An Original Portrait of Captain Swing

Orlando Hodgson

An Original Portrait of Captain Swing

Lithograph

Original hand colouring

London, O Hodgson, 1830

280 x 220 mm

£250

A figure constructed of the materials for arson and emitting flames. The body is a corn-stack, the head a sheaf of corn, in which are flaming ‘Fire Balls’ for eyes. The right arm is a bottle of ‘Turpentine’, whence burning liquid pours into a pan which is hooked on to the hand, a lighted dark lantern. The left arm is a cylinder of ‘Portable Gas’ emitting flame from a tap at the elbow, where it joins a firebrand with lighted matches for fingers. The right leg above the knee is an open ‘Phosphorus Box’, resting on a bundle of matches and with a pistol for foot; the right leg is made of two barrels, ‘Pitch’ and ‘Tar’, resting on a horn of ‘Gunpowder’. Flames burst from the joints of the figure and the hair is made of burning ears of corn.

‘Captain Swing’ was the imaginary leader agricultural labourers who set fire to barns and haystacks in the southern and eastern counties of England from 1830. Although the riots were ruthlessly put down (19 hanged, 644 imprisoned and 481 transported), the rural agitation led the new Whig government to establish a Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and its report provided the basis for the 1834 New Poor Law enacted after the Great Reform Bills of 1833