Grand Musical Tory Concert - Election caricatures from the Enoch Wood scrapbook

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Date:1812

Description:This notice sends up an imaginary concert staged by an 'aristocratic' political party of 1812, caricatured here as the 'Tory Humbug.'

At this time, Members of Parliament had to own property worth at least £600 a year (for County MPs) or £300 a year (for Borough MPs).

In today's money these amounts are worth roughly £24,650 and £14,300 respectively. At a time when few people had disposable income or owned property, Members of Parliament tended to be wealthy.

Sneydino sings

'Ralpho Sneydino' (the real-life Potteries businessman Ralph Sneyd) launches into the first number, describing his party's leader with gusto (to the tune of See the Conquering Hero Comes):

See corruption's dearest friend;
He'll vote for pensions without end;
For sinecur'd and pauper'd harlots,
And pimps, and spies, and lying varlets;
For Tory-robbers, thieves, and yet,
Eight-hundred millions more of Debt!
For bullets, bayonets -high rents;
For everything but common sense...
...Then England will be drunk with glory,
And every man a miscreant TORY!!


Vote Wifflegig

The 21-year old election candidate Edward John Walhouse is kindly renamed 'Wifflegig:'

I'm an unfledged urchin from Birmingham,
To play my part upon the Tory drum,
I'm paid for laughing, singing, and crying,
For low-bred wit and matchless lying...


Reptiles

Throughout, the Tory party of 1812 is mercilessly lampooned as a collection of university-educated, drunken, fat, lying, tax-collecting reptiles.

About this document

This document was kept by Burslem pottery manufacturer Enoch Wood, and is now among the collections at Stoke-on-Trent Museums.

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