Wandsworth having been the once-famed scene of those humorous popular elections of a mayor, or member for Garrat; and the subject serving to illustrate the manners of the times, and abounding in original features of character, I collected among some of its elder inhabitants a variety of amusing facts and documents, relative to the eccentric candidates and their elections.
Southward of Wandsworth, a road extends nearly two miles to the village of Lower Tooting, and nearly midway are a few houses, or hamlet, by the side of a small common, called Garrat, from which the road itself is called Garrat Lane. Various encroachments on this common led to an association of the neighbours about three-score years since, when they chose a president, or mayor, to protect their rights; and the time of their first election being the period of a new parliament, it was agreed that the mayor should be re-chosen after every general election. Some facetious members of the club gave, in a few years, local notoriety to this election; and, when party spirit ran high in the days of Wilkes and Liberty, it was easy to create an appetite for a burlesque election among the lower orders of the Metropolis. The publicans at Wandsworth, Tooting, Battersea, Clapham, and Vauxhall, made a purse to give it character; and Mr. Foote rendered its interest universal, by calling one of his inimitable farces, “the Mayor of Garrat.” I have indeed been told, that Foote, Garrick, and Wilkes, wrote some of the candidates’ addresses, for the purpose of instructing the people in the corruptions which attend elections to the legislature, and of producing those reforms by means of ridicule and shame, which are vainly expected from solemn appeals of argument and patriotism.
Not being able to find the members for Garrat in Beatson’s Political Index, or in any of the Court Calendars, I am obliged to depend on tradition for information in regard to the early history of this famous borough. The first mayor of whom I could hear was called Sir John Harper. He filled the seat during two parliaments, and was, it appears, a man of wit, for, on a dead cat being thrown at him on the hustings, and a bystander exclaiming that it stunk worse than a fox, Sir John vociferated, “that’s no wonder, for you see it’s a poll-cat.” This noted baronet was, in the metropolis, a retailer of brick-dust; and, his Garrat honours being supposed to be a means of improving his trade and the condition of his ass, many characters in similar occupations were led to aspire to the same distinctions.
He was succeeded by Sir Jeffery Dunstan, who was returned for three parliaments, and was the most popular candidate that ever appeared on the Garrat hustings. His occupation was that of buying OLD WIGS, once an article of trade like that in old clothes, but become obsolete since the full-bottomed and full-dressed wigs of both sexes went out of fashion. Sir Jeffery usually carried his wig-bag over his shoulder, and, to avoid the charge of vagrancy, vociferated, as he passed along the street, “old wigs;” but, having a person like Esop, and a countenance and manner marked by irresistible humour, he never appeared without a train of boys, and curious persons, whom he entertained by his sallies of wit, shrewd sayings, and smart repartees; and from whom, without begging, he collected sufficient to maintain his dignity of mayor and knight. He was no respecter of persons, and was so severe in his jokes on the corruptions and compromises of power, that this street-jester, was prosecuted for using what were then called seditious expressions; and, as a caricature on the times, which ought never to be forgotten, he was in 1793 tried, convicted, and imprisoned! In consequence of this affair, and some charges of dishonesty, he lost his popularity, and, at the general election for 1796, was ousted by Sir Harry Dimsdale, muffin-seller, a man as much deformed as himself. Sir Jeffery could not long survive his fall; but, in death as in life, he proved a satire on the vices of the proud, for in 1797 he died, like Alexander the Great, and many other heroes renowned in the historic page—of suffocation from excessive drinking!
Sir Harry Dimsdale dying also before the next general election, and no candidate starting of sufficient originality of character, and, what was still more fatal, the victuallers having failed to raise a PUBLIC PURSE, which was as stimulating a bait to the independent candidates for Garrat, as it is to the independent candidates for a certain assembly; the borough of Garrat has since remained vacant, and the populace have been without a professed political buffoon.
None but those who have seen a London mob on any great holiday can form a just idea of these elections. On several occasions, a hundred thousand persons, half of them in carts, in hackney-coaches, and on horse and ass-back, covered the various roads from London, and choked up all the approaches to the place of election. At the two last elections, I was told, that the road within a mile of Wandsworth was so blocked up by vehicles, that none could move backward or forward during many hours; and that the candidates, dressed like chimney-sweepers on May-day, or in the mock fashion of the period, were brought to the hustings in the carriages of peers, drawn by six horses, the owners themselves condescending to become their drivers[220]!
Before relating certain amusing facts which have never before appeared in print, or giving further particulars respecting Sir Jeffery Dunstan and Sir Henry Dimsdale, it seems fitting to add from the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of 1781, as follows:—
“Wednesday June 25, the septennial mock election for Garrat was held this day; and upwards of 50,000 people were, on that ludicrous occasion, assembled at Wandsworth.”
In the same volume there is an article which, as it is the only other notice in that useful miscellany concerning this celebrated usage, and as there is not any notice of it in other magazines of the time, is here annexed.