An auction sale tomorrow carries a reminder of how the first Earl of Durham John George Lambton lived a lively and colourful life.
We reported last week how Durham University has bought Lambton’s archive for £684,000, and that its thousands of items relating to his role in the 1832 Great Reform Bill, and serving as British ambassador to Russia and governor-general of Canada.
Lambton, nicknamed “Radical Jack” and commemorated by the 1844 Penshaw Monument, also provided a dramatic cameo in the turbulent 1826 Alnwick Parliamentary election.
The election earned widespread notoriety, with voting taking place over 15 days and the count results being announced each day.
The candidates were Matthew Bell, Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, Viscount Howick, and Henry Thomas Liddell.
Lambton was the son-in-law of Prime Minister Earl Grey, of Howick Hall in Northumberland and was supporting Viscount Howick in the election.
He fought a pistol duel on Bamburgh beach with Beaumont, who had called him a liar from the hustings platform.
Now an engraving of the duel will be sold by Newcastle auctioneers Anderson and Garland. It is part of a collection of more than 50 lots in the Newcastle sale relating to the election which was amassed by the late Ian Robertson, antiques dealer and auctioneer and six times mayor of Alnwick.
Other engravers show candidates and supporters fighting and Liddell running a carriage over opposition supporters.
The candidates spent huge amounts on their campaigns and on attacking their rivals, using posters, handbills and cartoons, and giving jugs and tankards to supporters so they could sup ale when they arrived to vote.
There are 17 ceramic tankards, seven jugs and a bowl in the auction, decorated with the faces and names of candidates.
Also for sale is a sliver cup, valued at £400-£600, with a note from Ian Robertson, which says: “Silver cup presented by Matty Bell to captain of ship which brought voters to Alnmouth during election of 1826.”
The sale also features eight lots of election handbills and letters. One bill reads: “Wanted: During the forthcoming General Election at Alnwick a number of steam vessels for the purpose of taking freeholders from North Shields to Warkworth and Alnmouth, also a number of horse carts to receive the gentlemen on landing from the vessels and to proceed to the hustings.”
The Tory candidates, Bell and Liddell, took both seats. Howick withdrew on the 12th day of the election.
The sale also includes a silver trowel, made by Reid and Sons of Newcastle in 1852 and which was presented to Ivie Mackie on the occasion of his laying the foundation stone in 1853 of the Unitarian Church of the Divine Unity and Schools in New Bridge Street, Newcastle, where the city library now stands.
The church suffered subsidence problems and had been demolished by the early 1950s.
On Wednesday, the auction will include the sale of an Italian School painting of the crucifixion which was retrieved from a skip by a Hexham woman. It is valued at £150-£300.
