Extract From The Hull Observer – Tuesday December 9th – 1834

Beverley: W. B. Johnson, printer, Market-Place, [1834].

Rare and apparently unrecorded provincial political broadside, printed at Beverley in December 1834 in support of the Honourable Charles Langdale (1787–1868), Liberal MP for Beverley and one of the first English Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament after Catholic Emancipation.

Letterpress broadside printed in bold display type on orange paper. Sheet size approximately 27.7 × 20.8 cm.

The broadside reprints an extract from the Hull Observer announcing a public dinner to be given at Beverley to Charles Langdale “to celebrate the Anniversary of his Election”. Langdale had been elected for Beverley at the first general election after the Reform Act, taking his seat in the Parliament of 1833–34. The language of the piece is strongly reformist and partisan, praising Langdale as an “honest Representative” and contrasting public gratitude with the danger of electors selling “the Cause of their Country — the Rights of their Fellow-Subjects — of themselves and their Children — for the ‘accursed thing.’”

The text is notable for its pointed reference to political bribery and electoral corruption, a particularly resonant theme in Beverley, where contests were notoriously expensive and where electoral influence, treating and inducement formed part of the borough’s political culture. It presents Langdale as a candidate of integrity and sound judgement, deserving renewed support “without any base inducement”. The reference to several “Reformers of Hull” intending to attend the dinner, together with the expectation that Mr Hutt would be present, links the Beverley celebration to the wider reformist political network of the East Riding and Hull.

Charles Langdale was a significant Catholic lay politician and reform figure. A younger son of Charles Philip Stourton, 17th Baron Stourton, he assumed the surname Langdale after inheriting Houghton Hall in the East Riding. Following the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, he became one of the first English Catholics to enter the reformed House of Commons, representing Beverley from 1832 until the dissolution of January 1835, and later Knaresborough from 1837 to 1841. His parliamentary career and public life were closely associated with Catholic interests, religious liberty, education and Liberal politics.

The timing of the broadside is especially interesting. Published in December 1834, it appeared during the unsettled political crisis following the dismissal of Lord Melbourne’s Whig government by William IV and shortly before the general election of January–February 1835. As such, although framed as a notice of a public dinner, it also functions as an electioneering piece, reaffirming Langdale’s claims upon the gratitude and loyalty of the Beverley electorate.

Printed by W. B. Johnson of Market-Place, Beverley, a local printer active in the production of provincial notices, handbills and ephemeral printing. The use of vivid orange paper and large display typography suggests a piece intended for public posting, rapid circulation and immediate political effect.

No copy of this specific broadside traced in the British Library, Library Hub, WorldCat, parliamentary collections, or the principal online institutional and commercial records consulted. Apparently unrecorded.

Condition: Single sheet. Old folds, light creasing, slight toning and very minor marginal wear. Remnants of adhesive verso. Trimmed to left and upper margin. A few small handling marks and minor surface imperfections, but the sheet remains bright, complete and unusually fresh for a posted political broadside. Very good condition overall.

A rare survival of early Reform-era Yorkshire political ephemera, combining Beverley electoral history, Catholic political representation, provincial newspaper culture, anti-corruption rhetoric and the Liberal reform network of Hull and the East Riding.

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