During a Garrett election all Wandsworth was in an uproar. It was the resort of people of all descriptions, and the publicans entertained them as conveniently as possible; yet, on one occasion, the influx of visiters was so immense that every ordinary beverage was exhausted, and water sold at twopence a glass.
By “old John Jones,” “the doings at Wandsworth” on the election day are described as “past description.”
Besides the “hustings” at Garrett, scaffoldings and booths were erected in Wandsworth at every open space: these were filled with spectators to the topmost rows, and boys climbed to the tops of the poles; flags and colours were hung across the road; and the place was crowded by a dense population full of activity and noise. For accommodation to view the humours of the day extraordinary prices were paid to the proveditors.
John Jones remembers “when Foote the player came to Wandsworth, to have a full view of all the goings on.” According to his account, the English Aristophanes “paid nine guineas for the fore room at surgeon Squire’s, facing the church, for himself and his friends to sit in and see the fun.” There was an immense scaffolding of spectators and mob-orators, at the corner by the churchyard, opposite the window where Foote and his companions were seated.
It has been already noticed, that Foote dramatised this mock election by his “Mayor of Garratt:” the first edition, printed in 1764, is called “a comedy in two acts; as it is performed at the theatre-royal in Drury-lane.” On turning to the “dramatis personæ,” it will be found he performed Major Sturgeon himself, and, likewise, Matthew Mug in the same piece: Mrs. Clive playing Mrs. Sneak to Weston’s Jerry Sneak.
Foote’s “Mayor of Garratt” may be deemed an outline of the prevailing drollery and manners of the populace at Wandsworth: a scene or two here will be amusing and in place. This dramatist sketched so much from the life, that it is doubtful whether every marked character in his “comedy” had not its living original. It is certain, that he drew Major Sturgeon from old Justice Lamb, a fishmonger at Acton, and a petty trading justice, whose daughter was married by Major Fleming, a gentleman also “in the commission of the peace,” yet every way a more respectable man than his father-in-law.