NORTHUMBERLAND ELECTION BROADSIDE – “Matty Bell” – Alnwick – 1826

Rare Northumberland election song sheet issued during the celebrated 1826 county election, one of the most fiercely contested and expensive parliamentary elections of the Georgian period.

Printed at Alnwick by J. Graham, the sheet is headed “MATTY BELL” and set to the tune of “There’s na luck about the house”, a well-known Scots song frequently adapted for political and topical verse. The piece attacks Matthew Bell, the Woolsington coal-owner and anti-Catholic candidate, in a satirical lyric that repeatedly pities “poor Matty Bell” while contrasting him unfavourably with Henry Thomas Liddell.

The song presents Bell as a harmless but inadequate candidate: “A harmless little man is he, / I’m sure I wish him well,” before dismissing him as politically confused, lacking principle, and subordinate to stronger interests. The final stanza urges the freeholders to “fix your choice, and lift your voice” and support “Liddell and the King,” making the sheet a clear piece of pro-Liddell electoral propaganda.

The broadside forms part of the extraordinary outpouring of printed political material generated by the famous Northumberland election involving Lord Howick, Matthew Bell, Henry Thomas Liddell, and Thomas Wentworth Beaumont. The contest became notorious for immense expenditure, coalition rumours, religious controversy over Catholic emancipation, aggressive canvassing, and highly personal printed attacks. The wider campaign also produced the well-known duel on Bamburgh Sands between Beaumont and John Lambton, later Earl of Durham.

This piece is especially interesting as an example of election song culture. Set to a familiar popular tune, it shows how political propaganda was intended not only to be read but also performed, sung, and remembered within public houses, committee rooms, streets, and gatherings of freeholders. Such song sheets are important survivals of the oral and performative dimensions of Georgian electoral politics.

No institutional copy of this precise “Matty Bell” song sheet has been traced in the British Library, Library Hub Discover, or WorldCat databases, and it therefore appears to be apparently unrecorded institutionally.

Single printed song sheet. Sheet size approximately 27.7 x 11.2 cm.

Condition: Fold lines as issued, light creasing, minor age toning, and handling wear consistent with original political use. Overall near fine.

A scarce and evocative survival of Georgian Northumberland election propaganda, combining political satire, popular song, and the electoral culture of one of the most famous county contests of the period.

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