The Mock Election, 1827 (oil on canvas)

In 1827 Haydon was in King’s Bench Prison for debt. While there he observed other inmates putting on a charade election ‘headed by self-appointed officials, in order to open a poll for the election of a member to plead for their parliamentary rights’ (in reality forfeited by being in prison). Upon his release later in the year he recreated the scene. A Polling Station in the centre holds the candidates and election officials; a crowd files past to cast their vote. Top centre and in charge sits a careless and witty Irishman, Jonas Murphy, playing Lord High Sheriff, with curtain rings for his gold chain and holes in his jacket elbows. There are three candidates; the first, Joseph Meredith (with red rosette), an Irish hot-head urged on to fisticuffs (and instructed in the art) by a famous pugilist, Henry Hold; the second, the real M. P. Robert Stanton (with blue rosette), draped in a bed-quilt; and the third, the Lord Mayor of King’s Gate Prison (with blue and yellow rosette). The voters are led by the High Constable, a short, red-nosed and menacing man, carrying a mace (with GR on it) and wrapped in a bed-curtain. They are sworn-in (on a piece of deal in place of a Bible) by an engraver, Samuel Holt, playing Head Poll-Clark. Another Poll-Clark, head down, enters names and votes (no secret ballot in those days), while an assessor tries not to laugh. Three feckless inmates are taking the oath; the recently arrived dandy, with a costly pipe, and the broken-down roué, with a cheep cigar and holes in his shoes, make a sort of ‘before-and-after’ of the profligate life.