print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.5539
- Title
- Object: The northern colossus or Earl of Toadstool arm'd with a poll axe
- Description
-
Lord Lonsdale straddles across the River Eden, a foot on each bank. He raises an axe above his head in both hands to cut down a large oak inscribed 'Liberty' on the left of the river. On the right of the river, on the horizon, is the town of 'Carlisle'; in front of it the land is covered with mushrooms inscribed '1400'. On the left side of the oak is a signpost inscribed, 'The New Road to Westminster', the hand pointing along 'Corruption Lane'. A broken arm from the signpost, inscribed 'Old Road to Westminster', lies on 'Freedom Common'. The branches extending over the latter are leafy, those over the toadstools are broken and bare. Punch, with a hump, dressed in the traditional manner, capers beside the post, pointing towards Corruption Lane and trampling on a paper inscribed 'Charter'. A bridge across the river is breaking, a boat sinks. 26 May 1786
Etching
- Production date
- 1786
- Dimensions
-
Height: 249 millimetres
-
Width: 351 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938)
Lonsdale, who often returned nine members, was called Jimmy Graspall, Earl Toadstool, in election squibs. Wraxall, 'Memoirs', 1884, iii. 358 n. In order to establish his interest in the borough of Carlisle, he induced the Mayor to admit 1,400 men to the freedom of the city as honorary freemen or faggot voters; they were chiefly from Lonsdale's collieries and estates. These voters were petitioned against by J. Christian Curwen, who became a candidate on the death of the Hon. Edward Norton in March 1786, and again by Rowland Stephenson on the succession of Lord Surrey to the dukedom of Norfolk, 31 Aug. 1786, and were declared illegal. Oldfield, 'Representative History', 1816, iii. 264-5. Punch is John Lowther, candidate in 1786. R. S. Ferguson, 'Cumberland and Westmorland M.P.s', pp. 200 ff. and frontispiece.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.5539