Exeter Election, 1868, "Shakespeare illustrated.", The Great Greek Pie

Exeter Election, 1868, "Shakespeare illustrated.", The Great Greek Pie

A black and white satirical lithograph of an elderly white male wearing smart dress clothes with small spectacles and chin-length white hair struggling to hold a giant pastry pie, his knees buckling from the weight of it. Text on the pie reads ‘GREEK PIE’ with a twig of bay leaf stuffed in the top with the number 1,300. Text above the illustration reads, ‘EXETER ELECTION, 1868. “SHAKSPERE ILLUSTRATED.” “Would you praise Caesar?” “Say, Caesar; - go no further.”- Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, Scene 2.’ Below the image, ‘THE GREAT GREEK PIE FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE LATE WILLIAM COBBETT, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED (Without Permission) TO EDGAR BOWRING, ESQ.’ Followed by a small hand symbol pointing right with text ‘To be had of all Booksellers.’

Though dedicated to Liberal candidate Edgar Bowring, the illustration depicts his father, Sir John, mocking his part in the infamous financial scandal of The London Greek Committee, which took place nearly fifty years previous to the election: “Undoubtedly the most humiliating reminder of the Greek loan scandals occurred as late as 1868 when Bowring’s son, Edgar, stood as Liberal candidate at Exeter. On that occasion the conservatives brought out a series of large election posters which they placarded about the city. The first of these posters, "respectfully dedicated (without permission) to Edgar Bowring, Esq”, showed the candidate’s father carrying a large Greek pie.” (G. F. Bartle, Bowring and the Greek Loans of 1824 and 1825.)

The Greek Loan scandal began with the ‘good’ intention of a number of English gentries wishing to support Greece in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. “It was apparent to the thinking public in Britain that something needed to be done to assist the heroic Greeks in their efforts…the [male] thinking public of course held a very Romantic view of the Greeks, based more on their classical education than on actual encounters.)” (Caroline / Cambridge Library Collection, The London Greek Committee.) As the British government of the time wished to remain ‘neutral’, a number of men founded the London Greek Committee in March 1823, of which John Bowring was appointed honorary secretary, described by Bartle as, “A man of humble origin but of considerable talents, great ambition and restless energy.” (More information about John Bowring, who was also President of the DEI between 1860-61, can be found in his portrait listing: https://collectionsexplorer.devonandexeterinstitution.org/online-collection/portraits/1940797-portrait-of-sir-john-bowring-1872?q=bowring)

Loans were raised for the Greeks, but “the money was spent to little effect and Bowring was accused of profiting at the Greek’s expense by receiving a commission. Losses from the Greek loan and neglect to his trading business brought about the collapse of his company.” (Philip Bowring, A Poisonous Greek Pie.) This was due to a number of factors, including the fact that Lord Byron, who was held up as a kind of poster boy for British/Greek relations to encourage shareholders to part with their money, died in April 1824, and Bowring being publicly defamed by his Greek partners in The Times, who “rang down the curtain upon the scandal which it had dragged into the limelight. "May the money”, it thundered, "of which the Greeks have been robbed, bring a curse upon those that possess it.”” (G. F. Bartle) Bowring himself admitted in a letter to a friend, “The loan is in a terrible state and I, who have almost found the half, am accused of having…deceived the English people, although I have suffered more than anyone else in this affair having lost a fortune in obtaining and upholding the credit of the Greek government.” (Bowring to Gerostati, 5 October 1824.)

The poster also references Radical pamphleteer, campaigner, journalist and politician William Cobbett, who “devoted several issues of his Political Register to a full examination of the "Greek Pie” into which "Burdett, Hobhouse, Ellice, Hume and Bowring have been cramming their fingers”…"Bowring”, proclaimed Cobbett, "talks fine—but he will find that we shall want something more than fine talk to satisfy us that the Greek bondholders and the Greeks themselves have had fair play at the hands of this patriot.”” (G. F. Bartle)

Taunting Edgar Bowring about his father was commonplace in the Tory election propaganda being published, with other posters in the Shakespeare illustrated series such as No. 4, “By and bye is easily said” (https://collectionsexplorer.devonandexeterinstitution.org/online-collection/political-posters/1573365-exeter-election-1868-shakespeare-illustrated-no4-by-and-bye-is-easily-said?q=shakespeare) and No. 8, The Rivals (https://collectionsexplorer.devonandexeterinstitution.org/online-collection/political-posters/1573368-exeter-election-1868-shakespeare-illustrated-no-8-the-rivals?q=shakespeare) also featuring Sir John as a character of disdain.

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