File:The Constitutional Society (BM 1868,0808.5020).jpg

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The Constitutional Society   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Title
The Constitutional Society
Description
English: Three prominent members of the 'Society for Constitutional Information' (often called the Constitutional Society) dining off roast beef at a circular table. Beneath the title is engraved:



"Dedicated to all great Corporations
Search Surrey, & all England over,
In each House Beef & Porter sure
Are Towers of strength, and best Tend,
The Constitution to defend."

The persons of the satire are here indicated. Dr. Towers sits full-face, carving a sirloin of beef which is labelled "Extract from John Bull". He wears a clerical wig and spectacles, a napkin is tucked into his coat. On his right sits Lord Surrey, the "Jockey of Norfolk", raising a piece of beef to his mouth on a fork. On Towers's left sits Sam House, the Wardour Street publican, in his invariable dress: bald head, open shirt, breeches unfastened at the knee, see BMSat 5696, &c. He is eating beef with his knife. The knife blades of the three men are inscribed respectively "Resolved" (Towers); "Nem Con" (Surrey), and "Amen" (House). All three are stout, with "great corporations". Behind Sam House, a waiter enters walking in profile to the left. He is very thin, and, unlike the other three, fashionably dressed with curled wig and ruffled shirt. He carries on a salver a great foaming tankard inscribed "S H Wardour Street", suggesting that the dinner is at Sam's public-house. He points at the table saying, "How the poor Men do labour for the good of the CONSTITUTION".
On the wall which forms the background are two framed pictures. That on the left is 'A Pastoral Dialogue': a fat parson resembling Towers sits by a round table smoking a long pipe. On the table is a steaming punch-bowl, two glasses, and papers inscribed "Magna Cha[rter]" and "Bill of Rights"; a small thin man addresses him, hat in hand. On the right is 'The Decoy', a man-of-war at sea, on her stern in large letters is "LOWTHER". 27 June 1783


Etching
Depicted people Representation of: Samuel House
Date 1783
date QS:P571,+1783-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium paper
Dimensions
Height: 247 millimetres
Width: 346 millimetres
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Prints and Drawings
Accession number
1868,0808.5020
Notes

(Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', V, 1935) "LOWTHER" is evidently an allusion to the offer in Sept. 1782 of Sir James Lowther (noted for his miserliness) to equip a 74-gun ship at his own expense for the war which he had opposed during North's Ministry. (See 'The Remembrancer', 1782, Part II, p. 258.) The peace (then in negotiation) made the offer otiose. The Society for Constitutional Information was formed in 1780 [It is often confused with the earlier Constitutional Society which replaced tn Society for supporting the Bill of Rights when the latter was dissolved owing quarrels between Wilkes and Home, see BMSat 4861, &c.] chiefly through the exertions of Major Cartwright; its objects were parliamentary reform and annual parliaments. They printed and distributed gratis propaganda for reform, &c. Towers (1737-99) was a pamphleteer and presbyterian minister, and an active member of the Society which ordered extracts from his 'Vindication of the Political Principles of Mr Locke' to be entered in their books in 1782. See 'Society for Constitutional Information'. B.M.L., E. 2101/1. He was also "a very convivial man". G. B. Hill in 'Johnson Club Papers', 1899, p. 79.

The satire seems to suggest that three republicans are devouring John Bull and attacking the Constitution, cf. BMSat 5979, &c.
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-5020
Permission
(Reusing this file)		 © The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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current22:09, 14 May 2020Thumbnail for version as of 22:09, 14 May 20202,500 × 1,809 (1.44 MB)Copyfraud (talk | contribs)British Museum public domain uploads (Copyfraud/BM) Satirical prints in the British Museum 1783 #8,774/12,043

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