- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12906
- Title
- Object: A radical reformer, - (i e) a neck or nothing man! Dedicated to the heads of the nation.
- Description
-
The 'Heads of the Nation' flee in terror from a huge grotesque monster (left) whose body is a guillotine from which flames stream after the fugitives. The creature wears a bonnet rouge, its jaws, with huge teeth and dripping blood, extend across the upper edge of the guillotine whose curved blade forms a vast chin. Arms project from just below the jaws, a dagger in the right hand; blood drips from the dagger and from the crisped talons of the left hand. Grotesque bowed legs in ragged breeches splay from below the guillotine, centred by the round hole for the victim's neck from which blood gushes, and through which peers a grinning skull. From the vast mouth issue the words: "I'm a coming! I'm a coming! I shall have you, though I'm at your heels now I'll be at your Head's presently, "come all to me that are troubled with money & I warrant I'll make you easy!!" Behind and on the extreme left, supported on clouds, daggers march forward, followed by tiny guillotine-Reformers who chant: "and a Hunting we vill go".
The most prominent fugitive is Castlereagh, who looks over his shoulder, saying, "Och! by the powers! & I don't like the looks of him atall! atall!" He has dropped a large green bag inscribed 'Castle[reag]h's Bag', from which gold coins are pouring. Liverpool falls face downwards across a similar bag: 'Liverpool's Bag'. On the extreme right, his face cut off by the margin, is the Regent running fast despite a gouty leg; his wig flies off, and he exclaims: "Oh! My Wig's off!!" Eldon, close behind, his (Chancellor's) wig also flying away, answers: "Never mind, so long as your head's on!" At the Regent's feet lies a crown, near two bags '100000 G P R his Bag' and 'Old Bag's Bag'. Other figures are indicated; behind, a bishop with a grossly bloated nose intended for the Archbishop of Canterbury (cf. No. 13276) flees in wild terror, losing wig and mitre.
Plate numbered 368.
1819
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1819
- Dimensions
-
Height: 247 millimetres
-
Width: 349 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
In 1819 their opponents styled the Reformers (who demanded Universal Suffrage, &c.) Radical Reformers, or Radicals (a new term [though 'Radical Reform' was a cry of 1798, see No. 9190], cf. 'Examiner', 1819, p. 563); see Halévy, 'Hist. of the English People 1815-30', p. 66 f. Before 16 Aug. (see No. 13268) Ministers believed that the industrial districts, especially in Lancashire, were on the verge of revolution. Sections of the cheap press were advocating armed resistance to the Government. See Wickwar, 'The Struggle for the Freedom of the Press, 1819-1832', 1928, pp. 75-81. The Monster may derive from Gillray's 'Genius of France' in No. 8614 (1795). For Radical Reformers see also Nos. 13248, 13274, 13275, 13279,
13284.
Reid, No. 914. Cohn, No. 1886. De Vinck, No. 4993.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1992 Sep-Oct, London, Order of St John Museum, Cruikshank 200
1992 Nov-Dec, Burnley, Townley Hall AG & Museum, Cruikshank 200
2001 Mar-Aug, London, Soane Museum, Hogarth's Election Entertainment
2001/2 Oct- Jan, Newcastle, Laing Gallery, Hogarth's Election Entertainment
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12906
