£2,495.00
The Banner of Liberty Display’d in the Petition of the Inhabitants of Westminster, with the Coats of Arms of the Two Hundred and Twenty Two who Voted in Favour of the Petition.
A large and elaborate engraved political and heraldic broadside, published by Richard Francklin in Covent Garden in May 1742, pursuant to Act of Parliament.
The central panel reproduces The Humble Petition of the Burgesses and Inhabitants of the City and Liberty of Westminster to the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, presented on 6 May 1741, protesting alleged misconduct and interference surrounding the fiercely contested Westminster parliamentary election.
Above the petition is a substantial allegorical engraving by J. Mynde, representing Liberty and the political struggle surrounding the election. The entire composition is enclosed by an extraordinary heraldic display comprising the coats of arms of the 222 supporters of the petition, each identified beneath his respective arms.
Among the named individuals are members of prominent eighteenth-century British families, giving the sheet considerable genealogical and heraldic interest in addition to its political significance.
At the foot is the publication statement:
Published according to Act of Parliament May 1742 by R. Francklin in Covent Garden.
A remarkably ambitious piece of Georgian political printmaking, combining parliamentary protest, allegory, heraldry and documentary text within a single monumental sheet.
This extraordinary engraving was created out of one of the most contentious parliamentary elections in eighteenth-century London.
The Westminster election of 1741 became a struggle extending far beyond the choice of two Members of Parliament. The petition reproduced at the centre of this engraving accuses supporters of the government interest of interference, intimidation and the improper use of military force during the poll.
The petitioners alleged that armed soldiers had appeared during the election and that their presence threatened the ancient right of electors to choose their representatives freely.
Their response was not merely written protest.
The following year, the episode was transformed into this remarkable visual declaration of political solidarity.
Surrounding the petition are 222 individual coats of arms, representing the men who supported it. Their identities were therefore quite literally placed around the grievance they had endorsed, turning the engraving into both a political document and a collective portrait expressed through heraldry.
At its head, an elaborate allegorical scene presents Liberty within the architectural and symbolic landscape of Westminster. Below, the dense field of heraldic shields creates what the publisher called a “Banner of Liberty.”
Published in 1742, more than three decades before the American Declaration of Independence and nearly half a century before the French Revolution, the print belongs to Britain’s developing eighteenth-century debate about electoral independence, parliamentary representation and the limits of governmental power.
It is therefore far more than a decorative heraldic sheet. It is a substantial surviving artefact of Georgian political culture — a visual record of men prepared to attach their names and family arms publicly to a protest concerning the freedom of parliamentary elections.
The sheer visual impact of the engraving is exceptional. Hundreds of heraldic devices surround a central parliamentary petition and a large allegorical composition, producing an object that rewards examination both from across a room and at close range.
Its collecting interest is unusually broad: British political history, parliamentary history, Georgian London, heraldry, genealogy and eighteenth-century engraving all converge in one object.
The individual identification of the 222 supporters also provides considerable scope for further genealogical and historical research.
Above all, this is an impressive example of eighteenth-century political propaganda presented on a monumental scale — an object designed not simply to record a political argument, but to make that argument visible.
