Chester King & Constitution Club 1817

[constanius]

Local rivalries and national political groupings in Chester were emphasized more with the foundation of a Tory King and Constitution Club in 1817 and a Whig Club in 1820. A Colonel Barnston was the 1st President and one of the leading founders of the King & Constitution Club. It had 148 members and ceased to exist circa 1824.

EDIT.

In July 1817, during the trial for the Spa Fields radicals, a period when the Chester Chronicle alleged 'the loyal and thinking part of this community have been.........called upon to rally around the throne & constitution', the local elite in Chester re-formed a King & Constitution Club. At the inaugural dinner in the town hall the Members were decorated with this medal, it being suspended from the buttonhole by a blue ribbon.

 

These type of political clubs in England were an off-shoot of the calls for parliamentary & constitutional reforms which had been simmering since the American & French revolutions. Held somewhat in check, both, because of the danger that the French Revolution & later Napoleon presented, and the legals means employed by the government to suppress dissent, they burst forth with renewed vigor once those dangers had past and being exacerbated by the post-war depression & high unemployment. Which forced people to pick sides, for or against reform, or put another way, for or against the King and Constitution.

45mm WM. unlisted in BHM, also unsigned but it is so similar to Thomas Wyon Senior's work that I think it must be by him.

This is most likely the Colonel Barnston named above:
Roger Barnston, esq of Churton, Colonel of the Royal Chester Militia. He served the office of sheriff of Chester, in the year 1801 and was for many years the highly respected Colonel of the county militia. Born 1749 Died 1837

[elverno]

What a beautiful medal!

[Art]

Very nice.

[bill]

Interesting piece.