NORTHUMBERLAND ELECTION BROADSIDE – To the Freeholders of the County of Northumberland Resident in Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead – Newcastle, 1826

Newcastle: Mitchell, Printer, 1826.

Single-sheet election broadside, printed on one side only.

21.5 x 27.9 cm.

Condition: Very good condition. Fold creases. Light age-toning, minor handling wear and small edge imperfections. Strong, clear printing throughout.

A scarce Northumberland election broadside issued by Thomas Wentworth Beaumont during the aftermath of the contested county election of 1826, addressed specifically to freeholders resident in Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead.

Dated 9 March 1826, the broadside thanks Beaumont’s supporters for the “flattering Promises of Support” received during his canvass for the forthcoming General Election. Beaumont presents himself as the candidate of political independence, declaring that the reception he has received gives him confidence in the success of “the Cause of Independence” which he advocates.

The address is particularly interesting because it is aimed not at the county electorate in general, but at Northumberland freeholders living in the urban and commercial environment of Newcastle and Gateshead. This reflects the complex geography of county representation before the Reform Act, when freeholders could be politically significant even when resident outside the rural districts most obviously associated with the county contest.

Beaumont’s language also reveals the rhetoric of independence that dominated much of the 1826 Northumberland campaign. He refers to friends who assisted him in his canvass, acknowledges the difficulty of reaching every freeholder personally, and frames any omission as the unavoidable result of “the Hurry of a Canvass” rather than want of respect.

The 1826 Northumberland election was among the most important and expensive county contests of the late Georgian period, involving Beaumont, Matthew Bell, Henry Thomas Liddell and Lord Howick. It generated a large body of printed election literature, including addresses, songs, squibs, satirical handbills, dialogues and speeches. Such material was produced for immediate circulation and was rarely preserved, making surviving examples important primary evidence for Georgian electoral culture.

No separate institutional record for this specific item has been traced. A search located related regional and election material, but not this separately catalogued broadside.

An attractive and historically valuable survival from one of the defining Northumberland election campaigns of the pre-Reform period.

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