NORTHUMBERLAND ELECTION SONG – Song – Alnwick – 1826

Alnwick: J. Graham, printer, [1826].

Rare and apparently unrecorded Georgian election song-sheet issued in support of Henry Thomas Liddell during the Northumberland election campaign of 1826. Single sheet, letterpress on paper. 26.1 × 22.1 cm.

A forceful partisan election song, printed for popular circulation among the freeholders of Northumberland and attacking the rival “Blue” interest associated with Matthew Bell. The opening line sets the tone: “Away with BLUE DEVILS! and up with the spirits / Of Honor and Honesty, Freedom and Truth.” The chorus urges voters to reject “Combination”, while proclaiming that “Integrity smiles on her red and white favor” and calling for “Independence and LIDDELL FOR EVER!”

The song turns repeatedly on colour symbolism and wordplay. Liddell’s supporters are associated with the red and white favour or cockade, while Bell is attacked through the punning image of the “Blue Bell”. One stanza declares:

“Let the Blue Bell still ring out its notes of alarm,
Of its Raw-Head-and-Bloody-bones no one afraid is;
No Belle but a blue one can wish the cause harm,
Whose Ensign’s display’d on the Cheeks of the Ladies.”

The rhetoric is highly characteristic of pre-Reform election verse: comic, aggressive, memorable and designed for oral performance. It combines appeals to independence, anti-corruption language, colour-coded factional identity and satirical abuse of the opposing candidate. The reference to those who “want gilding, and wish to be bought” is a clear attack on bribery, treating or paid influence, while the appeal to “ye, whose best freehold stills beats as it ought” casts the proper voter as independent, honourable and resistant to corruption.

The piece belongs to the remarkable body of ephemeral print generated by the Northumberland election contests of 1826. Liddell and Bell opposed one another in the early 1826 Northumberland by-election and were again central figures in the celebrated general election later that year, when Liddell, Bell, Viscount Howick and Thomas Wentworth Beaumont contested the two county seats. The election became one of the most expensive and fiercely fought county contests of the late Georgian period, producing a large printed culture of addresses, songs, squibs, handbills and broadsides.

Printed by J. Graham of Alnwick, the song is part of the provincial political print culture surrounding the election. Such songs were not merely decorative campaign literature: they were intended for public performance at meetings, processions, inns, dinners, hustings and informal gatherings, helping to turn political allegiance into collective performance. The refrain “LIDDELL FOR EVER!” would have been immediately suited to communal singing or chanting.

The broadside is especially interesting when read alongside other Liddell election songs from the same campaign, including those invoking “Highland Laddie” and the red and white cockade. Together they show how Liddell’s supporters constructed an image of their candidate as the representative of independence, honour, religious and political liberty, and freeholder integrity, while presenting Bell and the “Blue” interest as corrupt, coercive or hostile to freedom.

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. Possibly slightly trimmed. Old horizontal and vertical folds, light creasing, mild toning, a few small handling marks and minor marginal wear. Complete, clean and legible, with a strong impression. Very good condition overall.

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