, lithograph, pub. T. McLean, 1 Dec. 1840, repro. as frontispiece, H.C.F. Bell, Lord Palmerston (2 vols., London: Longmans, 1936), I; H. Cook after Sir W.C. Ross, Viscount Palmerston, stipple and line engraving in J. Saunders, Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Political Reformers (London: J. Dowding, 1840). 14 Punch, 12 (1847), 57; 22 (1852), 117. 15 Sir A. West, Recollections, 1832 to 1886 (2 vols., London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1899), II, p. 196. See also M. Spielmann, The History of “Punch” (London: Cassell, 1895), pp. 203–4.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 193

23/09/2014 11:54

194

Politics personified

16 Hansard, 1 Mar. 1831, vol. 2, cols 1061–1151. 17 S. Morgan, ‘Material Culture and the Politics of Personality in Early Victorian England’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 17 (2012), 127–46 (at 145). 18 Examiner, 21 Aug. 1836, p. 544; Art-Union, 5 (1843), 179. 19 J. Landseer, A Brief Memoir Intended to Accompany Mr John Bromley’s Engraving of the Trial of William, Lord Russell ... (London: R. Bowyer and M. Parkes, 1828). 20 J.C. Bromley, after B. Haydon, The Reform Banquet, pub. J.C. Bromley, 1 July 1837, Dept. of Prints & Drawings, British Museum, Blythe House: Large Portfolio; Morning Chronicle, 27 Sept. 1837, p. 3. 21 ILN, 2 (1842), 73. 22 Sir F. Grant, Lord John Russell, oil painting, 1853, NPG, London, 1121, on display in the Palace of Westminster. 23 Leamington Spa Courier, 6 May 1854, p. 4. 24 J. Faed after Sir F. Grant, Lord John Russell, mezzotint steel engraving, pub. Graves, 1854, Palace of Westminster Art Collection, WOA 1135; Catalogue of Engravings Registered by the Print Sellers’ Association … 1847 to 1863 Inclusive (London, 1865), p. 80. 25 J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 132–4. 26 P. Scherer, Lord John Russell: A Biography (Selingsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1999), pp. 82–5; J. Prest, Lord John Russell (London: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 90–1. 27 Scherer, Lord John Russell, pp. 263–4; Prest, Lord John Russell, p. 383. 28 Parry, ‘Palmerston and Russell’, pp. 144–5. 29 S. Farrell, ‘Smith Stanley, Edward Geoffrey’, in D.R. Fisher (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832 (7 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), VII, pp. 158–70 (at 159, 168). 30 Art-Union, 1 (1839), 63. 31 A. Hawkins, The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby (2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007–8), I, pp. 263, 266–9. 32 F.R. Say, Lord Stanley (1844), NPG, London, 1806. On the gallery see R. Gaunt, ‘Robert Peel: Portraiture and Political Commemoration’, The Historian (2012), 22–6. 33 Art-Union, 3 (1841), 146; 4 (1842), 37. 34 Art-Union, 4 (1842), 19. 35 Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, I, p. 284. 36 Ibid., I, pp. 287–8. 37 Ibid., I, pp. 290–1, 293. 38 Illustrated Times, 6 (1858), 181. 39 Parry, ‘Palmerston and Russell’, p. 163. 40 J. Parry, The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 202. 41 D. Brown, Palmerston and the Politics of Foreign Policy, 1846–55 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 11; A. Taylor, ‘Palmerston and Radicalism, 1847–1865’, Journal of British Studies, 33 (1994), 157–79; Parry, Politics of Patriotism, pp. 203–4; D. Brown, Palmerston: A Biography (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 298, 316.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 194

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

195

42 Brown, Palmerston and the Politics of Foreign Policy, p. 214; Brown, Palmerston, pp. 288, 311, 381. 43 ‘The Political Lull, and What Will Break It’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 80 (1856), 741–57 (at 746). 44 A. Hawkins, Parliament, Party and the Art of Politics in Britain, 1855–59 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 29, 86–105. 45 Brown, Palmerston, pp. 431–5; E.D. Steele, Palmerston and Liberalism, 1855–65 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 94–5; M. Taylor, The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), pp. 326–7. 46 Parry, Politics of Patriotism, pp. 59–64, 172–4. 47 Ibid., pp. 10–12, 44; Parry, ‘Palmerston and Russell’, p. 156. 48 Parry, ‘Palmerston and Russell’, pp. 153–4; Parry, Politics of Patriotism, pp. 6, 388. 49 Although the artist was only paid £315. NPG, London, MS 92, J. Partridge, Sitters book, 1823–65, fo. 33. 50 The Globe, qu. in Aberdeen Journal, 26 June 1850, p. 3; The Leader, 29 June 1850, p.  317. 51 Morning Chronicle, 24 June 1850, p. 5. 52 The Leader, 29 June 1850, p. 316. 53 J. Partridge, Lord Palmerston, oil painting, 1844–45, NPG, London, 1025. 54 The Critic, 9 (1850), 361. 55 The Leader, 29 June 1850, p. 316. 56 E. Ashley, The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston (2 vols., London: R. Bentley and Son, 1876), I, p. 276. 57 Calculated from Parliamentary Papers 1852 (42), Return of Newspaper Stamps Issued at One Penny, 1837–50, XXVIII, pp. 504–5. 58 Literary Gazette, 6 July 1850, pp. 458, 463. 59 Brown, Palmerston, pp. 336–9. 60 Catalogue of Engravings Registered by the Print Sellers’ Association, p. 72. 61 Art Journal, 5 (1852), 232; Athenaeum, 17 July 1852, p. 778. 62 Taylor, Decline of British Radicalism, pp. 89–92; B. Weinstein, Liberalism and Local Government in Early Victorian London (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2011), pp. 169–72. 63 Taylor, ‘Palmerston and Radicalism’, 165. 64 See A. Humphreys and L. James (eds), G.W.M. Reynolds: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Politics and the Press (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). 65 L. Brake and M. Demoor (eds), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (London: Academia Press, 2009), p. 539 66 London Journal, 20 (1854), 149. 67 A. King, The London Journal, 1845–83: Periodicals, Production and Gender (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. xii, 82–90. 68 Parry, Politics of Patriotism, pp. 203–4. 69 J. Tosh, ‘Manly Simplicity and Gentlemanly Politeness’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 12 (2002), 455–72. 70 Parry, Politics of Patriotism, p. 70. 71 ILN, 36 (1860), 49. 72 J. Woodall, ‘Introduction: Facing the Subject’, in J. Woodall (ed.), Portraiture: Facing the Subject (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 1–25 (at 11).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 195

23/09/2014 11:54

196

Politics personified

73 G.M. Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography: Portrait Publications in Great Britain, 1856–1900’, PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1985, pp. 38–40. 74 S. West, Portraiture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 188–91; Perry, ‘Carte de Visite’, p. 729; Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, pp. 4–5, 73. 75 J. Plunkett, ‘Celebrity and Community: The Poetics of the Carte-de-Visite’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 8 (2003), 55–79 (at 59). 76 Athenaeum, 2 Oct. 1858, p. 434. 77 NPG, London, album 39, wrapper for no. 1 of H. Fry, National Gallery of Photographic Portraits (unpaginated). 78 NPG, London, album 39, Lord Palmerston’s corrections to Fry’s draft biography, p.  19. 79 Ibid., p. 23. 80 Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, pp. 64–5. 81 NPG, London, album 39, Lady Palmerston to Herbert Fry, 1 Apr. 1857, p. 11. 82 K.D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), p. 230. 83 Illustrated Times, 4 (1857), 232. 84 J. Mayall, Lord Palmerston, albumen cdv, c. 1857, NPG, London, x11965, x11967. 85 NPG, London, Palmerston sitter box, folder 3, F. Holl after J. Mayall, The Right Hon[oura]ble Viscount Palmerston, K.G., G.C.B., stipple and line engraving, n.d. [c. late 1850s]. 86 Another copy in ibid. 87 Plunkett, ‘Celebrity and Community’, p. 61. 88 W.C. Darrah, Cartes de Visite in Nineteenth Century Photography (Gettysburgh, PA; W.C. Darrah, 1981), p. 5. 89 Perry, ‘Carte de Visite’, p. 738. 90 Brown, Palmerston, p. 473. 91 The Parliamentary Diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858–1865, ed. T.A. Jenkins (London: Royal Historical Society, 1990), p. 317. 92 Morning Chronicle, 25 Oct 1851, p. 7. 93 G.W.E. Russell, Collections and Recollections (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1898), p. 13. 94 For a critique, see H. Miller, ‘The Problem with Punch’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), 285–302. 95 R. Altick, Punch: The Lively Youth of a British Institution (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1997), pp. 37–9; BL, Add. MS 88937, Punch Archives, Bradbury and Evans Print and Paper Ledgers, 1853–63, fos. 194, 218–19; ibid., 1858–65, fos. 127–31, 273–74. 96 Ibid. 97 C. Fox, Graphic Journalism in England During the 1830s and 1840s (New York: Garland, 1988), pp. 215–63; Sir F.C. Burnand, ‘“Mr. Punch”: Some Precursors and Competitors’, Pall Mall Magazine, 29 (1903), 96–105, 255–65, 390–7. 98 Miller, ‘The Problem with Punch’, p. 294. 99 BL, Add. MS 88937, Punch Archives, Bradbury and Evans Print and Paper Ledger, 1858–65, fos. 233–5. 100 C. Knight, Passages of a Working Life During Half a Century (3 vols., London:

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 196

23/09/2014 11:54

Palmerston and his rivals

197

Bradbury and Evans, 1864–65), III, p. 164; The Times, 18 Dec 1863, p. 3; 11 Apr 1900, p. 8; Spielmann, History of “Punch”, p. 121. 101 P. Leary, The Punch Brotherhood: Table Talk and Print Culture in Mid-Victorian London (London: British Library, 2010), pp. 36–7. 102 Spielmann, History of “Punch”, p. 99. 103 G.S. Layard, A Great Punch Editor: Being the Life, Letters and Diaries of Shirley Brooks (London: Pitman, 1907), p. 272; Leary, Punch Brotherhood, p. 121. 104 Layard, A Great Punch Editor, p. 272. Cf. Leary, Punch Brotherhood, pp. 49–50. 105 Leary, Punch Brotherhood, pp. 45–6. 106 The History of The Times (6 vols., London: The Times, 1935–), II, pp. 264–70. 107 Morning Chronicle, 25 Oct 1851, p. 7. One of the few cartoons in which Russell got the better of a rival is a similar cartoon after Palmerston’s dismissal in late 1851, the queen telling the latter that if he cannot get on with the other servants he must go: Punch, 22 (1852), 17. 108 Punch, 11 (1846), 37. 109 Fun, 2 (n.s., 1865–66), 75. 110 Punch, 46 (1864), 127. 111 Punch, 48 (1865), 27, 57; 49 (1865), p. 57. 112 Punch, 22 (1852), 57, 77; Fun, 1 (n.s., 1865), 135. 113 ILN, 18 (1851), 137. 114 Punch, 20 (1851), 119. 115 W.P. Frith, John Leech, his Life and Works (2 vols., 2nd edn, London: Richard Bentley, 1891), II, p. 24. 116 Illustrated Times, 10 (1860), 143. 117 A. Cross, ‘The Crimean War and Caricature War’, Slavonic and East European Review, 84 (2006), 460–80 (at 464); Punch, 26 (1854), 67. 118 Punch, 27 (1854), 35, 77, 233, 253; 28 (1855), 15, 55. 119 Punch, 27 (1854), 77. 120 M.E. Chamberlain, Lord Aberdeen: A Political Biography (Harlow: Longman, 1983), pp. 502–3; Parry, Politics of Patriotism, pp. 216–18. 121 Brown, Palmerston, pp. 370–1; J. Gilbert, The Coalition Ministry, pencil sketch, 1854, NPG, London, 1125; W. Walker, The Aberdeen Cabinet deciding upon the Expedition to the Crimea, stipple engraving, pub. W. Walker, 1 June 1857, NPG, London, 1125a. 122 Spielmann, History of “Punch”, pp. 111–13. 123 Punch, 47 (1864) 35. 124 Ibid., 117. 125 Fun, 1 (n.s., 1865), 85. 126 Punch, 22 (1852), 171, 203, 213, 235; 23 (1852), 5, 27, 37, 47, 69, 89, 261. 127 Punch, 21 (1852), 109, 119. 128 Punch, 29 (1855), 229; Fun, 3 (n.s., 1866), 159. 129 Manchester Guardian, qu. in Belfast News-Letter, 7 May 1863, p. 4.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 197

23/09/2014 11:54

7

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party, 1868–80

This chapter shows how Benjamin Disraeli (1803–81), who was created 1st Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, and William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) came to personify the Conservative and Liberal parties after the 1867 Representation of the People Act. Disraeli was prime minister on two occasions, 1868 and 1874–80, and Gladstone four, 1868–74, 1880–85, 1886 and 1892–94. In an era with an expanded borough electorate and more sophisticated party organisation at a local and national level, new requirements were made of political likenesses. This chapter does not offer an exhaustive account of depictions of Gladstone and Disraeli in the 1868–80 period, but focuses on how they symbolised the two parties and the extent to which they had any control over their images, and places these in the context of political developments after 1867. The role of national leaders in an era of mass politics created by the expansion of the electorate has long been recognised. For historians of popular Liberalism such as Eugenio Biagini and Patrick Joyce, the appeal of Gladstone, expressed through iconography as well as through textual culture and platform speeches, was crucial in securing working-class support for the Liberal party.1 The tradition of ‘gentlemanly leadership’ associated with popular radicals such as Feargus O’Connor and Henry Hunt was adapted for an era of mass politics.2 A charismatic leader, in the form of Gladstone, played a vital role in connecting popular support to parliamentary Liberalism. Yet while Gladstone continues to be the focus for much scholarship, less attention has been paid to Disraeli’s public reputation in the 1870s. There was a proliferation of popular portraits of Gladstone and Disraeli, which, whether displayed on the wall in homes or held up at public rallies, were recognised as symbols of party identity. Previous chapters on the party portrait galleries of the 1830s and radical visual culture have highlighted the power of portraits to express and reinforce political identities. The previous chapter showed that Lord Palmerston exerted some control over the shaping of his favourable public image in the 1850s and 1860s. This chapter considers the extent to which Disraeli and Gladstone were able to present a favourable public persona through commercially produced imagery. Gladstone innovatively developed a ‘naturalistic’, less studio-bound and less formulaic type

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 198

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

199

of photographic portrait, while Disraeli presented himself impassively and enigmatically in portraiture. Yet the leaders were not always able to control their own images, particularly those produced by opponents, and in the later 1870s Liberal and Conservative-aligned comic periodicals injected some of the old rancour and ‘personality’ back into political cartoons through their increasingly unpleasant representations of Gladstone and Disraeli. The political context after 1867 As a discrete period, the era between the passing of the 1867 Representation of the People Act and the major electoral reforms of 1883–85 now attracts less attention than it once did. The pioneering studies of Harry Hanham and others in the 1950s and 1960s assumed that the origins of mass politics, a clear-cut two-party system, modern party organisation and the primacy of national over local issues could be traced to this period.3 Such a view has been undermined by the revisionist critique of Jon Lawrence, who has emphasised the fragility and contested hold of party over popular politics after 1867.4 For example, denouncing the evils of local party cliques and party machines that sought to dictate to candidates and electors became an electoral cliché that allowed candidates to stress their independence.5 The impact of the 1867 Act now seems less significant in comparison to earlier and later reform legislation. As Matthew Roberts has put it, ‘in creating a more recognisably “modern” political system, 1832 was far more significant than the Second Reform Act of 1867’.6 The 1883 Corrupt Practices Act, the 1884 Representation of the People Act and the 1885 Redistribution Act had a much more radical impact on the political system than the 1867 Act. The first imposed significant restrictions on election spending at a local level, forcing parties to rely much more on volunteers, who in turn expected their demands to carry some weight with the party leadership. The second expanded the vote to agricultural workers, miners and other groups in counties. The third redrew the electoral map, abolishing almost all multi-member seats and converting them into single-member constituencies. This left most electors with only one vote, depriving them of the range of voting options that had characterised the post-1832 electoral system, and had a polarising effect. The redistribution represented a decisive shift towards the principle that constituencies should be represented on the basis of population, rather than traditional communities of interest. Despite this revisionism, the post-1867 political system was distinctive and differed in a number of respects from what had gone before, although few of the developments were entirely new. Firstly, and most significantly, there was an important shift from ‘parliamentary government’ which required looser parliamentary groupings, which could sustain, defeat and replace governments without a dissolution, to ‘party government’ whereby a popular

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 199

23/09/2014 11:54

200

Politics personified

electorate decided between two party alternatives.7 After the Conservative defeat at the 1868 general election, Disraeli and his government resigned rather than waiting for Parliament to meet. This was a momentous decision of lasting constitutional significance. Gladstone followed this precedent in 1874 and Disraeli did so again in 1880. Disraeli’s refusal to take office as a minority government when Gladstone’s Liberal ministry was defeated over the Irish university bill in 1873 was not simply clever parliamentary tactics. It also confirmed the principle that the electorate ultimately passed judgement on the government of the day and made and unmade ministries, not the House of Commons.8 Secondly, the shift towards party government reflected the fact that there was greater electoral competition than hitherto, which was shown in the decline of uncontested seats at general elections.9 At the 1874 general election, the Conservatives won their first parliamentary majority since 1841. The party had already made significant gains in London and Lancashire in 1868 and these were improved upon with further gains in the boroughs in 1874. This was an electoral breakthrough for the Conservatives, showing that they could capture seats in Liberal strongholds such as Manchester and possessed an appeal outside the English counties and small boroughs.10 Thirdly, the 1867 Act dramatically increased the electorate, especially in the boroughs. The English urban electorate increased from 500,000 to almost 1.2 million as a result and had grown to 1.7 million by the early 1870s due to further legislation and judicial rulings that had the effect of expanding the franchise.11 The English and Welsh county electorate increased more modestly from 540,000 to 790,000.12 The Scottish urban electorate trebled from 54,515 in 1865 to 154,331 in 1868, while the county electorate increased from 49,554 in 1865 to 79,750 by 1871.13 The 1850 Irish Franchise Act, which expanded the Irish electorate from 45,000 to 164,000, was much more important than the 1868 Irish Representation of the People Act, which only led to a marginal increase.14 Fourthly, while perhaps not as novel or significant as once thought, there were key developments in party organisation, particularly in boroughs where the electorate had expanded. From the early 1860s, in anticipation of electoral reform, permanent local party organisations were founded in key boroughs. These replaced the older registration societies and ad hoc election committees, and were intended to have a broader and more representative social base, although the Conservatives tended to establish separate working-men’s Conservative associations and clubs.15 While power often remained concentrated in a few hands within these constituency parties, they nevertheless encouraged wider popular participation than their predecessor bodies.16 The national party structures that were established during this time, such as the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations (1868) and the National Liberal Federation (1877), were formed by representatives of

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 200

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

201

these local party associations. Whether or not the post-1867 period was the foundation of modern two-party system, it certainly signalled the end of the relatively loose party alignments that had existed since 1846, and permanent local party associations were an important factor here. National party leaders such as Disraeli and Gladstone gave a greater steer to electoral politics through platform speeches outside London that were widely reported in the press. Although Disraeli rationed his public addresses, his speeches at Manchester and Crystal Palace in April and June 1872 outlined his critique of the Liberal ministry, reaffirmed the Conservatives’ support for traditional institutions such as the monarchy, House of Lords and the Church, and implied that his party would offer sound, stable, calm government in sharp contrast to Gladstone’s hyperactivity.17 Disraeli, Gladstone, the Irish Church and the 1868 general election After Palmerston’s death in 1865, the political agenda was dominated by parliamentary reform. Significantly, cartoons on the party and political struggle over the reform bills of 1866 and 1867 personified the issue through Gladstone and Disraeli, rather than their chiefs in the Lords, Russell and Derby, who became background figures.18 At the South Leicestershire by-election in late 1867, the Liberal candidate summed up a widely held view when he declared that the coming political age would be shaped by a clear party battle between Liberals and Conservatives led by Gladstone and Disraeli.19 Cartoons on the 1868 general election, the first under the 1867 Representation of the People Act, focused on Disraeli and Gladstone, who were by this time the undisputed leaders of their two parties. While the example of William Pitt and Charles James Fox shows that personifying two parties in two men was not a new technique, the cartoons in the London comic press regarding the 1868 general election were a departure from earlier Victorian portrayals. The pictorial press had rarely focused on party leaders exclusively before 1868, usually representing a number of election nominations, mostly in London, which were conveniently located for the Illustrated London News’s draughtsmen. The lack of clear dividing lines between parties in the 1850s and Derby’s position in the Lords (which precluded him from public campaigning or speaking during elections) had meant that cartoons on previous elections were rarely polarised in such a straightforward way. Furthermore, due to the need to wait for the new electoral registers to be compiled, the 1868 election campaign was extremely long. Parliament was dissolved in July but polling did not take place until December. This gave plenty of time to consider and campaign on the central issue of the election: Gladstone’s proposal to disestablish the Protestant Irish Church. Past general elections had often focused on a main issue, such as reform in 1831. However, the

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 201

23/09/2014 11:54

202

Politics personified

length of the campaign and the clear distinction between the two party leaders over this policy lent itself to visual polarisations. This was further encouraged by the establishment of new comic periodicals that differentiated themselves from Punch by taking a more partisan line. The publishing climate was more favourable for such periodicals after 1855. Costs were reduced through the abolition of the newspaper stamp, advertisement and paper duty, the fall in paper prices and new printing technologies, and the growth in advertising further enhanced the commercial viability of new comic periodicals. The most important were the Liberal Fun (1861–1901) and the Conservative Judy (1867– 1907). Priced at 2d, Judy’s content implied that its audience was lower-middle class, while its political allegiance connected this audience with a party leadership that remained largely aristocratic and landed.20 Will-o’-the-Wisp (1867–70) was also Conservative in its politics. Although commercial publications, these periodicals sought to attract a partisan audience and offer a different perspective to Punch, which has attracted the most scholarly a­ ttention. Rival comic periodicals presented the contest as a struggle between the two leaders of the great parties of state over the Irish Church, the major election issue.21 In Conservative cartoons, Gladstone was portrayed sacrificing the Irish Church, personified in the female form of Erin or Hibernia.22 This conflated a minority Church with the Irish nation. More generally, disestablishment was depicted as a straight battle between Popery and Protestantism, which echoed Disraeli’s attempt to stimulate a Protestant cry.23 Gladstone was shown as the leader of an unholy alliance of Tractarian Catholic converts such as John Henry Newman, latitudinarian Whigs like Russell and Irish Fenians (drawn with Neanderthal features) who planned to undermine the Protestant establishment. To vote Liberal was to ‘Plump for Gladstone and the Pope’.24 This anticipated later Conservative portrayals of Gladstone after his adoption of home rule for Ireland in 1886. For example, one 1886 election poster, derived from a Judy cartoon, portrayed Gladstone as ‘England’s Pope’.25 By contrast, Disraeli was pictured as the defender of Protestantism, and in one cartoon as Martin Luther nailing his manifesto to the door of the Irish Church (figure 7.1). Liberal victory also increased the prospect of an assault on the Church of England. The association of Gladstone with radicalism and the Reform League was another theme of Conservative election cartoons, implying that the institutions of state were not safe with him.26 By contrast, Liberal cartoons in Fun portrayed Disraeli as an opportunistic charlatan, cynically inciting ‘No Popery’ feeling for electoral purposes. Far from being a defenceless maiden, the Irish Church was presented unsympathetically as a wealthy bishop or rich old woman.27 Gladstone’s policy was the only one that would straighten out the ‘troublesome’ Irish account or revive the ailing Irish patient.28 Disraeli’s opposition to disestablishment was portrayed as stoking an intolerant, bigoted Protestantism and led him to be depicted as Lord George Gordon,

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 202

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

203

Figure 7.1  ‘The modern Luther’, Will-o’-th’-Wisp, 10 Oct. 1868, pp. 50–1. Wood engraving. 14½ x 10¼ inches.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 203

23/09/2014 11:54

204

Politics personified

Figure 7.2  ‘With his work before him! The right feller in the right place’, Fun, 10 (1870), 229. Wood engraving. 9½ x 7⅜ inches. Reproduced with permission from images produced by ProQuest LLC for its online product, British Periodicals, 1681–1920. www.proquest.com.

the ringleader of the 1780 anti-Catholic riots in London.29 This cartoon had a further irony. Disraeli had Jewish origins, but was an Anglican who now sought to stoke Protestant feeling; Gordon was an ultra-Protestant who had later converted to Judaism. The Liberal victory at the 1868 general election ensured a parliamentary majority for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. However, the implications of the policy remained contentious. For Judy, the Irish Church tree that Gladstone and his cohorts intended to chop down was intimately intertwined with the English Anglican Church.30 For Liberals, the Irish Church represented just one part of a rotten tree representing the historic misgovernment of Ireland (figure 7.2). These cartoons neatly captured a double-edged element of Gladstone’s public image. In the 1870s Gladstone’s chopping down of trees at his Hawarden estate attracted visitors and was immortalised in popular photographs.31 To his supporters, these accurately conveyed his extraordinary energy and strength and associated him with the long tradition of rotten trees in radical and reform visual culture. At the 1880 general election some Liberal posters

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 204

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

205

portrayed Gladstone chopping down an upas tree (a toxic tree that poisoned all around it) representing Disraeli.32 By contrast, the custom of symbolising the British constitution in tree form meant that ­Conservatives viewed Gladstone’s hobby as denoting his reckless regard for British i­nstitutions. The 1868 general election, then, set a precedent for presenting a national contest between Disraeli and Gladstone. Of course, elections continued to be shaped by local political cultures, but the image that was presented to readers through London-based comic periodicals and the pictorial press focused on the two leaders. Ahead of the 1874 general election, which resulted in a majority for the Conservatives, the ILN published full-page portraits of both men, as well as depictions of them addressing the electors in their constituencies.33 This underlines the increased popular significance of party leaders in an era of party government. Pictorial representations of the 1874 general election registered other, correlated shifts in electoral culture. Election scenes suggested that speeches at public meetings were less important than print for political communication. The ILN’s picture of Gladstone addressing electors at Greenwich was significant for foregrounding the role of press reporters to the almost entire exclusion of the crowd.34 The immediate audience for the speech were less important than the much larger newspaper-reading public. This rested on an optimistic view that print, and especially newspapers, represented a rational, national community, with which politicians could communicate through widely reported speeches.35 Significantly, such an emphasis came at the first general election since the abolition of the public nomination in 1872 that ended the ritual of hustings speeches (although public meetings during election campaigns continued and remained important thereafter). By the time of the 1880 general election Gladstone was no longer the Liberal leader, having resigned in 1875. However, his campaign for the Midlothian constituency, beginning in late 1879, garnered extensive coverage in the pictorial press and helped to make the political weather.36 Even so, the ILN reproduced double-page portraits of Lord Hartington and Lord Granville, the Liberal leaders in the Commons and the Lords, shortly after the election. These were both blank on the back and were presumably designed to be detached from the issue and pinned up, framed or placed in an album by readers.37 Both Gladstone and Hartington were portrayed addressing crowds in their respective constituencies.38 This suggests that while Gladstone was undoubtedly important, the need to personify Liberalism in an era characterised by a larger electorate and greater party competition would have still existed without him. If the official Liberal leadership and Gladstone were prominent in pictorial representations of the 1880 general election, Disraeli was notable by his absence in the ILN. Having been ennobled in 1876, he was unable as a peer to publicly campaign or speak during the election, even though he was prime minister.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 205

23/09/2014 11:54

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 206

23/09/2014 11:54

Figure 7.3  Disraeli at Conservative meeting in Manchester, Illustrated London News, 60 (1872), 357. Wood engraving. 13⅜ x 9½ inches.

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

207

Between 1868 and 1880, then, general elections were visually personified along party lines to a greater extent than hitherto. This was largely done through Gladstone and Disraeli, but Hartington’s presence in visual media in 1880 suggests that the political context and structure to some degree required party symbols. However, as the next section shows, it was portraits of Disraeli and Gladstone that most clearly symbolised party identities in this period. Portraits and the personification of party identity As Colin Matthew has written, ‘the late 1870s and 1880s saw the full flowering of the Gladstonian icon industry. These were the years in which Liberal households came to display their Gladstone statuettes, jugs, plates, and banners in pride of place on the mantel[piece].’39 There was a similar cult of Disraeli, nurtured by the Primrose League and other Conservative bodies, although it only really took off in the 1880s after he was ‘safely dead’.40 Posthumous likenesses of Disraeli remained popular. For example, he was one of the politicians immortalised in the silk portraits or Stevenographs which were massproduced in Coventry.41 Possessing a portrait of Gladstone or Disraeli in this period was widely understood as a statement of party identity. In 1877 a journalist observed that reproductions after John Everett Millais’s painting of Gladstone were a ‘popular adornment of thousands of Liberal homes’.42 A few years later a Liberal candidate at a by-election in Ulster declared that he had been confident of a ‘warm reception’ because he was a representative of ‘Mr. Gladstone, whose portrait he saw in many cottages in the county’.43 The cartoonist Harry Furniss, a Conservative in politics, later complained of the ‘mass of Gladstone portraits published, which, with very few exceptions, are idealised, perfunctory, stereotyped, and worthless’.44 His own caricatures of Gladstone, distinguished by a huge collar, were intended as a riposte.45 Benjamin Turner, himself a workingclass Labour MP in 1922–24 and 1929–31, recalled in 1930 that fifty years earlier many working men ‘would try and get – by paying instalments – gilt framed oleographs – of Gladstone or Bright, if Liberals – and Disraeli or Salisbury, if Conservatives. You see them in odd houses still, but not many of them.’46 In the 1870s portraits of Gladstone and Disraeli were seen as proxies for the popularity of the two men and their respective parties. Gladstone’s likeness was displayed on banners at working-class reform demonstrations in the 1860s and 1880s.47 Portraits of Disraeli were displayed in a similar way at Conservative meetings. Although Disraeli remained an essentially parliamentary politician, in opposition between 1868 and 1874, he helped to encourage and cultivate Conservatism through set-piece speeches and public appearances. His public tour of Lancashire in April 1872 included a large reception at the Great Hall

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 207

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

208

in Pomona Gardens, Manchester (figure 7.3). This scene was published in the ILN, with Disraeli, his back to the reader, being presented with supportive addresses from 300 bodies, mostly Lancastrian Conservative and Orange associations. ‘Three or four of their standards displayed the portrait of Mr. Disraeli’, the reporter noted.48 Just as Gladstone was held to embody certain Liberal values, Disraeli was venerated for representing Conservatism. As was stated in one address that was presented on this occasion, from the Manchester Conservative Working Men’s Association, Disraeli was ‘revered as one of the greatest and most consistent champions of constitutional principles’.49 Cheap portraits were widely circulated, displayed and understood as symbols of party identity, but were also taken as indicators of the respective popularity of the two men themselves. A dispute between two Cardiff newspapers in 1879 prompted Gladstone to publicly state his own opinions on popular portraiture. Writing to thank the Liberal Cardiff Times for sending him a copy of a portrait it had given away to readers, Gladstone declared that his image stood for progressive principles. The popularity of the portrait was ‘symbolical. It is an effectual sign of the public conviction that the great principles of freedom, justice, and good government are at stake at the coming election.’50 The Conservative Cardiff-based Western Mail thought that the letter was either a hoax or a sign of Gladstone’s deteriorating sanity.51 The Mail claimed that a portrait of Disraeli given away by its weekly sister paper on the same day had boosted circulation by a greater extent than Gladstone’s. The issue having turned into a popularity contest, the Cardiff Times responded that it had issued 27,750 newspapers and Gladstone portraits and challenged the Mail to reveal its circulation, which was usually under 14,000. The Liberal paper sought out three picture-framers, who all confirmed the greater popularity of the Gladstone print. The first had framed 1,124 Gladstone portraits and 344 of Disraeli, the second 200 pictures of Gladstone and two dozen of Disraeli, and the last gave a three to one ratio in the Liberal statesman’s favour.52 This provides further testimony of how people saw and valued likenesses of Gladstone and Disraeli, which were to be framed and displayed in homes as symbols of party identity. Portraiture and the self-fashioning of Disraeli So far this chapter has concentrated on cartoons and portraits that personified the Liberal and Conservative parties through Gladstone and Disraeli. However, we should also consider how far the two leaders were able to influence or control these images, which were mostly commercially produced. As the last chapter showed, within limited parameters Palmerston could exert some influence in shaping a positive visual persona of himself through largely commercial media. Painted and photographic portraits provided both Disraeli

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 208

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

209

and Gladstone with opportunities for self-fashioning, allowing them to project a particular public image or perform a particular role. While historians and literary scholars have long recognised Disraeli’s skill in creating and projecting a distinctive self-identity through his early writings, his self-fashioning through imagery has received no attention.53 Disraeli’s sensitivity about his appearance and presentation of a sober, serious self-image was in part a response to the often unpleasant cartoons that targeted him. His Jewish origins meant that cartoon depictions of him never kept within the same respectable boundaries as those of other elite politicians. In the 1840s ‘HB’ had drawn him as Shylock.54 Disraeli’s attacks on Peel in 1846 did not endear him to the free trade Punch, which developed an image of Disraeli as a Jewish East End milliner.55 Although playful, such representations associated Disraeli with unfavourable contemporary stereotypes of Jews. For example, in 1851 one of Punch’s cartoons on social issues presented a Jewish clothier corrupting a young boy by teaching him how to steal.56 Cartoons frequently emphasised not only Disraeli’s foreignness, but also his untrustworthiness, portraying him as a showman or a cheap-jack, a travelling salesman who sought to interest the public in his dodgy wares through his sales patter.57 Whatever Disraeli’s public sentiments, privately some of Punch’s treatment must have stung and in 1845 he attempted unsuccessfully to ingratiate himself with the cartoonist John Leech at the Printers’ Pension Society dinner and flattered Punch in his speech.58 In the 1850s and 1860s Disraeli was portrayed in a better light in cartoons, or at least was criticised in a similar way to other politicians rather than through his Jewishness. That said, many of the Punch staff, including William Makepeace Thackeray, the editor Mark Lemon and the co-proprietor William Bradbury, thought he had ‘no principles’. Indeed, only Shirley Brooks, who was a Conservative in politics, stuck up for Disraeli at the periodical’s celebrated weekly dinners.59 In the later 1850s Disraeli was portrayed as one of the guiding spirits of the opportunistic coalition of assorted parliamentary factions that periodically threatened Palmerston.60 The criticisms of him were usually on political or personal grounds, often using the retail metaphors that were so popular in mid-Victorian cartoons. Disraeli’s 1867 reform bill was equated to a publican selling watered-down beer, and a later cartoon portrayed him as a shopkeeper using light weights.61 Disraeli seems to have been relatively unbothered by such cartoon depictions, in Punch at least. For example, he generously secured a pension for the widow of the Punch cartoonist John Leech in 1868 and the periodical appeared as ‘Scaramouche’ in his final novel, Endymion.62 As the study of radical visual culture in chapter 3 demonstrated, portraiture allowed a positive image to be asserted, providing a riposte to negative cartoon depictions. Disraelian self-fashioning in portraiture can be seen as a response

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 209

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

210

Figure 7.4  J.H. Robinson after A.E. Chalon, Benjamin Disraeli, 1840. Stipple engraving. 9 x 7⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 210

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

211

to his portrayal in cartoons. Early portraits of Disraeli, from the 1820s to 1840s, captured their subject at a time when he was better known as a writer than as a politician. Disraeli had a flamboyant, dandyish and youthful appearance in these pictures (figure 7.4).63 From the 1850s Disraeli was gradually transformed into a sober, grave statesman. In 1852 the Art Journal remarked that Sir Francis Grant’s painting (exhibited at the Royal Academy) bore ‘an unmistakeable resemblance’, but was ‘somewhat more fresh than the subject, especially since the cares of office have come upon him’.64 Disraeli’s frizzy, jet-black hair, hitherto his most recognisable feature, was slicked down in later portrayals, which presented an increasingly sober subject. In photographic cartes de visite of the 1860s he often cuts a weary figure, tired by the slog of opposition. His body language in these photographs was often restrained rather than expressive, his arms tightly folded, for example (figure 7.5). Presenting himself as a sober, serious statesman in portraits had obvious attractions for Disraeli and was a visual counter to the criticism of opponents and the press that he was an untrustworthy adventurer and unprincipled political intriguer. Furthermore, it was a way of distancing himself from his younger self and earlier depictions. In the 1840s the ‘Young England’ group of MPs, which included Disraeli, were portrayed as frivolous dilettantes in the ILN. Such an image was perhaps tolerable for parliamentary wits, but not for those who aspired to political leadership. Disraeli’s limited use of gesture and lack of expression in later portraits to some extent mirrored the role and persona he performed in Parliament. A biographical sketch in the ILN of Disraeli when he was still a backbencher observed that his ‘countenance remains impassive’.65 A decade later the Illustrated Times remarked of Disraeli during one debate that he ‘sits like an imperturbable statue’.66 In portraiture of the 1860s and 1870s, Disraeli’s impassive facial expressions made him an enigmatic, even unknowable figure. Richard Shannon has noted that in the early 1870s Disraeli cultivated ‘an impassive … mask of sphinx-like Sidonian statesmanship’ to disguise his party’s lack of policies in opposition other than the defence of traditional institutions.67 Assuming an impassive expression in portraits acted as a mask or armour that protected Disraeli and allowed him some control over how he was portrayed. Even so, it would seem that he remained sensitive about his appearance. In 1877 the Art Journal declared with characteristic pomposity that Heinrich von Angeli’s portrait of Lord Beaconsfield, which was commissioned by the queen, revealed the ‘character, intellect and soul of the great minister’.68 The premier was portrayed as ‘realistic and positive’ but also ‘spontaneous, broad and dignified’. The painting possessed a ‘quiet power’ that gradually worked on the viewer. However, according to one MP, on seeing the picture on display at Colnaghi’s print shop the subject was less pleased: ‘“Oh!”, he exclaimed, “is it not hideous?”’69

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 211

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

212

Figure 7.5  J. Mayall, Earl of Beaconsfield [c. 1870s]. Albumen cabinet card. 5⅞ x 4 inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 212

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

213

Disraeli was ‘notoriously shy of the camera’.70 Downey brothers, a leading photographic firm, were only able to secure a picture of Disraeli because their visit to Balmoral to take pictures of the royal family coincided with his stay. Having reluctantly agreed to sit for a few photographs, all of which were unsatisfactory, Disraeli refused to sit for any more. ‘It had been difficult before to persuade the premier to sit for his portrait, but he resisted all importunities the next day.’ He acquiesced only to please the queen. However, the long exposure times and the dampness of his jacket due to rain spoiled the photographs. Disraeli agreed to sit a final time, in ‘very bad humour’, but only for five minutes. The last sitting was a success though and formed the basis for ‘hundreds of thousands of prints [which] have been circulated, and the negatives have been printed in silver, carbon, enamel and both woodburytyped and collotyped’.71 This example not only suggests that Disraeli disliked sitting for photographs, but also shows that rationing sittings could be a way of controlling one’s image. Photographic negatives could be endlessly reproduced as positives. If a subject sat rarely for photographs, this would limit the number of different depictions in circulation. Furthermore, the scarcity of new portraits of such unwilling subjects greatly increased their commercial value to photographers and publishers, a fact that public figures and celebrities were well aware of.72 Disraeli’s sensitivity about his appearance was not simply vanity, but a legacy of the often unpleasant and anti-Semitic cartoons and negative depictions of him. Presenting a sober, statesman-like appearance, exhibiting an impassive and inexpressive face and limiting his portrait commitments were all strategies that enabled him to exert a modicum of control over his image. Gladstonian self-fashioning As Joseph Meisel has noted, Gladstone was a difficult subject to capture due to the changes of expression that reflected his moods, emotional states and the different roles he performed.73 Early portraits of Gladstone in the 1830s and 1840s reflected the political and personal characteristics of the young Peelites. High-minded, personally devoted to Peel and his ideals of disinterested, efficient government, they were contemptuous of Conservative backbench squires and found extra-parliamentary agitation and the legislative activism of Whigs like Russell equally distasteful. Peelite portraits of Gladstone depict an earnest, intense young politician with dark features, such as Lucas’s 1842 portrait which was commissioned by Peel for his gallery.74 The steel engraving of Gladstone in Ryall’s Eminent Conservative Statesmen, published in January 1844, presented a similar image (figure 7.6). Gladstone is standing reading a volume of official papers spread out on the ledge of a bookcase, and turns to face the viewer. Again this emphasised the diligent public service work ethic that was so prized

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 213

23/09/2014 11:54

214

Politics personified

by Peel and his protégés. Other early Gladstonian portraits, most notably Bradley’s 1839 painting, presented their subject as an introspective intellectual and scholar. In these pictures, as Ruth Clayton Windscheffel has observed, Gladstone’s figure and pose had a passive, even feminine quality, which was unlikely to work to his advantage as an aspiring politician.75 In photographic portraits of the late 1850s Gladstone remained an intense, brooding presence, although his features were softened slightly in wood engravings and derivative likenesses.76 However, rather like Palmerston before 1850, Gladstone was poorly and inconsistently characterised in pictorial representations, including cartoons.77 The Illustrated Times’s picture of Gladstone making his 1860 budget statement did not get his eyes and jaw quite right.78 The visual Gladstone of the later 1870s and 1880s was rather different from the earlier incarnations. As he aged and lost most of his hair while the remainder turned white, his strong features became more pronounced. His stern face, strong nose and piercing eyes were frequently remarked upon by contemporaries and gave him an earnest appearance.79 In 1889 the Punch cartoonist John Tenniel observed of Gladstone: His face has much more character and is much more stronger than Mr Bright’s. Mr Bright had fine eyes and a grand, powerful mouth, as well as an earnest expression; but a weak nose – artistically speaking, no nose at all.80

Artists marvelled at Gladstone’s abnormal head size, which they took as an indication of his powerful intellect.81 The spread and popularity of photographic portraits from the late 1850s created new opportunities for Gladstone. Unlike Disraeli, he seems to have displayed little hesitation in agreeing to sit for photographers. Between 1862 and 1901 over 366 different photographs of Gladstone were registered at Stationers’ Hall (which was necessary to protect copyright), a figure only exceeded by royalty and some of the most popular actresses.82 However, by the later 1870s Gladstone had grown tired of portrait sittings. Instead he encouraged photographers to portray him at work at his country seat, Hawarden, reading in his library or energetically chopping down trees.83 As Windscheffel has argued, this allowed him to exercise greater control over his image. Instead of disrupting his schedule with visits to studios, photographers would have come to him and picture him on his terms. The photographs also provided a more intimate, personal image of Gladstone than the conventional studio-set photographs, which often appeared sterile, artificial and formulaic. Furthermore, the photographs appeared to be more natural or unmediated. Photographs of Gladstone as a woodsman chopping down trees on his estate promoted an image of him as physically and politically vigorous and manly, rather than as a passive figure. They must have had added political resonance because, as we have already seen, there was a long visual tradition of reformers and radicals ­symbolically

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 214

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

215

Figure 7.6  W.H. Mote, after J. Severn, W.E. Gladstone, 1840. Line engraving. 13⅜ x 10⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 215

23/09/2014 11:54

216

Politics personified

Figure 7.7  W. Currey, W.E. Gladstone, 6 Aug. 1877. Carbon cabinet card photograph. 5⅝ x 3⅜ inches. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 216

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

217

assailing trees representing corrupt or decrepit institutions. Before such images became commonplace, Gladstone’s use of Hawarden as a setting for photographic portraits was unconventional, which significantly increased their commercial value compared to standard studio pictures. For example, in 1878 William Currey, a Manchester-based photographer, was offered £1,000 by the London Stereoscopic Company for his negative of Gladstone chopping wood at Hawarden (figure 7.7).84 Gladstone, like Disraeli, performed roles in portraits and used strategies to assert some control over images. Unlike his rival, who was a reluctant sitter, Gladstone altered the relationship between subject and photographer and sought to conduct it on his terms by moving from the studio to Hawarden. Cartoons and politics in the later 1870s While Disraeli and Gladstone could exert some influence and control over portraits, there was little they could do about the increasingly unpleasant depictions of them in partisan periodicals in the late 1870s. While Disraeli had long suffered from caricatures that targeted or focused on his Jewish origins, as Anthony Wohl has shown, the caricatures of the later 1870s were a departure in the way they cast him as a racialised, alien other.85 As Jonathan Parry has observed, Disraeli’s foreignness seemed to explain the direction of government policy, which was increasingly distasteful to many Liberals. Disraeli’s willingness to prop up a Turkish regime many Liberals saw as morally and politically bankrupt and his apparent indifference to the ‘Bulgarian atrocities’ of 1876 when Christians were massacred by their Turkish overlords lent credence to the critique that he was enamoured with Asiatic and Oriental modes of government and out of sympathy with the tenets of British liberal constitutionalism.86 His purchase of the Suez Canal for Britain through the unorthodox method of a private loan from Rothschilds offended Liberal financial pieties.87 Fun provided the most virulent depictions of Disraeli who, after 1874, was frequently portrayed with small beady eyes, a bulbous jutting nose and a weak chin, giving him an almost imbecilic appearance (figure 7.8). He was presented as a Jewish pawnbroker holding Suez shares as collateral from his Turkish clients.88 He was later portrayed as a moneylender with a forked tail, representing plutocratic rather than British interests, when attempting to arbitrate between Russia and Turkey.89 In another cartoon Disraeli was ‘Ben Juju’, a flunkey servicing the needs of the Ottoman state while ignoring the massacre of Christians outside.90 Critical cartoons suggested that both he and his foreign secretary, Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, son of the former prime minister, had blood on their hands for their inaction towards Turkey and Bulgaria.91 He was frequently portrayed as a trickster, illusionist, wizard or

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 217

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

218

Figure 7.8  ‘Great sensational performance’, Fun, 27 (1878), 55. Wood engraving. 9½ x 7¾.

conjuror: a showy performer who was not to be trusted.92 His 1876 ­legislation to give the queen the title of ‘Empress of India’ was seen as a departure from British constitutional practice.93 Revealingly, even favourable cartoons in Judy presented Disraeli as an Asiatic figure, for example as a mighty sphinx impervious to the attacks of his assorted adversaries.94 However, there were also positive depictions of Disraeli in cartoons, while conversely Gladstone himself was subject to visual criticism that became increasingly pointed. In 1878 Punch issued collected volumes of cartoons of Bright, Gladstone and Disraeli that sold 20,000, 25,000 and 75,000 copies, respectively, the last making a profit of £2,000.95 Tellingly, this came at what was probably the height of Disraeli’s prestige after his triumph at the Congress of Berlin. It also shows that Gladstonian images did not always outsell Disraelian ones. Favourable cartoons in Judy suggested that Disraeli had restored British prestige and revived the British lion after the Liberals’ m ­ ismanagement of foreign affairs.96 Furthermore, the Liberal opposition was disunited and

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 218

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

219

fractious. Gladstone had resigned the leadership of the party in 1875. His replacement was Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington, heir to the dukedom of Devonshire, one of the great Whig titles. Interestingly, although Hartington sat in the Commons, he was depicted with a coronet, a rare example of the symbol being used by Conservatives against their opponents.97 The public furore about the Bulgarian atrocities was portrayed as simply another piece of distasteful sensation-mongering by cheap publications, including Gladstone’s best-selling pamphlet.98 To critics such as Judy, Gladstone’s rhetoric seemed emotional, wild and vengeful.99 Indeed Gladstone’s obsession with his atrocity ‘hobby-horse’, as it was presented in one cartoon, was effectively serving Russian interests by giving them humanitarian cover for their aggressive plans against Turkey.100 Russian intervention would result in a bloodbath, and here cartoons contrasted Gladstone’s current position with his membership of the cabinet that had opposed Russia during the Crimean War twenty years before.101 Gladstone was accused of ‘treachery, party spite, fraud and falsehood’, his emotive campaign hampering the British lion’s ability to respond to the Eastern crisis.102 As all this implies, Gladstone too was increasingly reviled in critical cartoons. He was not as savagely caricatured as Disraeli, but he was portrayed as a willing dupe for Russian interests and as mentally unstable. This harsher portrayal anticipated the virulent derision he received in many booklets and cartoons in Westminster clubland journals in the 1880s. For example, in 1884 Tom Merry made Gladstone the protagonist in a new version of Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress that inevitably culminated in his insanity.103 In retrospect, the partisan comic periodicals of the 1870s injected a degree of bitterness back into the political cartoon, even if they still followed the style and format established by Punch. These cartoons were also precursors for the formalised use of party political cartoons as mass propaganda after 1885. Conclusion This chapter has shown that portraits and cartoons of Disraeli and Gladstone personified and symbolised two-party politics in the period after the passing of the 1867 Representation of the People Act, in contrast to the 1840s and 1850s when party lines were less clear and the political spectrum less polarised. While such images were largely commercial productions, politicians could exert a degree of control, and both Disraeli and Gladstone used visual media to fashion their public image. As in other instances, portraiture provided a more positive picture, while cartoons, within certain parameters, were more critical and could help to establish and reinforce negative stereotypes. Disraeli’s death in 1881 meant that the 1880 general election was the last in which the opposing parties were to be embodied through the two great

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 219

23/09/2014 11:54

220

Politics personified

rivals. While Gladstone continued to take a central role in Liberal political iconography until the mid-1890s, 1880 marked a decisive watershed and therefore makes a fitting point to terminate this study. The distinctive relationships between visual technologies, the print media and politics that characterised much of the period between 1830 and 1880 began to shift. Firstly, between the 1870s and 1890s, the technologies central to this study, lithography, photographic cartes de visites, wood engraving and steel engraving, were superseded by a plethora of increasingly complex photo-mechanical and photo-chemical methods.104 As art critics noted, ‘the field of black-and-white art’ could hardly be immune from the economic forces that had ‘sought to replace all manual labour, or at least reduce it as far as possible’ in other sectors.105 These new techniques allowed photographic images to be printed alongside text in newspapers, books and leaflets. Steel engraving was obsolete once photographs of original artworks could be reproduced in letterpresses.106 Although wood engraving co-existed with new photographic forms it went into rapid decline in the 1890s.107 At the risk of generalisation, popular imagery between 1830 and 1880 had been largely dominated by black-and-white linear images; after 1880 tone and colour became much more important and prominent. Secondly, before 1880 most political imagery was produced commercially for a real or perceived market for political likenesses. Radicals were exceptional in their innovative use of visual media. After 1880 political parties were much more directly involved in producing and distributing printed and visual propaganda, notably colourful posters, to engage and mobilise a mass electorate, particularly after the 1883–85 electoral reforms.108 Parties were able to mass-produce stereotyped images, including of party leaders and local candidates, taking greater control of managing their image than previously. Mass-produced propaganda was very different from the political likenesses of the preceding period. Although new technologies meant more images could be produced than ever before after 1830, they were not treated as disposable worthless items but were valued for their quality and collected. There was a big difference between political likenesses that people were willing to pay for and collect, and cheap party leaflets that were essentially disseminated as ‘free print’ or unsolicited literature.109 These substantial changes in both visual culture and politics meant that the political use of the image entered a new era in the decades after 1880. Notes 1 E. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), ch. 7; J. Vincent, The Formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857–68 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 265; P. Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 49–50.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 220

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

221

2 Joyce, Visions of the People, p. 47. 3 H.J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time of Disraeli and Gladstone (Hassocks: Harvester, 1978 [1959]), pp. xi–xiv, xviii, xxv, 92–3, 133, 201–9; E.J. Feuchtwanger, Disraeli, Democracy and the Tory Party: Conservative Leadership and Organisation after the Second Reform Bill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), pp. x–xiii, 84, 102, 219–20. 4 J. Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 5 Ibid., pp. 163–93. 6 M. Roberts, Political Movements in Urban England, 1832–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), p. 164. 7 A. Hawkins, ‘“Parliamentary Government” and Victorian Political Parties, c. 1830–c. 1880’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989), 638–69. 8 Hanham, Elections and Party Management, p. 220. 9 T. Lloyd, ‘Uncontested Seats in British General Elections, 1852–1910’, Historical Journal, 8 (1965), 260–5. 10 Hanham, Elections and Party Management, pp. 225–7; R.T. Shannon, The Age of Disraeli, 1868–1881: The Rise of Tory Democracy (London: Longman, 1992), pp. 64–9, 177, 180. 11 J. Lawrence, Electing Our Masters: The Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 43. 12 Ibid. 13 M. Dyer, Men of Property and Intelligence: The Scottish Electoral System prior to 1884 (Aberdeen: Scottish Cultural Press, 1996), p. 110; Parliamentary Papers 1865 (448), Return of Number of Electors on Register of Each County in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, 1864–5, XLIV, p. 552; PP 1872 (342), Return of Number of Electors of Each County in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, 1871, XLVII, p. 392. 14 S.J. Connolly (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Irish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 206. 15 Feuchtwanger, Disraeli, Democracy and the Tory Party, p. 127; M. Baer, The Rise and Fall of Radical Westminster, 1780–1890 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), pp. 36–7; Vincent, British Liberal Party, pp. 125–9. 16 Vincent, British Liberal Party, p. 129. 17 Shannon, Age of Disraeli, pp. 138–40. 18 Punch, 53 (1867), 77, 87, 107, 193, 215. 19 Pall Mall Gazette, 11 Nov. 1867, p. 13. 20 L. Brake and M. Demoor (eds), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (London: Academia Press, 2009), pp. 327–8. 21 Fun, 7 (n.s., 1868), 19, 137; Judy, 3 (1868), 234–5. 22 Judy, 2 (1867–68), 330–1; 3 (1868), 32–3. 23 Judy, 3 (1868), 244–5; Hanham, Elections and Party Management, pp. 213–14. 24 Will-o’-the-Wisp, 1 (1867–68), 120, 122–3. 25 John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, Bodleian Library, Political Oversize folder. 26 Judy, 1 (1867–68), 278–9; 4 (1868), 72–3, 144–5, 184–5. 27 Fun, 8 (n.s., 1868–9), 99; Tomahawk, 23 May 1868.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 221

23/09/2014 11:54

222

Politics personified

Fun, 6 (n.s., 1867–68), 173; 7 (n.s., 1868), 29. Tomahawk, 11 July 1868. Judy, 4 (1868–69), 102–3. P. Sewter, ‘Gladstone as Woodsman’, in R. Quinault, R. Swift and R.C. Windscheffel (eds), William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 155–75; R.C. Windscheffel, ‘Politics, Portraiture and Power: Reassessing the Public Image of William Ewart Gladstone’, in M. McCormack (ed), Public Men: Masculinity and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007), pp. 93–122 (at 111–14). 32 T. Lloyd, The General Election of 1880 (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p.  105. 33 ILN, 64 (1874), 117, 125, 133, 149. 34 Ibid., 117. 35 H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Rhetoric and Politics in Great Britain, 1860–1950’, in P.J. Waller (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Modern Britain (Brighton: Harvester, 1987), pp. 34–58. 36 ILN, 75 (1879), 520, 524–5, 533. 37 ILN, 76 (1880), supplements 1, 8 May 1880. 38 Ibid., 337, 361. 39 H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone, 1874–1898 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), p. 111. 40 J. Parry, The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 347. See also A. Briggs, Victorian Things (London: B.T. Batsford, 1988), p. 171. 41 The Late Earl of Beaconsfield, silk Stevenographs, n.d. [1880s], Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, A/958/18, A/868/12, 66/190. Joseph Chamberlain, Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Lord Randolph Churchill, Charles Stewart Parnell and John Bright were also represented in silk portraiture. 42 T. Wemyss Reid, ‘Mr Gladstone and his Portraits’, Magazine of Art, 12 (1889), 82–9 (at 84). 43 Belfast News-Letter, 8 Jan. 1884, p. 5. 44 H. Furniss, The Confessions of a Caricaturist (2 vols., London: Harper & Brothers, 1902), I, p. 164. 45 NPG, London, W.E. Gladstone sitter box 3. 46 B. Turner, About Myself, 1863–1930 (London: Humphrey Toulmin, 1930), p. 66. Oleography was better known as chromolithography. 47 H. Broadhurst, Henry Broadhurst, MP (London: Hutchinson, 1901), p. 37; Bee-Hive, 13 Oct. 1866, p. 6; 8 Dec. 1866, pp. 4, 6; M. Nixon, ‘Material Gladstones’, in R. Quinault, R. Swift and R.C. Windscheffel (eds), William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 99–125. 48 ILN, 60 (1872), 357. 49 The Times, 3 Apr. 1872, p. 5. 50 Cardiff Times, 8 Nov. 1879, p. 3. 51 Western Mail, 3 Nov. 1879, p. 3. 52 Cardiff Times, 8 Nov. 1879, p. 5. 53 C. Richmond and P. Smith (eds), The Self-fashioning of Disraeli, 1818–1851 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 28 29 30 31

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 222

23/09/2014 11:54

Disraeli, Gladstone and the personification of party

223

54 HB, ‘A Scene from Shakespeare’, Political Sketches, no. 829, pub. 8 Aug. 1844, BM. 55 Punch, 22 (1852), 102; R. Altick, Punch: The Lively Youth of a British Institution, 1841–1851 (Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 1997), p. 129. 56 Punch, 20 (1851), 25. 57 Punch, 22 (1852), 119; 12 (1847), 261. 58 Altick, Punch, pp. 129, 263–4; H. Vizetelly, Glances Back through Seventy Years (2 vols., London: Kegan Paul, 1893), I, pp. 302–3. 59 BL, Add. MS 88937, Punch Archives, Henry Silver Diary, I, 20 Nov. 1861. 60 Punch, 29 (1855), 229. 61 Punch, 52 (1867), 77; Fun, 8 (n.s., 1868–69), 119. 62 The Times, 23 June 1868, p. 12; W.F. Monypenny and G.E. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (6 vols., London: Murray, 1910–20), V, p. 77; Punch, 79 (1880), 259. 63 See also D. Maclise, B. Disraeli, pen and ink sketch, c. 1833, NPG, London, 3093. 64 Art Journal, 4 (1852), 166. 65 ILN, 4 (1844), 404. 66 Illustrated Times, 2 (1856), 237. 67 Shannon, Age of Disraeli, p. 199. Sidonia was Disraeli’s literary alter ego in his novels Coningsby (1844) and Sybil (1845), who emphasised the aristocratic qualities, intellectual superiority and ancient lineage of the Jewish race. 68 Art Journal, 16 (1877), 254. 69 W. McCullagh Torrens, Twenty Years in Parliament (London: Richard Bentley, 1893), p. 231. 70 G.M. Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography: Portrait Publications in Great Britain, 1856–1900’, PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1985, pp. 59–60. 71 H. Baden Pritchard, The Photographic Studios of Europe (London: Piper and Carter, 1882), pp. 21–2. 72 Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, p. 59. 73 J. Meisel, ‘Gladstone’s Visage: Problem and Performance’, in Quinault et al. (eds), William Gladstone, pp. 73–98. 74 J. Lucas, William Ewart Gladstone (1842), exhibited RA 1844, bought by Gladstone family 1917; see note in NPG, London, Gladstone sitter box 1, folder 1. 75 Windscheffel, ‘Politics, Portraiture and Power’, pp. 97–9, 104–5. 76 Maull and Polyblank, William Ewart Gladstone, albumen print, 3 Aug. 1857, NPG, London, x134783; compare with E. Landells’s wood engraving, in NPG, London, Gladstone sitter box 4. 77 Punch, 29 (1855), 167. 78 Illustrated Times, 10 (1860), 95. 79 R.T. Shannon, Gladstone, 1809–1865 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982), pp. 90–2. 80 M.H. Spielmann, History of “Punch” (London: Cassell, 1895), p. 466. 81 Meisel, ‘Gladstone’s Visage’, pp. 74–5. 82 J. Plunkett, ‘Celebrity and Community: The Poetics of the Carte-de-Visite’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 8 (2003), 55–79 (at 66–7). 83 Unless otherwise stated, what follows is based on Windscheffel’s excellent ‘Politics, Portraiture and Power’, pp. 107–14. 84 Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, p. 60.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 223

23/09/2014 11:54

224

Politics personified

85 A. Wohl, ‘“Ben JuJu”: Representations of Disraeli’s Jewishness in the Victorian Political Cartoon’, Jewish History, 10 (1996), 89–134. See also A. Wohl, ‘“Dizzi-BenDizzi”: Disraeli as Alien’, Journal of British Studies, 34 (1995), 375–411. 86 Parry, Politics of Patriotism, pp. 324–6. 87 Ibid., p. 337. 88 Fun, 22 (1875), 241. 89 Fun, 25 (1877), 245. 90 Fun, 24 (1876), 131. 91 Fun, 24 (1876), 121, 141. 92 Wohl, ‘“Ben JuJu”’, 114, 116. 93 Fun, 23 (1876), 101, 131. 94 Judy, 17 (1875), 66–7; 18 (1875–76), 190–1. 95 BL, Add. MS 88973, Punch Archives, Bradbury and Evans Print and Paper Ledger, 1878–90, fos. 350, 352, 354. 96 Judy, 18 (1875–76), 44–5. 97 Judy, 18 (1875–76), 158–9, 230–1; 22 (1877–78), 324–5. 98 Judy, 19 (1876), 168–9, 240–1. 99 Judy, 20 (1876–77), 172–3, 194–5. 100 Judy, 21 (1877), 66–7. 101 Judy, 19 (1876), 168–9; 21 (1877), 136–7, 146–7. 102 Judy, 22 (1877–78), 192–3. 103 T. Merry, ‘New Series of the Rake’s Progress’, Saint Stephen’s Review, 28 June–23 Aug 1884, in Gladstone folder 1, items 23–8 and Political General folder, item 36, JJC. Many anti-Liberal, anti-Gladstone booklets were published by William Blackwood of Edinburgh and survive in JJC, Political General boxes 5 and 7. 104 H. Singer and W. Strang, Etching, Engraving and the Other Methods of Printing Pictures (London: Kegan Paul, 1897), pp. 165–80; J.S. Hodson, An Historical and Practical Guide to Art Illustration (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1884), pp. 162–206. 105 Singer and Strang, Etching, p. 164. 106 A. Dyson, Pictures to Prints: The Nineteenth-Century Engraving Trade (London: Farrand Press, 1984), pp. 24–5. 107 G. Beegan, The Mass Image: A Social History of Photomechanical Reproduction in Victorian London (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), pp. 64–70. 108 Lawrence, Speaking for the People, pp. 217–19; J. Thompson, ‘“Pictorial Lies?”: Posters and Politics in Britain, c. 1880–1914’, Past & Present, 197 (2007), 177–210. 109 For this concept see J. Raven (ed.), Free Print and Non-Commercial Publishing since 1700 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 224

23/09/2014 11:54

Conclusion

The period from 1830 to 1880 was characterised by a vibrant visual culture in which political likenesses were central, and without understanding this it is impossible to understand the broader evolution of political culture in this period. This book has addressed the narrowness of a number of assumptions to be widely found in the historiography of Victorian politics. Existing accounts have paid little attention to political portraiture. Since the 1990s historians influenced by the ‘new political history’ or the ‘linguistic turn’ have increasingly turned their attention to political culture and language, but much of this work has focused closely on oratory or printed rhetoric rather than imagery. On the other hand, politics has been largely ignored in studies of Victorian visual culture from a literary studies perspective. This study has therefore broken new ground in examining the neglected role of visual culture in the development of nineteenth-century politics. It has placed images in the context of the society in which they were produced, and has been sensitive to the specifics of media production and the political environment. Using previously neglected or ignored material, it has provided a range of fresh perspectives on Victorian politics while also accounting for cultural shifts in the public perception of politics and the emergence of new political identities in an age of electoral expansion and vibrant popular politics. There is little doubt that political likenesses were the dominant form of visualising politics in this period, although emblematical designs, for instance, remained a staple of banners, and further research will perhaps shed more light on the survival of graphic satire and caricature, particularly after the 1830s. Even so, it was political likenesses that were the most popular and culturally resonant genre and format. Changes in visual culture were critically influenced by developments in technology that allowed likenesses to be circulated in greater numbers, more widely and with greater frequency than ever before. The new technologies that emerged at the start of the period were much more productive than existing visual media. Steel engraving could produce tens of thousands of impressions, while wood engraving had print runs in the hundreds of thousands. The development of electrotyping, stereotyping, steel-

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 225

23/09/2014 11:54

Politics personified

226

facing plates, the industrialisation of wood engraving and the wet collodion photographic process meant that after mid-century there was effectively no limit on the number of images that could be produced. Key arguments: identity, narrative, image and the need to see Political likenesses fulfilled a number of roles. Firstly, they were crucial for expressing and reaffirming political identity, while serving as a visual means for connecting people with political leaders. Portrait series projected broad, diverse yet coherent political identities as shown in chapters 2 and 3. Significantly, these portraits could be produced, circulated and ‘seen’ in greater quantities than ever before. Portraits not only reaffirmed political identities privately in the home, but were also used in public settings. Portraits were a feature of indoor party meetings and demonstrations and were presented as testimonials to politicians at public ceremonies. Secondly, collections of individual portraits formed broader narratives, linking the past, present and future through the aggregation of different likenesses. Collections such as the National Portrait Gallery, established in 1856, or group portraiture, most notably Sir George Hayter’s painting of the reformed House of Commons, presented narratives that had traditionally been regarded as the province of history painting and sought to embed collective memory about the national past. In portrait ‘gallery’ series of prints and group portraiture, meanings could be subtly altered through the inclusion and exclusion of particular figures. The sequencing of prints imposed a hierarchy, while in group paintings this was achieved through the composition and prominence of different sitters. In his painting The Reform Banquet (1834), Benjamin Haydon, who prided himself as being a depicter of artistic truth, deliberately moved Lord John Russell from an obscure position to the centre of the composition to better reflect his importance in passing the 1832 Reform Act. Portraits were never neutral depictions of particular individuals or, in the case of group portraiture, a specific event, but were shaped by the motives of the producers or artists as well as existing cultural assumptions and the expectations of the audience. Thirdly, politicians themselves were well aware of the appeal of portraiture and the opportunities created by the expansion of visual media to project their image to increasing numbers of people. As art historians have noted, portraits were the result of the ‘portrait transaction’, that is, a product of the interaction and negotiation between sitter and artist. Sitters had some influence over their portraits, which also provided an opportunity for self-fashioning, allowing politicians to perform a particular role or present a certain self-image. Furthermore, many of the engravings and prints that were produced were only possible through the approval of sitters who allowed access to original paintings or drawings. Photographers and publishers typically sought prior approval

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 226

23/09/2014 11:54

Conclusion

227

from public figures and celebrities before publishing any portrait, giving politicians a veto over negative or unflattering images. Politicians employed various strategies and sought to exert a degree of control over their image. Gladstone abandoned photographic studios, forcing photographers to come to him and picture him on his own terms. Disraeli only rarely agreed to sit for portraits, and in painted and photographic likenesses cultivated an impassive, enigmatic persona, a mask developed in response to years of unfavourable and cruel treatment in the print media and cartoons. Political portraiture was largely dominated by male subjects and artists, yet politicians’ wives could play a crucial role in managing their husbands’ image. A good example would be Herbert Watkins’ photograph of the Liberal chancellor of the exchequer Sir George Cornewall Lewis for Herbert Fry’s National Gallery of Photographic Portraits (1857). Writing to Fry, Lewis’s wife Maria bluntly stated that: neither she nor other members of Sir Cornewall’s family can admit that the Photographs left yesterday afternoon at Kent House is an excellent & successful portrait. It is by far … the least favourable view of Sir Cornewall’s face that has yet been taken and indeed less successful than that which was sent before by Mr. Fry, but acknowledged not to be a good likeness.   Sir Cornewall expresses willingness to give Mr. Fry another opportunity of having to obtain a likeness but certainly that which was left cannot be published with the consent of his family. A ¾ face is far less trying in a photograph when the subject has strongly marked features than a full face. Every indent on the forehead and face has been given that can indicate physical pain and the mouth has the effect of a caricature.1

Finally, the extraordinary proliferation of political portraiture and the continual emphasis on the authenticity and quality of their likenesses highlights how important it was for people to ‘see’ their political leaders and representatives. This is significant because most of the political likenesses studied in this book were produced and sold commercially, rather than being indiscriminately and freely distributed by non-commercial organisations. This is a key difference from the post-1880 period, when political parties and their auxiliaries were increasingly proactive in distributing and displaying visual propaganda to appeal to a new mass electorate. There was clearly a popular appetite and market for political likenesses before 1880, and not just of leading figures but also of second-rank politicians and local worthies. Although images could be produced in greater quantities than hitherto, the formats that portraits came in, as well as evidence about the uses to which they were put, suggest that they were valued and collected. Prints were frequently published in collectable series and usually had large borders to facilitate their framing. Cartes de visite were put into albums. Cartoons in comic periodicals were usually blank on the back so they could be detached. Advertisements and reviews of printed portraits, whether engraved or photographic, repeatedly emphasised

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 227

23/09/2014 11:54

228

Politics personified

the quality of production as well as the accuracy of the likenesses. These were not disposable, throwaway items that were taken for granted, despite their ubiquity, but retained sufficient interest, novelty and appeal to be valued. As art historians have long noted, through collecting portraits, individuals could identify with particular figures and order and arrange likenesses in a way that reflected their personal sense of identity. From a present-day perspective in which images are mass-produced and portraits of celebrities and public figures so commonplace as to be unremarkable, it is hard to grasp the excitement that portraits could generate in the Victorian period.2 Some politicians themselves commissioned and established their own portrait galleries, private pantheons of political figures they admired or felt an affinity with. Most famously, Sir Robert Peel constructed his own portrait gallery at his Staffordshire seat, Drayton Manor, containing specially commissioned paintings of his political forebears, colleagues and protégés.3 But there are other examples. In the 1860s Sir Joshua Walmsley, a former Radical Reformer MP for Leicester and Bolton, commissioned a series of paintings of politicians and historical figures from the artist Charles Lucy. In many respects this was a radical-liberal pantheon, which included John Bright, Joseph Hume, Richard Cobden, Giuseppe Garibaldi, W.E. Gladstone and Oliver Cromwell, but also Lord Nelson and, interestingly, Benjamin Disraeli.4 The qualities of portraiture There were a number of overlapping reasons why portraiture, as opposed to other genres, proved to be the most suitable form for visually representing politics between 1830 and 1880. Despite its traditional association with royal or aristocratic patronage, portraiture was a universal form that was not the property of one social or political grouping, and could be appropriated and adapted. Although elite politicians continued to be painted by Royal Academicians, this was no bar to radicals or others exploiting its potential. Unlike the satirical prints of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century, portraiture did not require a complex visual language to be understood. Its simplicity and accessibility were virtues that gave it a broad appeal. Its formal conventions and conservatism as a genre meant that most portraits were not groundbreaking as art; yet they did not need to be to serve their purpose, and to dismiss them as bad art is to fail to judge them on their own terms and merits. Portraiture allowed a positive image to be projected of politicians, which was appropriate for an age in which the excrescences of the representative system were reformed and Parliament became more responsive to public opinion. In this period great store was set on the ‘character’ of public men, their moral qualities.5 Portraits seemed to offer unique insights into the character of politicians, which could be accessed through the intuitive folk wisdom of physi-

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 228

23/09/2014 11:54

Conclusion

229

ognomy. Victorian portraiture focused on subjects as public individuals, and did not address their private side.6 Similarly, political cartoons went to great lengths to avoid ‘personality’, that is, personal abuse, scurrility and publicising private vices.7 Such self-censorship always operated within limits and was applied selectively. Those politicians who were judged extreme, such as radicals, or who hailed from minority cultural or racial groups continued to suffer from degrading caricatures. Although he was an elite politician who should have been accorded the same respectable treatment in cartoons as his peers, Disraeli’s Jewish origins meant that this was never the case.8 Finally, in an era of relatively loose party ties, in which politicians fulfilled a number of roles locally and nationally, portraiture was a good medium for recognising their individuality while placing them within broader types. MPs’ portraits are instructive in this case. While they formed a recognisable sub-genre of political portraiture, illustrated likenesses of MPs distinguished between different types of parliamentarian such as self-made, rugged businessmen or aristocratic dilettantes. There were contradictions or competing tendencies within contemporary portraiture. There was a tension between portraits as authoritative d ­ epictions for posterity and more accurate, current likenesses. Generally, this was reflected in the difference between static, iconic portraits that sought to ‘fix’ the sitter and the spread of more dynamic imagery after 1850, such as illustrated newspapers and cartes which provided snapshots that located subjects within the contemporary context rather than detaching them from it. Dynamic images could still shape the public image of a politician, but this was done through the repetition and reiteration of particular themes, visual tropes or physical traits over time through a variety of different visual media, rather than ‘fixing’ it through a handful of definitive portraits. Although cartoons operated within welldefined parameters and periodicals such as Punch were keen to stay on the right side of respectable, they could offer more critical portrayals of political figures, whereas portraits were generally positive. Finally, although the quality of likeness was constantly emphasised in contemporary reviews and advertisements, this remained highly subjective. Some images were clearly inaccurate as likenesses, such as the depictions of Palmerston that underplayed his age in the 1850s, but resonated for what they represented, in this case Palmerston’s vigorous, manly approach to foreign policy and the defence of British interests. It was revealing that even after photographs of Palmerston, which presented a more accurate view of his aged features, became widespread, contemporaries still thought they embodied the ‘jaunty’ qualities that had been a feature of pictorial likenesses of him. That is to say, Palmerston’s public image had become so well established that people projected it on to photographic portraits which should have, in theory, undermined it through greater realism.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 229

23/09/2014 11:54

230

Politics personified Implications

This book has a number of overlapping implications for existing accounts of nineteenth-century politics and alters our understanding of key political developments in the 1830–80 period. Firstly, this book shows the importance of visual forms of political communication. Since the 1990s a major theme of political history has been the vibrancy of popular politics and electoral culture. Through election rituals, above all public nominations, and, later, public meetings, the people, including those without the vote, could participate in the political process.9 Yet according to law general elections could be up to seven years apart, and while many constituencies exhibited lively electoral cultures there were others where nominations were a formality and poorly attended. While I would not dispute the importance of electoral culture, this focus has obscured other ways in which politicians and public interacted. There was a broader culture of representation and political engagement outside of parliamentary elections that goes a long way to explaining why a system in which so few had the vote could, nonetheless, attain legitimacy and public confidence. The reformed representative system was not democratic by any means, but there were numerous ways through which people could make their voices heard, including petitioning, deputations, the press, public meetings and lobbying their local MP, as well as election rituals. Similarly, politicians had numerous means of engaging and communicating with the public, including through print, public speeches and portraiture. Portraiture offered a particularly direct means of communication, especially as likenesses could generate an emotional connection with people. Secondly, portraits helped to make politicians more visible to the public during a time when they and Parliament were forced to become more responsive to public opinion after 1832. The volume of public and private bill legislation and select committee inquiries increased dramatically, as did the number of divisions, and politicians were also expected to defend and promote local interests at Westminster. Their conduct was carefully scrutinised by an expanding and vibrant press. The systematic recording of divisions, votes and attendance in select committees and the official reporting of Hansard allowed the performance of parliamentary politicians to be monitored and measured as never before. All this proved too much for some. Richard Edensor Heathcote, a Staffordshire gentleman who had sat in the unreformed Commons, was returned to the House at the 1835 general election. He resigned barely a year later, citing ‘an insurmountable dislike to spend whole summers in town, after the present fashion of legislators’ as his chief reason for retiring.10 Politicians were expected to be more active and busy in performing their duties. Portraits helped to establish national and local reputations, boosting and maintaining their public profile. In short, the proliferation of political

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 230

23/09/2014 11:54

Conclusion

231

likenesses was one of the ways in which politicians became more visible in the post-1832 period. Thirdly, the expansion and nature of political likenesses helps to explain the extraordinary veneration for Parliament that characterised nineteenthcentury Britain. Parliament was central to national public life between 1830 and 1880. Without a large centralised state bureaucracy and with permissive legislation only becoming more common by the end of the period, Parliament fulfilled a number of roles that later passed to other bodies. To give just a few examples, it had to legislate for the establishment of railways, local infrastructure, colonial constitutions and social provision, including boards of health and revising or establishing poor law systems for England, Ireland and Scotland. All these matters were discussed and debated on the floor of the House of Commons and in committee. Although it was unrepresentative, then, there was no doubting that Parliament was the national forum for public debate. Revealingly, even movements that were profoundly critical of the reformed Commons, such as Chartism, used methods such as petitioning that tacitly acknowledged Parliament’s central importance, while disputing its legitimacy. Perhaps the most telling evidence of the centrality of Parliament to national life is the huge proportion of newspaper coverage devoted to verbatim reports of parliamentary speeches, which is staggering to modern eyes. Portraiture was even the medium of choice for radicals who had their own tradition of scathing caricature to draw upon. This was because political likenesses not only enabled radicals to present a positive self-image, but the affinity with conventional elite portraiture served to further their claims to sit in Parliament. As Malcolm Chase has observed, the respectable, even bland image presented in the Chartist portraits published in association with the Northern Star in the 1840s was based on the assumption that sooner or later, once radical political reforms had been passed, these men would take their place in Parliament.11 While Parliament was widely venerated, the Palace of Westminster itself was a building site from the great fire of 1834 until 1870. The widespread popularity of parliamentary portraits helped to provide a public face for the political system during this period of transition. Furthermore, portraits also help to explain how the relationship between MPs and constituents was recast after 1832. Whatever else they might be, as parliamentarians, MPs were generally presented favourably as respectable public men. Such was the respect in which MPs were held that constituents voluntarily subscribed to fund portrait testimonials and public memorials. Portraits, then, were one of the ways in which the gap between high/parliamentary/elite/national politics and low/ electoral/popular/local politics was bridged. The public were connected to Parliament through individual and grouped likenesses of MPs. Fourthly, a study of political likenesses adds greater depth to existing accounts of the cult of personality in nineteenth-century politics, which have

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 231

23/09/2014 11:54

232

Politics personified

largely focused on Gladstone and Bright in the 1860s and beyond and their appeal to Liberal working men.12 In light of this study, the proliferation of Gladstonian iconography no longer seems so unusual or new, except perhaps in terms of its scale. Russell, Derby, Palmerston, Peel and Disraeli, not to mention Cobden and a whole host of other front-rank figures, were all well represented through political portraiture and increasingly recognisable. The popularity and appeal of political likenesses was not mindless celebrity or hero worship. Politicians were associated with particular ideas, political or intellectual traditions and policies. It was not a case of representing men or measures, but both. If images of Peel after 1846 invoked free trade, so representations of Russell recalled his association with reform and his habit of introducing bold legislative measures more generally. It is also misleading to study the iconography or reputation of particular politicians, such as Gladstone, in isolation, without placing them in the context of a political culture in which images of politicians were widespread and held to represent ideas, parties and policies. Furthermore, images were rarely detached from a wider context; they were frequently published in serials or series, drew implicit contrasts with other politicians or categorised the sitter among a particular type. Finally, the formation and re-formation of party identities throughout the pre-1880 period was a key political dynamic and helped to shape images of politics. In the decade after 1832 the emergence of new party identities was personified in rival Conservative and Reformer semi-official portrait series. The lack of clear dividing lines in the long 1850s meant that divisions within parties were more important than those between them; this was one reason why Palmerston could cultivate a national, patriotic image that seemed to transcend party. The re-emergence of a clear-cut two-party division between Liberals and Conservatives in the 1860s was reflected in the personification of party identity through Gladstone and Disraeli after 1867. At the same time, much of the period was characterised by parliamentary government, and MPs retained considerable independence. Portrait series were not only a key way to communicate, express and reaffirm party identities, but they were also a way of grouping politicians together and making sense of politics in an era in which party labels were often loose and continually reshaped. Portraits allowed parties to mutate over time by presenting and regrouping politicians together in different constellations, or detaching them. Politicians themselves were well aware of what it meant to be grouped with other politicians. The Conservative writer John Wilson Croker refused to sit for Herbert Fry’s National Gallery of Photographic Portraits because he objected to being grouped with Liberal or Whig sitters including Palmerston and Lewis. He wrote ‘the majority of the names you mention are of persons with whom I have very little sympathy of opinion, and no wish to see myself in any way associated’.13

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 232

23/09/2014 11:54

Conclusion

233

In a period of profound change and upheaval, politicians, many of whom had careers that were measured across several decades, provided a sense of stability, anchorage and permanence. The individual politician provided a crucial sense of continuity, helping to attach people to the political system and integrating people into a national political community. In portraying politicians to ever wider audiences after 1830, political likenesses played a key role in the development of a more recognisably modern political system. Notes 1 NPG, London, album 39, Lady Lewis to Herbert Fry, 30 July 1857, qu. in G.M. Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography: Portrait Publications in Great Britain, 1856–1900’, PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1985, p. 122. 2 Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, pp. 1–2, 27. 3 R. Gaunt, ‘Robert Peel: Portraiture and Political Commemoration’, The Historian (2012), 22–6. 4 The paintings, completed between 1868 and 1869, were bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1872. 5 M. McCormack and M. Roberts, ‘Conclusion: Chronologies in the History of British Political Masculinities, c. 1700–2000’, in M. McCormack (ed.), Public Men: Masculinity and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 187–202 (at 189–90, 194). 6 Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, pp. 99–100. 7 H. Miller, ‘John Leech and the Shaping of the Victorian Cartoon: The Context of Respectability’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 42 (2009), 267–91 (at 269–70). 8 Ibid., 282. 9 J. Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); J. Lawrence, Electing Our Masters: The Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); F. O’Gorman, ‘Campaign Rituals and Ceremonies: The Social Meaning of Elections in England, 1780–1860’, Past & Present, 135 (1992), 79–115; J. Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 10 Staffordshire Advertiser, qu. in The Times, 2 Feb. 1836, p. 3. 11 M. Chase, ‘Building Identity, Building Circulation: Engraved Portraiture in the Northern Star’, in J. Allen and O. Ashton (eds), Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press (London: Merlin, 2005), pp. 25–54 (at 45–6). 12 E. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), ch. 7; J. Vincent, The Formation of the British Liberal Party, 1857–68 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 265; P. Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 43–55. 13 NPG, London, album 39, John Wilson Croker to Herbert Fry, 1 Dec. 1856, qu. in Prescott, ‘Fame and Photography’, pp. 119–20.

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 233

23/09/2014 11:54

Select bibliography

Archives and manuscripts Joseph Chamberlain Papers, Special Collections, University of Birmingham, JC 6 Richard Cobden Papers, West Sussex Record Office, 1143 A. Hayter, ‘Diary of Sir George Hayter, 1st January 1838–21st June 1858’, transcript, National Portrait Gallery, London Labour Representation League Papers, British Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics, SR John Partridge, Sitters’ Book, c. 1823–65, National Portrait Gallery, London, MS 92 Punch Archives, British Library, Additional Manuscripts 88937 George Richmond, Extracts from Diary, 1830–93, typescript, National Portrait Gallery, London, MS 30 George Wilson Papers, Greater Manchester County Record Office, M20

Collections of prints, photographs, ephemera and material culture John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, Bodleian Library, Oxford Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, Coventry National Portrait Gallery, London Parliamentary Archives People’s History Museum and Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester

Newspapers and periodicals Anti-Bread Tax Circular/Anti-Corn Law Circular Art Journal/Art-Union The Bee-Hive Fun Illustrated London News Illustrated Times Judy The League National Reformer Northern Star

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 234

23/09/2014 11:54

Select bibliography

235

Punch Secular Chronicle The Tomahawk

Contemporary and printed primary sources, including  official  ­publicatioons [Anon.], ‘Haydon’s Reform Banquet’, Fraser’s Magazine, 9 (1834), 702–10. [Anon.], ‘R’., ‘The Caricatures of H.B. from 1828 to 1837’, London and Westminster Review, 6 (1837–8), 261–93. Catalogue of Engravings Registered by the Print Sellers’ Association … from 1847 to 1863 Inclusive (London, 1865). [Cole, H.], ‘Modern Wood Engraving’, London and Westminster Review, 6 (1838), 265–80. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series. Haydon, B.R., Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table-Talk (2 vols., London: Chatto and Windus, 1876). ——, The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. W.B. Pope (5 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960–63), III–IV. Hayter, G., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Great Historical Picture of the Interior of the British House of Commons … 1833 (1843). Herkomer, H., Etching and Mezzotint Engraving (London: Macmillan, 1892). Hodson, J.S., An Historical and Practical Guide to Art Illustration (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1884). Jackson, M., The Pictorial Press: Its Origins and Progress (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1885). Mayhew, H., London Labour and the London Poor [1851] (4 vols., London: Frank Cass, 1967). Parliamentary Papers, Newspaper Stamp Returns. Ryall, H.T., Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Conservative Statesmen (London: G. Vertue, 1836–46). Saunders, J., Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Living Political Reformers (London: J. Dowding, 1837–40). Singer, H.W., and W. Strang, Etching, Engraving and Other Methods of Printing Pictures (London: Kegan Paul, 1897). Spielmann, M.H., History of “Punch” (London: Cassell, 1895). Turner, B., About Myself, 1863–1930 (London: Humphrey Toulmin, 1930). Vizetelly, H., Glances Back through Seventy Years (2 vols., London: Kegan Paul, 1893). Wemyss Reid, T., ‘Mr. Gladstone and his Portraits’, Magazine of Art, 12 (1889), 82–9.

Secondary works Altick, R., Punch: The Lively Youth of a British Institution (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1997). Anderson, P., The Printed Image and the Transformation of Popular Culture, 1790–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 235

23/09/2014 11:54

236

Select bibliography

Barlow, P.J., ‘Benjamin Robert Haydon and the Radicals’, Burlington Magazine, 99 (1957), 309–12. Beales, D., ‘Parliamentary Parties and the “Independent” Member, 1810–60’, in R. Robson (ed.), Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain: Essays in Honour of George Kitson Clark (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967), pp. 1–19. Beegan, G., The Mass Image: A Social History of Photomechanical Reproduction in Victorian London (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008). Biagini, E., Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Brake, L., and M. Demoor (eds), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (London: Academia Press, 2009). Briggs, A., Victorian Things (London: B.T. Batsford, 1988). Brilliant, R., Portraiture (London: Reaktion, 1991). Brown, D., Palmerston: A Biography (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). Carlisle, J., Picturing Reform in Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Chase, M., ‘Building Identity, Building Circulation: Engraved Portraiture in the Northern Star’, in J. Allen and O. Ashton (eds), Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press (London: Merlin, 2005), pp. 25–54. Coohill, J., ‘Sir George Hayter and The 1833 House of Commons: Politics and Portraiture in the Reform Period’, British Art Journal, 7 (2006–07), 58–61. ——, Ideas of the Liberal Party: Perceptions, Agendas and Liberal Politics in the House of Commons, 1832–1852 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011). Cox, G.W., ‘The Development of a Party-Orientated Electorate in England, 1832–1918’, British Journal of Political Science, 16 (1986), 187–216. Cragoe, M., ‘The Great Reform Act and the Modernization of British Politics: The Impact of Conservative Associations, 1835–1841’, Journal of British Studies, 47 (2008), 581–603. Darrah, W.C., Cartes de Visite in Nineteenth Century Photography (Gettysburgh, PA: W.C. Darrah, 1981). Dyson, A., Pictures to Prints: The Nineteenth Century Engraving Trade (London: Farrand, 1984). Fox, C., Graphic Journalism in England during the 1830s and 1840s (New York: Garland, 1988). Gaunt, R., ‘Robert Peel: Portraiture and Political Commemoration’, The Historian (2012), 22–6. Hanham, H.J., Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time of Disraeli and Gladstone (2nd edn, Hassocks: Harvester, 1978). Hawkins, A., ‘“Parliamentary Government” and Victorian Political Parties, c. 1830–c. 1880’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989), 638–69. Hilton, B., A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England, 1783–1846 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006). Hunnisett, B., Engraved on Steel: The History of Picture Production using Steel Plates (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998). Joyce, P., Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 236

23/09/2014 11:54

Select bibliography

237

Lawrence, J., Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). ——, Electing Our Masters: The Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Leary, T., The Punch Brotherhood: Table Talk and Print Culture in Mid-Victorian London (London: British Library, 2010). Maidment, B., Comedy, Caricature and the Social Order, 1820–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). Meisel, J., ‘Gladstone’s Visage: Problem and Performance’, in R. Quinault, R. Swift and R.C. Windscheffel (eds), William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 74–98. Miller, H., ‘The Problem with Punch’, Historical Research, 82 (2009), 285–302. ——, ‘John Leech and the Shaping of the Victorian Cartoon: The Context of Respectability’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 42 (2009), 267–91. Morgan, S., ‘The Reward of Public Service: Nineteenth-Century Testimonials in Context’, Historical Research, 80 (2007), 261–85. ——, ‘Material Culture and the Politics of Personality in Early Victorian England’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 17 (2012), 127–46. Navickas, K., ‘“That Sash Will Hang You”: Political Clothing and Adornment in England, 1780–1840’, Journal of British Studies, 49 (2010), 540–65. Nixon, M., ‘Material Gladstones’, in R. Quinault, R. Swift and R.C. Windscheffel (eds), William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 99–125. O’Donoughue, F., Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits in the British Museum (6 vols., London: Longmans, 1908–24). O’Keeffe, P., A Genius for Failure: The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon (London: Bodley Head, 2009). Parry, J.P., The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). ——, The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). ——, ‘Palmerston and Russell’, in D. Brown and M. Taylor (eds), Palmerston Studies (2 vols., Southampton: Hartley Institute, 2007), I, pp. 144–72. Pearl, S., About Faces: Physiognomy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Perry, L., ‘The National Portrait Gallery and its Constituencies’, in P. Barlow and C. Trodd (eds), Governing Cultures: Art Institutions in Victorian London (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 145–55. ——, ‘The Carte de Visite in the 1860s and the Serial Dynamic of Photographic Likeness’, Art History, 35 (2012), 728–49. Pickering, P., ‘Class Without Words: Symbolic Communication in the Chartist Movement’, Past & Present, 112 (1986), 144–62. Pickering. P., and A. Tyrrell, The People’s Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Law League (London: Leicester University Press, 2000). ——, Contested Sites: Commemoration, Memorials and Popular Politics in NineteenthCentury Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 237

23/09/2014 11:54

238

Select bibliography

Plunkett, J., Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). ——, ‘Celebrity and Community: The Poetics of the Carte-de-Visite’, Journal of V ­ ictorian Culture, 8 (2003), 55–79. Pointon, M., Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). Pound, R., C.J. Grant’s Political Drama: A Radical Satirist Rediscovered ([London]: University College London, 1998). Read, D., Peel and the Victorians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987). Rix, K., ‘“Whatever Passed in Parliament Ought to be Communicated to the Public”: Reporting the Proceedings of the Reformed Commons, 1833–1850’, Parliamentary History (forthcoming). Roberts, S., and D. Thompson, Images of Chartism (Woodbridge: Merlin, 1998). Salmon, P., Electoral Reform at Work: Local Politics and National Parties, 1832–1841 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002). ——, ‘The English Reform Legislation’, in D.R. Fisher (ed.), History of Parliament: House of Commons, 1820–1832 (7 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), I, pp. 374–412. Saunders, R., Democracy and the Vote in British Politics: The Making of the Second Reform Act, 1848–1867 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011). Stephens, F.G., E. Hawkins and M.D. George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (11 vols., London: British Museum, 1870–1954). Taylor, M., The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995). Thompson, J., ‘“Pictorial Lies?”: Posters and Politics in Britain, c. 1880–1914’, Past & Present, 197 (2007), 177–210. Twyman, M., Lithography, 1800–1850 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). Vernon, J., Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). West, S., Portraiture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Windscheffel, R.C., ‘Politics, Portraiture and Power: Reassessing the Public Image of William Ewart Gladstone’, in M. McCormack (ed.), Public Men: Masculinities and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007), pp. 93–122. Wohl, A., ‘“Ben JuJu”: Representations of Disraeli’s Jewishness in the Victorian Political Cartoon’, Jewish History, 10 (1996), 89–134. Wyke, T., Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004).

Unpublished works History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1832–1868, draft entries. Miller, H., ‘Printed Images and Political Communication in Britain, c. 1830–1880’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 2009). Nicholson, E., ‘English Political Prints and Pictorial Political Argument, c. 1640–c. 1832: A Study in Historiography and Methodology’ (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 3 vols., 1994).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 238

23/09/2014 11:54

Select bibliography

239

Pound, R., ‘Serial Journalism and the Transformation of English Graphic Satire, 1830–36’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 2 vols., 2002). Prescott, G.M., ‘Fame and Photography: Portrait Publications in Great Britain, 1856–1900’ (PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1985). Tedeschi, M.P., ‘How Prints Work: Reproductions, Originals, and their Markets in England, 1840–1900’ (PhD thesis, Northwestern University, 2 vols., 1994).

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 239

23/09/2014 11:54

Index

Note: page numbers in italic refer to illustrations. Aberdeen, Lord, see Hamilton-Gordon Anti-Corn Law League 81 portraits of 93, 94–5, 99–100, 103, 130, 131–3 use of caricature 90–2 Attwood, Thomas 29, 36, 38, 101, 117, 158 Bee-Hive 94, 96–7, 98, 99–100, 102–5 borough-mongers 33, 34, 35 Bradlaugh, Charles 79–80 Brougham, Henry, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux 33, 34, 35–6, 71, 85, 86 caricature, decline of Georgian 22–6 see also Grant; reform caricatures and prints cartes de visite, see photography cartoons 13, 80, 184–92 passim, 186, 188, 189, 191, 202, 203, 204, 209, 217–19, 218 Chamberlain, Joseph 155 Chartism and Chartists 90–1 Northern Star portrait series 10–11, 94–5, 99–100, 102–3 see also Radicals and radicalism Cobden, Richard 90–2, 133, 228 Conservative party 54–6, 168, 200–1 portraits as symbols of party identity 58–67, 60, 65, 207–8 see also borough-mongers; Disraeli; party; Peel; Ryall; Stanley

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 240

Derby, Lord, see Stanley Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield 127, 198–9, 201, cartoons of 191, 192, 202, 203, 204, 209, 217, 218 portraits of 149, 206, 207–9, 210, 211, 212, 213, 228 Doyle, John (‘HB’) 25, 40–4, 43 Duncombe, Thomas Slingsby 149, 155 elections, general (1868) 201–4 (1874 and 1880) 205 engraving, steel 5–7, 56–8, 60, 62, 65, 69, 72, 93, 101, 119, 126, 128, 130, 133, 168–9, 171, 178, 210, 215, 220 engraving, wood 6–7, 24–5, 80, 83, 84, 85, 88, 90–1, 98, 102, 145–52, 148, 150, 154–5, 177, 178, 179, 186, 188, 189, 191, 203, 204, 206, 218, 220 see also Illustrated London News etching 32, 34 Gladstone, William Ewart 127, 157, 198–9 cartoons of 202, 203, 204, 205, 218–19 portraits of 205, 207–8, 213–14, 215, 216, 217, 228 Grant, Charles Jameson 82, 84–90, 85, 88

23/09/2014 11:54

Index Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl Grey 118, 120–1, 128 caricatures of 33, 34, 43, 84, 85 portraits of 68, 119 see also Haydon; Reform Act (1832) group portraiture 9–10, 114–34 passim, 119, 122, 130 Hamilton-Gordon, George, 4th Earl of Aberdeen 188, 190 Haydon, Benjamin Robert 114, 117–18 Anti-Slavery Convention, The (1841) 129, 131 dislike of portraiture and portrait painters 9, 116–17 Reform Banquet, The (1834) 118–21, 119, 123, 128–9, 172 Hayter, Sir George 70, 114, 117, 172 House of Commons, 1833, The (1833–43) 118–19, 122, 123–8 Whig opinions of 115–16 HB, see Doyle, John Hume, Joseph 72, 73, 81, 150, 151 ‘iconic’ portraiture and dynamic imagery 12, 52, 57, 59, 146, 168–9, 229 Illustrated London News 6, 145–52, 148, 150, 169, 177, 178, 205, 206 Lamb, William, 2nd Viscount Melbourne 128–9 Liberal party 168, 200–1 see also Gladstone; party; Saunders; likeness scrutiny and criticism of 11–12, 61–2, 68–70, 121, 123, 145 tension between currency and posterity 62, 114, 126–9, 133, 169 lithography 24, 43 see also Doyle MPs 127, 134, 140–4 portraits of 68–70, 69, 72, 122, 144–62 passim, 148, 150, 153, 160 paintings 122, 144–5, 155–7, 172, 176

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 241

241

see also Haydon; Hayter Palmerston, Lord, see Temple Parliament 124, 134, 230–1 see also Hayter; MPs; Reform Act (1832) party, development of party politics 53–6, 74, 168, 199–201, 220 see also Conservative party; Disraeli; Gladstone; Liberal party Peel, Sir Robert, 2nd baronet 61, 64–5, 67 cartoons and caricatures of 43–4, 186 connoisseur and patron of portraiture 126, 173, 213, 228 portraits of 58, 60, 73–4, 168–9 statues of 158–9 photography 6–7, 155, 160, 161, 174, 181, 182, 183–4, 211, 212, 213–14, 216, 227 portrait ‘gallery’ series of prints and seriality of visual media 7–8, 25, 57–8, 62, 81, 227–8 see also Anti-Corn Law League; Chartism and Chartists; Ryall; Saunders portrait testimonials 155–7, 176, 178 portrait transaction 13, 145, 147, 183, 226–7 see also Haydon; Hayter portraiture and political identity 10–11, 106, 207–8, 232 see also Chartists and Chartism; Disraeli; Gladstone; Ryall; Saunders pottery 8, 29, 30 Punch 13, 169–70, 185–92 passim, 186, 188, 189, 191, 209, 218 Radicals and radicalism 81–2, 178, 180 depiction in cartoons 79–80, 80, ‘Old Corruption’ 31, 38–9, 83, 84 use of caricature 40, 82–90, 85, 88, 91–2 use of portraiture 92, 94 see also Anti-Corn Law League; ­Chartism and Chartists; Grant; Reform Act (1832)

23/09/2014 11:54

242

Index

Reform Act (1832) historiography of 26–8 material culture of reform 29, 30, 35–6 popular disillusion with 40, 44–5, 84 reform caricatures and prints 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37–40 reform portraits 35–7 see also Grey; Haydon; Hayter; Russell Representation of the People Act (1867) 38–9, 199–200 Russell, Lord John, 1st Earl Russell 127, 175 association with Reform Act (1832) 171, 172–3, 188 cartoons of 33, 34, 186, 187–8, 190 portraits of 68, 120, 170, 171, Ryall, Henry Thomas, Portraits of Eminent Conservative Statesmen (1836–46) 58–67, 60, 65, 210, 213, 215

Miller_PoliticsPersonified_Printer.indd 242

Saunders, John, Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Living Political Reformers (1837–40) 67–73, 69, 73 Secular Chronicle 94, 97, 102, 103 silk portraiture 153, 154, 207, 222n.41 Stanley, Edward Geoffrey Smith, 14th Earl of Derby 120–1 cartoons of 191, 192 portraits of 66, 133, 168, 173, 174, 175 statuary 68, 157–9 Temple, Henry John, 3rd Viscount Palmerston 128, 167, 169, 175–6, 184–5, 192–3 cartoons of 187, 188, 189, 190, 192 portraits of 68, 133, 170, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180–1, 182, 183–4, 229 Wellesley, Arthur, 1st Duke of Wellington 66–7, 85, 86 Whigs 53–4, 70–1, 73, 120 see also Grey; Reform Act (1832); Russell

23/09/2014 11:54