Harry Jenkins, the Masculine and Feminine Bellows Mender
During the hotly contested Westminster by-election of 1788 pitting the Tory incumbent, Admiral Hood, against the Whig (and Fox supported) candidate, Lord John Townshend, virtually every species of electoral fraud was on full display. From July 18th through August 4th, the newspapers were full of accounts of intimidation of electors on both sides, casual and violent confrontations between opposition groups, and numerous instances of bribery and perjury.
A few days before this print appeared, however, readers of the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser for July 26th, 1788 (p. 2) would have seen the following notice:
A NEW WAY TO RAISE VOTES
Mother Johnson, of crooked fame, in Jermyn Street, is engaged to canvas for Lord John Townshend, and she parades about the street with blue and orange cockades, and some smart dressed girls with her. —Her method of bribery is quite new—she does not offer money, but seeing the elector, whose vote she wishes to engage, a stout young man, her offer in return is, the free range of her house, and the use of her furniture.—At the time she mentions furniture, she points to the girls who attend her.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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In Harry Jenkins, the Masculine and Feminine Bellows Mender, Gillray shows this new way of raising votes combined with some tried and true methods. The not so stout but clearly impoverished bellows mender, Harry Jenkins, appears to have already been paid off in the traditional way with an apron full of coins. But he is being escorted to the election booth by the ardent Fox supporter, the Duchess of Devonshire on the right, and by the pox-plagued and amply endowed bawd, Mother Windsor on the left. In her pocket Mother Windsor carries a list of her "Nuns," three of whom appear behind her as further incentives to sway neutral voters. The lengthy subtitle makes it clear that as a non-house-holder, Harry should not be allowed to vote at all. And that may account for the somewhat worried and quizzical expressions on the faces of the election officials.
But the Whig hierarchy within the booth is unanimous in its approval of these methods. Sheridan, on the far right, clasps his hands together in a gesture of supreme satisfaction. Fox in the center, raises both hands in jubilation. And the ever gallant man about town, Lord John, tips his hat to the obviously distracted Duchess in appreciation of her intercession.
The most famous bellows mender in England was the masculine Flute in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream who played the feminine Thisbe in the play within the play. Gillray may be alluding to that in his description of Jenkins as both masculine and feminine. But is is also possible that Jenkins was a real bi-sexual or hermaphroditic individual.
In the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser July 31st, 1788 p. 2 after Gillray's print would presumably have appeared, there was the following notice:
Henry Jenkins, the he-she Bellows-mender, was canvassed by a Duchess; and coaxed by Mother Windsor to poll on Tuesday [July 29] for Lord John Townshend, although it is notorious that his only nocturnal habitation, has for many years been in the unfinished houses about the vicinity of Portland Place.
The description is basically similar to Gillray's subtitle, but without the play with gender in Gillray's version. Here is Gillray's:
Harry Jenkins, the Masculine & Feminine Bellows Mender, having declared his intention not to remain Neuter in the Westminster Contest, is canvassed by the Duchess of D—e & coax'd by Mother Windsor, & absolutely poll'd for Lord John on MondayJuly 28th although he never had any Habitation escept a Cow-house, a Privy, a Pig-Stye or a Watch House.
Did the Morning Post borrow from Gillray, taking his print as truth. Or did both Gillray and the Morning Post work from another independent account?
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on Harry Jenkins, the Masculine and Feminine Bellows Mender
- "Lord John Townshend," Wikipedia
- "Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire," Wikipedia
- "Westminster," The History of Parliament Online
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