Northumberland 1826

Hornseys’ is pleased to offer an important collection of rare printed ephemera relating to the celebrated Northumberland county election of 1826 — one of the most fiercely contested and expensive parliamentary elections of the Georgian period.

The election involved Lord Howick, Matthew Bell, Henry Thomas Liddell, and Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, and generated intense political rivalry, widespread public meetings, printed propaganda, accusations of coalition, and extensive electoral canvassing throughout Northumberland. The bitterness of the campaign ultimately culminated in the famous duel fought on Bamburgh Sands between Beaumont and John Lambton, later Earl of Durham.

This category includes broadsides, handbills, committee notices, addresses to freeholders, polling material, and other rare survivals of Georgian political printing, many of which appear to be unrecorded institutionally. Together they provide a remarkable insight into early nineteenth-century electoral culture, provincial printing, political organisation, and the Reform-era networks surrounding Earl Grey and his circle.

Produced for temporary circulation during the heat of the campaign, such material survives only rarely. Through detailed research and scholarly cataloguing, we aim to present these broadsides not merely as curiosities, but as important historical documents preserving the political life of Georgian Northumberland at a pivotal moment in British electoral history.