image id: ps_prn_cd39_566
[Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827)]
The Poll
Etching
[London]: Pub. by E. Dorchery, April 27, 1784
NYPL, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print
Collection
Despite the long tradition of female campaigning, women politicians still
found themselves vulnerable to ridicule. The 1784 election for Westminster,
an area of London with an unusually large electorate, demonstrates the conflict:
when Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, supported the Whig Charles
James Fox, she was lambasted in dozens of scurrilous prints, some of which
gave new meaning to the term "dirty politics." In The Poll she appears on a
phallic seesaw with the Honorable Mrs. Albinia Hobart; elsewhere she is depicted
kissing butchers to win votes. All of these prints were paid for by the opposition—and
they didn't work, since Fox won the election, thus retaining Whig control of
Parliament.
