'Pictorial lies'? - Posters and politics in Britain c .1880-1914

Past and Present

Volumn 197, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 177-210

  Thompson, James ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 37149010138     PISSN: 00312746     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtm051     Document Type: Article

References (171)

1. Hansard, 4th set., clii, cols. 156-7 (19 Feb. 1906).
2. Ibid., col. 223 (20 Feb.).
3. Ibid., cols. 551, 585-6 (22 Feb.). John Boraston made the same case, on behalf of the Liberal Unionist Council, in the Times, 29 Jan. 1906.
4. Hansard, 4th set., chi, cols. 655-6 (23 Feb. 1906).
5. Ibid., col. 601 (22 Feb.).
6. Ibid., col. 686 (23 Feb.).
7. Hansard, 4th set., lxxxviii, col. 131 (6 Dec. 1900).
8. Ibid., col. 159, speech by E. J. C. Morton.
9. See, for example, Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, 1984)
10. Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (London, 1992)
11. Thomas Crow, Emulation: Making Artists for Revolutionary France (New Haven, 1994).
12. John Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976)
13. John Brewer, The Common People and Politics, 1750-1790S (Cambridge, 1986)
14. John Brewer, 'The Number 45: A Wilkite Political Symbol', in Stephen B. Baxter (ed.), England's Rise to Greatness, 1660-1763 (Berkeley and London, 1983), ch. 10
15. H. T. Dickinson, Caricatures and the Constitution, 1760-1832 (Cambridge, 1986)
16. Eirwen E. C. Nicholson, 'Consumers and Spectators: The Public of the Political Print in Eighteenth-Century England', History, lxxxi (1996)
17. Vic Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London (London, 2006).
18. Frank O'Gorman, 'Campaign Rituals and Ceremonies: The Social Meaning of Elections in England, 1780-1860', Past and Present, no. 135 (May 1992)
19. James Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c.1815-1867 (Cambridge, 1993), 105-15, 134-42.
20. Jon Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867-1914 (Cambridge, 1998), 163-94.
21. Jon Lawrence, 'The Transformation of British Public Politics after the First World War', Past and Present, no. 190 (Feb. 2006)
22. Jon Lawrence, 'Forging a Peaceable Kingdom: War, Violence, and Fear of Brutalization in Post-First World War Britain', Il Mod. Hist., lxxv (2003).
23. Vernon suggests that, while visual politics persisted, 'professionalisation' after 1883 altered its meaning, and accelerated the demise of the participative culture of banners, processions and colours: See Vernon, Politics and the People, 115, 142.
24. Marcus R. P. Dorman, Ignorance: A Study of the Causes and Effects of Popular Thought, with Some Educational Suggestions (London, 1898), 100
25. M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organisation of Political Parties 2 vols., trans. Frederick Clarke (London, 1902), i, 407-8
26. L. T. Hobhouse, Democracy and Reaction (London, 1904), 69-71
27. J. A. Hobson, The Psychology of Jingoism (London, 1901), 100
28. Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics (London, 1908), 87-9, 105-10
29. C. F. G. Masterman, The Condition of England, ed. J. T. Boulton (London, 1960), 101.
30. Walter Benjamin, 'Attested Auditor of Books', repr. in his One-Way Street, and Other Writings, trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter (London, 1979), 61-3
31. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, from Germanvol., ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 171-202
32. Siegfried Kracauer, 'The Mass Ornament', in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, ed. and trans. Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, Mass., 1995)
33. Susan Sontag, 'Posters: Advertisement, Art, Political Artifact, Commodity', introductory essay in Donald Stermer, The Art of Revolution: 96 Posters from Castro's Cuba, 1959-1970 (New York, 1970), pp. vii-xxiii.
34. For important theoretical discussion of the relationship between word and image, see W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago, 1986)
35. W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago, 1994).
36. Martin Meisel, Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England (Princeton, 1983)
37. Gerard Curtis, Visual Words: Art and the Material Book in Victorian England (Aldershot, 2002)
38. Julia Thomas, Pictorial Victorians: The Inscription of Values in Word and Image (Athens, Ohio, 2004).
39. For the idea of 'the period eye', see Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford, 1972)
40. Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)
41. Lynda Nead, 'Velocities of the Image, c. 1900', Art Hist., xxvii (2004).
42. Wallas, Human Nature in Politics, 87.
43. A. L. Lowell, The Government of England, 2 vols. (New York, 1908), i, 438, 61.
44. Wallas, Human Nature in Politics, 109-10.
45. Graham Wallas, The Great Society: A Psychological Analysis (London, 1919), 130.
46. Daily Mail, 10 Jan. 1910.
47. Liberal Agent (Jan. 1910), 139, 142, 146.
48. Ibid. (Apr. 1915), 221.
49. Clarence Moran, The Business of Advertising (London, 1905), 41, 108, 10.
50. Francis Carruthers Gould, unpubd autobiography: House of Lords Record Office, London, MS 37b, ch. 16, fos. 386-7.
51. W. S. Rogers, A Book of the Poster (London, 1901), 8.
52. Daily Mail, 10 Jan. 1910.
53. Harry L. Hollingworth, Advertising and Selling: Principles of Appeal and Response (London, 1913), 293, 300.
54. Sherwin Cody, How To Do Business by Letter and Advertising: A Practical and Scientific Method of Handling Customers by Written Salesmanship (London, 1911), 91
55. Herbert A. Spiers, The Art of Publicity and its Application to Business (London, 1910), 56.
56. See, for instance, Guildhall Library, London, London Municipal Society (hereafter LMS) 16: E. Huskinson, 'It's Your Money We Want' (1907). This image is discussed in J. Thompson, 'Visual Culture and the Boundaries ofthe Political: Revisiting the 1907 LCC Elections' (unpubd paper).
57. Referred to in the Outlook, 20 Jan. 1906
58. in 'Musings without Method', Blackwood's Mag., clxxix (Feb. 1906), 279.
59. Bodleian Library, Oxford, John Johnson Coll., Posters, National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations (hereafter NUCCA) 1.
60. Sphere, 6 Oct. 1900.
61. Bodleian Lib., John Johnson Coll., Posters, Labour Party 2.
62. Moran, Business of Advertising, 44, 7.
63. W. Hamish Fraser, The Coming of the Mass Market, 1850-1914 (London, 1981), 135
64. T. R. Nevett, Advertising in Britain: A History (London, 1982), 87-8.
65. See Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor (eds.), Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820 (Aldershot, 1997)
66. Duncan Tanner, Political Change and the Labour Party, 1900-1918 (Cambridge, 1990).
67. Benjamin, Arcades Project, trans. Eiland and McLaughlin, 62-3.
68. For instance, London School of Economics (hereafter LSE), British Library of Political and Economic Science (hereafter BLPES), Coll. Misc. 519/32.
69. Moran, Business of Advertising, 51.
70. Cambridge University Library (hereafter CUL), Political Poster Coll.
71. National Liberal Federation, Annual Report (London, 1906), 27.
72. NUCCA, Annual Conference Report (London, 1908)
73. NUCCA, Annual Conference Report (London, 1909).
74. For example, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: NUCCA, 'Electors Don't Try the Impossible' (1910)
75. Bodleian Lib., John Johnson Coll., Posters, NUCCA 2: 'Protect your Flag - Vote for the Unionists' (c. 1909-10).
76. His Budget Protest League posters include Bodleian Lib., Conservative Party Archive: 'You've Hit Us Both' (c. 1909)
77. 'Lloydie Geordie' (c. 1909)
78. 'I Took from the Rich/And Gave to the Poor/You Rob Both' (c. 1909).
79. CUL, Political Poster Coll.: Budget League, 'Fore!' (1910)
80. CUL, Political Poster Coll.: Liberal Publication Department (hereafter LPD), 'That's Our Air' (1910).
81. For political examples of 'Bubbles', see [W. T. Stead], 'The General Election, 1895: The Poster in Politics', Review of Reviews (Aug. 1895), 171
82. [W T. Stead], 'Current History in Caricature', ibid. (Feb. 1906), 125.
83. LSE, BLPES, Coll. Misc. 519/8: 'A Happy Family' (c.1905-6)
84. 10: 'A Doubtful Guide' (c.1905-6)
85. 21: 'This Way Sir' (c.1905-6)
86. Bodleian Lib., Conservative Party Archive: Budget Protest League, 'The Reward of the "Righteous"' (c. 1909).
87. Liberals were not above brutal caricature: See, for example, CUL, Political Poster Coll.: Budget Week by Week, 'Chinaman No Likee Eat Sick Pig' (c.1909).
88. Bodleian Lib., John Johnson Coll., Assorted Posters II: 'Massacre of Innocents by the Hereditary Lords' (1895)
89. [Stead], 'General Election, 1895', 174.
90. CUL, Political Poster Coll.: LPD, 'The Cupboard Was Bare!' (1900)
91. LPD, 'A Lesson in Tory Imperialism' (1900).
92. National Museum of Labour History, Manchester, Communist Party of Great Britain, Klugmann Collection: F. C. Gould, 'Baiting the "Dear Food" Hook' (1906)
93. Guildhall Lib., LMS 210: E. Huskinson, 'The Progressive Fishing Party' (1906).
94. For gender reversal, see LSE, BLPES, Coll. Misc. 519/2: 'Mrs Bannerman's Cabinet Pudding' (c.1905-6)
95. 20: 'There Was an Old Woman' (c.1905-6).
96. For infantilization, see Bodleian Lib., John Johnson Coll., Posters, NUCCA 2: G. R. Halkett,'It All Depends on U' (1910). There are also examples of racial transposition, particularly of Chamberlain.
97. The canonical statement is H. C. G. Matthew, 'Rhetoric and Politics in Great Britain, 1860-1950', in P. J. Waller (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Modern Britain: Essays Presented to A. F. Thompson (Brighton, 1987)
98. also David Vincent, Literacy and Popular Culture: England, 1750-1914 (Cambridge, 1989), 234-40.
99. O'Gorman, 'Campaign Rituals and Ceremonies', 114-15
100. Vernon, Politics and the People, passim; and Language, Print and Electoral Politics: Newcastle-under-Lyme Broadsides, ed. Hannah Barker and David Vincent (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. xxx, xlii (editors' 'Introduction').
101. Lawrence, Speaking for the People, 180-2
102. Lawrence, 'Transformation of British Public Politics', 188-94.
103. See, for example, J. D. Burn], The Language of the Walls, and a Voice from the Shop Windows: Or, The Mirror of Commercial Roguery by One who Thinks Aloud (Manchester, 1855), 16
104. Anthony Taylor, '"The Nauseating Cult of the Crown": Republicanism, Anti-Monarchism and Post-Chartist Politics, 1870-5', in David Nash and Anthony Taylor (eds.), Republicanism in Victorian Society (Stroud, 2000), 52
105. on the need to place posters so as to avoid the 'inscription of rude remarks by partisan politicians', see Liberal Agent (Jan. 1912), 146.
106. See the important work of Kathryn Rix, 'The Party Agent and English Electoral Culture, 1880-1896' (Univ. of Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 2001), 274-91.
107. See Trevor Owen Lloyd, 'Uncontested Seats in British General Elections, 1852-1910', Hist. Jl, viii (1965).
108. Michael Twyman, Printing, 1770-1970: An Illustrated History of its Development and Uses in England (London, 1970), 45-6
109. Catherine Haill, Theatre Posters (London, 1983), 10-11.
110. Even where scepticism about the impact of posters in gaining votes existed, it was often argued that their production by the other side required a response in kind. See, for instance, Bodleian Lib., Conservative Party Archive, CCO 500/1/2: Unionist Organisation Committee, 'Report', June 1911, 17. I owe this reference to Steve Fielding.
111. Times, 30 Nov. 19 10. The Manchester Courier of 1 January 1906 suggested that the 1906 election would witness more 'outdoor political paperhanging' than any previously. I owe this reference to Kathryn Rix.
112. National Liberal Federation, Annual Report (London, 1901), 37
113. Annual Report (London, 1910), 17.
114. NUCCA, Annual Conference Report (London, 1907)
115. NUCCA, Annual Conference Report (London, 1910).
116. Neal Blewett, The Peers, the Parties and the People: The General Elections of 1910 (London, 1972), 312.
117. Sphere, 6 Oct. 1900.
118. Daily Mail, 4 Jan. 1910.
119. [Stead], 'General Election, 1895', 169.
120. Daily Telegraph, 4 Mar. 1907.
121. These banners were more likely to be mass-produced than those of the early nineteenth century: See Nicholas Mansfield, 'Radical Banners as Sites of Memory: The National Banner Survey', in Paul A. Pickering and Alex Tyrrell et al., Contested Sites: Commemoration, Memorials and Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Aldershot, 2004), 84.
122. CUL, Political Poster Coll.: LPD.
123. Bodleian Lib., John Johnson Coll., Posters, NUCCA 1: T. B. Kennington, 'Free Trade' (1910)
124. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform (Mar. 1910), 233
125. Liberal Agent (Jan. 1911), 127-8.
126. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London, 1972).
127. Walter S. Sparrow, Advertising and British Art: An Introduction to a Vast Subject (London, 1924), 13.
128. E. H. Gombrich, 'The Cartoonist's Armoury', in his Meditations on Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art (London, 1963), 127-30
129. Guildhall Lib., LMS 16: E. Huskinson, 'The Progressive Snowball' (1907)
130. LMS 143: E. Huskinson, 'Ratepayers! The WolfIs at the Door' (1910).
131. LSE, BLPES, Coll. Misc. 519/8: 'A Happy Family' (c. 19 0 5-6)
132. 23: 'What an Outrage' (c.1 905-6)
133. Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (London, 1837), chs. 23, 37, 45
134. Pictorial Pickwickiana, ed. Joseph Grego, 2 vols. (London, 1899).
135. Gould, unpubd autobiography: House of Lords Record Office, NIS 37b, ch. 16, fos. 386-7.
136. Kathryn Rix, 'The Party Agent and Electoral Culture in England, 1880-1910' (unpubd paper).
137. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform (Dec. 1906), 416
138. four thousand 'cartoons and posters' were displayed at the 1911 Bootle by-election: See ibid. (May 1911), 429.
139. Bruce K. Murray, The People's Budget, 1909/10: Lloyd George and Liberal Politics (Oxford, 1980), 203.
140. Budget Week by Week, 21 Aug. 1909, 22.
141. Hansard, 4th set., clxxxiv, col. 906 (19 Feb. 1908)
142. see also Liberal Agent (Apr. 1908), 127.
143. Quoted in Lisa Tickner, The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign, 1907-14 (London, 1987), 43-4.
144. [Stead], 'General Election, 1895', 169.
145. Liberal Mag. (Jan. 1906), p. viii.
146. Westminster Gazette, 7 Jan. 1910.
147. Forexample, LSE, BLPES, Coll. Misc. 519/51:A[rthur] M[oreland],'The War's Result'; CUL, Political Poster Coll.: A [rthur] M[oreland],'Get Off the Earth' (1910). Moreland's political preferences are made clear in his signed cartoon 'The Answer', from a series for C. W. Faulkner & Co., reproduced in Tariff Reform League Leaflet, no. 1 (1916).
148. See, for instance, Liberal Agent (July 1913), 7.
149. [Stead], 'General Election, 1895', 168.
150. J. Seymour Lloyd, Municipal Elections, and How To Fight Them, 2nd edn (London, 1909), 94.
151. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (London, 1991), 532, 539, 543.
152. Moran, Business of Advertising, 44.
153. Quoted in Blewett, Peers, the Parties and the People, 313.
154. Times, 15 Dec. 1909.
155. Westminster Gazette, 7 Jan. 1910.
156. By 4 January, eleven thousand copies had been distributed to two thousand locations: See Daily Mail, 4 Jan. 1910. The standard size for a single sheet was 30 inches by 20 inches.
157. Liberal Agent (Oct. 1902), 65.
158. J. Seymour Lloyd, Elections and How To Fight Them (London, 1905), 64.
159. Soc. Certified Liberal Agents Quart. (June 1896), 23.
160. A. K. Russell, Liberal Landslide: The General Election of 1906 (Newton Abbot, 1973), 131.
161. P. F. Clarke, Lancashire and the New Liberalism (Cambridge, 1971), ch. 6, esp. 130-3, 144-5.
162. Morning Post, 14 Dec. 1909.
163. T. C. Hedderwick, The Parliamentary Election Manual: A Practical Handbook on the Law and Conduct of Parliamentary Elections in Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1892), 176-7.
164. National Museum of Labour History, Communist Party of Great Britain, Klugmann Collection.
165. Altrincham, Crewe, Durham, East Dorset, Manchester, North Hertfordshire, North-West Norfolk, Oldham, South Somerset, Taunton and West Wiltshire saw agreements to reduce costs. For an example of terms, see Liberal Agent (Apr. 1915), 214-21.
166. G.A. Jones, 'National and Local Issues in Politics: A Study of East Sussex and the Lancashire Spinning Towns, 1906-10' (Univ. of Sussex D.Phil. thesis, 1965), 17, 273-4.
167. For evidence of the scale of picture postering in windows, see Russell, Liberal Landslide, 198.
168. For the former, see Gombrich, 'Cartoonist's Armoury'; for the latter, see E. H. Gombrich, 'Magic, Myth and Metaphor: Reflections on Pictorial Satire" in his The Uses of Images: Studies in the Social Function of Art and Visual Communication (London, 1999).
169. Trevor Lloyd, The General Election of 1880 (Oxford, 1968), 90
170. Nuffield College, Oxford, Cat. 910, 1339: 'Dark Blue Wins', and 'Bolton Easter Horse Show', both in 'A Collection of Ballads and Broadsides, Relating to the General Election, 1880, Vol. 1'.
171. V. S. Pritchett, A Cab at the Door. An Autobiography: Early Years (London, 1968), 73.