LANGUAGE AND POLITICS AT THE WESTMINSTER ELECTION OF 1796

Abstract

This article looks at one of the less frequently examined contests in the parliamentary borough of Westminster – the election of 1796, in which Charles James Fox, Admiral Allan Gardner, and John Horne Tooke vied for the borough's two seats. This election offers an opportunity to investigate the patriotic discourses, representational strategies, and styles of political leadership available to loyalism and popular radicalism in the early years of the war with Revolutionary France. The period of the election spanned the second anniversary of Admiral Richard Howe's victory of 1 June 1794, creating significant opportunities for links to be made between Gardner's naval position and the necessity of electing a loyalist candidate. The article investigates electoral politics with an eye towards reconstructing some important features of Westminster political culture in the 1790s. While Gardner's electoral posture is revealed to depend on a series of stereotypes operating around the image of the ‘political’ admiral, Tooke's is shown to have been heavily informed by his philological studies. Given the long history of admirals serving as MPs for Westminster and the persistent presence of naval officers as members of parliament between 1790 and 1820, the article concludes by suggesting that political admiralship played a role in the development of nineteenth-century styles of political candidacy and leadership.