NORTHUMBERLAND ELECTION BROADSIDE – FREEHOLDERS OF NORTHUMBERLAND! – Alnwick – 1826

Rare Whig election broadside issued during the famous and intensely fought Northumberland county election of 1826, in support of Henry George Grey, Viscount Howick, eldest son of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. Letterpress broadside on paper. Sheet size approximately 30.3 × 22.1 cm.

A forceful appeal to the freeholders of Northumberland to support Lord Howick, framed around gratitude to Earl Grey, religious liberty, Catholic emancipation, dissenting rights, Whig loyalty and opposition to “slavery and oppression”. The text addresses, in turn, “Catholics of Northumberland”, “Dissenters of Northumberland”, “Whigs of Northumberland” and “Freeholders of Northumberland”, urging them to rally behind Howick under the cry: “HOWICK AND LIBERTY.”

The broadside is signed in print “A Newcastle Whig” and was printed at Alnwick by J. Graham, one of the local printers active in the Northumberland election campaign. The contest involved Henry Grey, Viscount Howick, Matthew Bell and Henry Liddell, and generated a substantial ephemeral print war of squibs, addresses, handbills and broadsides. Parliament’s collections record a volume of material relating to the 1826 Northumberland election but we have not located this specific broadside institutionally or commercially.

Condition: Single sheet, old folds, light creasing, minor marginal wear and slight toning; puncture hole to the ‘H’ of ‘Freeholders’ presumably from where it was hung, small closed wear at folds, but complete and well preserved overall. In very good condition overall.

Apparently unrecorded. A rare survival from one of the most celebrated county elections of the early nineteenth century, with strong associations to Earl Grey, Viscount Howick, Catholic emancipation, dissenting politics and Northumberland Whiggism.

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