Orange Jumper Unravelled.

Item No.27 in catalogue 28 was Gillray’s “The Orange Jumper”. These notes are intended to give some background to the publication of this print. Moreover, of the ‘Orange Jumper’ himself and of the reasons for the print’s rarity.

The eldest child and only son of the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam was Charles William Viscount Milton who attained his majority on the 4th May 1807. He married his cousin Mary Dundas the previous July. A superb fete had been given for the couple at Wentworth House attended by over 600 guests. Hargrove’s ‘Gazetteer of Yorkshire’ (2nd edition 1813), has the flavour of the evening: ‘We know not how more justly to characterise the princely entertainment than by saying it was worthy of the first family in the largest and one of the most opulent Counties in the British Empire and that it had no parallel in Yorkshire’.

Young Milton was inevitably a political animal and of the Whig variety. His father had been urged by Burke and others to take on the leadership of the Whigs on the death of his Uncle, The Marquis of Rockingham, (twice Prime Minister), and also of Wentworth. Moreover, Fitzwilliam himself had been an ambitious Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Milton was about to be thrown into the whirlpool of the Yorkshire Election of 1807. Pitt and Fox died in 1806 and the Ministry of All the Talents had finally succumbed in March.

Two sitting members for the County of Yorkshire were William Wilberforce of Hull (Tory), and Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall near Otley (Whig). The latter had, as Walter Ramsden Beaumont Hawksworth, inherited the Farnley Hall estate, but subject to a ‘change of name and arms clause’. He had no real taste for the labours of a Country Member with all the tiresome duties that it bought. It was soon clear, however, that he was to be challenged by a second Tory candidate. Henry Lascelles, the younger son of the Earl of Harewood. Wealthy from the profits of his West Indian Plantations. Fawkes lack of enthusiasm and also of the financial resources needed to resist a serious challenge from Harewood House; prompted his withdrawal from the contest at short notice. ‘A more vexatious event could not have been imagined’, wrote Fitzwilliam. Time was of the essence and Milton just twenty-one years old was the inevitable choice of the Whigs.

The entire resources of the Wentworth family were mobilised in Milton’s support. Such was the rivalry between opposing forces that Lord Harewood was said to be ‘ready to spend the whole of the Barbados property’. Wilberforce, almost certain of election was above the battle. The real contest was between Milton and Lascelles.

The run-up to the election lasted five weeks; it was a fierce no-holds-barred and above all expensive process. The Times commented. ‘Go where you will, you run up against one of his Lordship’s (Fitzwilliam’s) agents. He seems not only to have an agent or two in every village but one on every coach’.

The outcome was in doubt to the last; Milton’s victory was indeed narrow, 11,177 to Lascelles’s 10,990. Wilberforce, already a diligent Servant of his county’s interests for twenty-three years led the poll with 11,806 votes. His expenses came to well under half of those of each of the other candidates.

Harewood’s finial accounts totalled some £93,600 and Fitzwilliam’s £99,000. There were then no restrictions, (on the amount spent), set by Parliament and for present day values these figures need to be multiplied by at least fifty. More money was thrown at this election than any other for which records exist. The new member proved to have admirable qualities, diligent, intelligent and enthusiastic. Milton was to be spokesman for the Northern Whig interest in Parliament until succeeding to the Earldom in 1833. Throughout his life, these qualities persisted and he managed the extensive Wentworth estates in an exemplary fashion.

But what about “Orange Jumper”? This nickname only became current after the election, and was that of a John Clarkson, veteran Leeds horse Breaker and a man with a criminal record. This was Milton’s most ardent, indefatigable, and vociferous supporter.

Gillray’s print was published only in March 1809, almost two years after the election. It shows The Jumper standing at the corners of Etridge’s Inn Yard in York. There he is characteristic pose, waving Milton’s colours, in a brief interval when not quartering the country on his behalf.
The initiative for the print appears to have come from Fawke’s brother, Francis Hawksworth of heath Hall near Wakefield. The echoes of the election still reverberated, but it can be argued that the print was not so much to commemorate the election as, The Jumper himself. There are two surviving letters from Hawksworth to Gillray. In the first, as happened not infrequently with Gillray’s clients he enclosed a sketch of The Jumper as he recalled him together with detailed written description. Gillray was to be required to copy the sketch exactly. Such comments probably did nothing for Gillray’s enthusiasm for the project. None the less, Hawksworth received proof copies on March 17th 1809. His second letter in reply told Gillray curtly that the proofs were unacceptable, as ‘They would quite disgrace me’. Not a single copy was to be disposed of in its present state. Gillray was requested to return the sketch forthwith and that would be and end of the matter. Very few copies were printed and fewer still got into circulation; the plate was almost certainly destroyed or re-used.

This may not be quite all. Some years later, the Don Pottery of Swinton, near Rotherham, produced their own Jumper Jugs in four sizes. The figure on the jugs is clearly the “Orange Jumper”, but there are still differences from the print. It has been suggested that Earl Fitzwilliam proprietor of the nearby Rockingham Pottery initiated the revival after Gillray had returned the sketch that was then transfer printed onto the ‘Jumper Jugs’. If so Clarkson appeared on the Don Pottery products exactly as Hawksworth wanted.

Those interested in further reading are referred to the excellent chapter on the “Orange Jumper” and the“Jumper Jugs” in Don Pottery 1801-1892, by John Griffen, published by Doncaster Museum Service 2001.