NORTHUMBERLAND ELECTION SONG – A New Song Addressed to the Independent Freeholders of the County of Northumberland – Tune – “Highland Laddie.” – Alnwick – 1826

Alnwick: J. Graham, printer, 23 February 1826.

Rare and apparently unrecorded Georgian election song-sheet issued in support of Henry Thomas Liddell during the Northumberland county election campaign of 1826. Single sheet, letterpress on paper. 27.3 × 22.1 cm.

An attractive and unusually evocative example of early nineteenth-century electioneering verse, printed for circulation among the freeholders of Northumberland and intended to be sung to the popular tune “Highland Laddie”. The sheet bears a contemporary manuscript docket on the reverse: “23 Feby 1826. An Election Song for Liddell”, giving both date and function.

The song opens with a rousing appeal to the “FREEHOLDERS of Northumbria”:

“Bonnie Laddies, honest Laddies,
For noble LIDDELL poll away,
And do not give your votes to BELL,
Or he will ring your Freedom’s knell.”

The verse contrasts Henry Thomas Liddell with his rival Matthew Bell, praising Liddell as the candidate who wears “the red and white cockade” and condemning Bell as one who would keep “religious Freedom down”. The final stanza calls upon the “Freemen of Northumbria” to “come, and poll away” for the man who wears the “RED and WHITE.”

This is a particularly interesting survival from the early phase of the 1826 Northumberland contest. Liddell had stood against Matthew Bell in the Northumberland by-election of February–March 1826, following Sir Charles Monck’s resignation, before both men later became candidates in the general election of June–July 1826. The present song, dated 23 February 1826, therefore belongs to the opening stages of that first Liddell-Bell contest, and predates the larger and more famous four-cornered general election later the same year.

The reference to “religious Freedom” is significant. Liddell, though generally associated with the Tory interest, supported Catholic Emancipation, while the politics of religious liberty, Protestant anxiety, Catholic relief and dissenting rights formed a major part of the language of Northumberland electioneering in 1826. The song’s appeal to “Independent Freeholders” and its use of localised identity — “Northumbria” and “Northumbrian” — show how national questions were translated into county political culture.

The format is equally important. Election songs formed a central part of Georgian political mobilisation, performed at public meetings, processions, dinners, taverns, hustings and informal gatherings. They were memorable, portable and communal, allowing partisan messages to be spread through familiar tunes. By directing the verses to be sung to “Highland Laddie”, the printer and campaigners ensured immediate recognisability and participatory force. The repeated refrain “Bonnie &c.” would have encouraged group singing and helped fix the candidate’s name in public memory.

Printed at Alnwick by J. Graham, the sheet belongs to the remarkable body of ephemeral print generated by the Northumberland elections of 1826. The later general election ran from 20 June to 6 July and involved Henry Thomas Liddell, Matthew Bell, Thomas Wentworth Beaumont and Henry Grey, Viscount Howick; Liddell and Bell were ultimately elected. The election was one of the most intensely contested county elections of the period, with the printed poll book recording that its first 311 pages consisted of election papers, addresses, songs and other campaign literature. Royal Museums Greenwich likewise notes the bitterly contested nature of the election, the Alnwick polling, the four candidates, and the 40-shilling freeholder franchise.

Henry Thomas Liddell, later 1st Earl of Ravensworth, was a coal owner, landowner and politician, and the son of the first Baron Ravensworth. He was elected for Northumberland in 1826 and subsequently represented North Durham and Liverpool. His contest with Bell in early 1826 and their later uneasy pairing as successful county members make this song a revealing document of the pre-Reform electoral world of landed interest, religious politics, freeholder identity and printed popular performance.

No copy of this specific song-sheet has been traced in the British Library, Library Hub, WorldCat, Northumberland Archives’ online catalogue, the Bodleian broadside collections, parliamentary collections, or the principal institutional and commercial records consulted. Apparently unrecorded.

Condition: Single sheet. Old horizontal and vertical folds, light creasing, mild toning and minor handling marks. A little show-through and faint offsetting from having been folded, with contemporary manuscript docketing to verso. Small marginal imperfections and slight edge-wear, but complete, clean, legible and very well preserved. Near fine condition overall.

A rare and highly engaging survival of Georgian Northumberland election ephemera: a partisan song for Liddell, dated at the time of the February 1826 by-election, combining county freeholder politics, religious liberty, anti-Bell campaigning, cockade symbolism and the performative culture of pre-Reform electioneering.

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