Near Wandsworth, Garrett was a small village that hosted a wild event poking fun at all aspects of elections. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, candidates for the office of Mayor made ridiculous claims and promises. One famous mayor was Jeffrey Dunstan, a dealer of old wigs, who eventually lost his seat to Harry Dimsdale, muffin seller.
After several years of incumbency, and seeking to defeat his challenger, Dunstan pledged strict adherence to promises, as long as it was in his interest to do so. Among them, "to unmarry all those who choose it. This being a glorious opportunity for women of spirit to exert themselves, and regain their long lost empire over their husbands, I hope they will use all their coaxing arts to get me elected in their husband's place."
The pageant of foolishness was well attended; "a hundred thousand persons, half of them in carts, in hackney-coaches, and on horse and ass-back, covered the various roads from London, and choked up all the approaches to the place of election." Why such attention and attendance for a joke? Sir Richard Phillips suggests that famous actors of the day may have had a hand in this live example of political satire:
"I have indeed been told, that Foote, Garrick, and Wilkes, wrote some of the candidates' addresses, for the purpose of instructing the people in the corruptions which attend elections to the legislature, and of producing those reforms by means of ridicule and shame, which are vainly expected from solemn appeals of argument and patriotism." [EDBv2]
Image from the Numismatic Bibliomania Society's photostream
No comments:
Post a Comment