The Union Club was originally published by Hannah Humphrey on January 21, 1801. This image is from the Bohn Edition of 1851, which used Gillray's copper plates, the last time they were used to print from before being scrapped. The print serves as a deeply cynical and rowdy response to the Acts of Union 1800, which legally merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom.
Rather than showing the dignified alliance promised by politicians, Gillray depicts a scene of absolute, chaotic drunken debauchery and violence.
The caricature directly parodied a formal, respectful celebratory print released to commemorate the inaugural meeting of the real-world Union Club on January 19, 1801.
While the original commemorative print showed a dignified, harmonious dinner presided over by the Prince of Wales, The National Portrait Gallery notes that Gillray completely inverted this image to expose the raw, volatile reality of British and Irish political relations.
Gillray packed the scene with more than twenty highly recognisable caricatures of the most powerful politicians and figures of the era.
The Prince of Wales who instead of sitting regally on his throne, has slipped entirely into a drunken stupor and lies face down, completely passed out under the dining table.
Charles James Fox, the prominent Whig opposition leader is depicted collapsed backwards in his chair, totally incapacitated with his feet propped up on the table.
The figures in the front try to maintain a façade of camaraderie, raising a toast to the new United Kingdom. Meanwhile, the background collapses into an all-out, violent fistfight, indicating that the union is inherently unstable.
Many of the drunken politicians are shown wearing shamrocks. A clock ticking on the wall prominently features the name of the Prime Minister, William Pitt, who orchestrated the political union.
The bottom of the plate features an ironic verse celebrating the forced camaraderie.
"We'll join hand in hand, all Party shall cease, / And Glass after Glass, shall our Union increase..."
Art historians consider this piece one of the most technically brilliant and influential visual depictions of total inebriation in the history of graphic satire. The image proved so culturally enduring that later 19th-century satirists, such as George Cruikshank, directly adapted Gillray's exact composition to parody other major societal shifts.
Gillray was one of five children, and the only one to survive to maturity. In 1770 he was apprenticed to Harry Ashby, a London writing in engraver, and five years later W. Humphrey published a few of Gillray's illustrations including satirical works. By the time Gillray commenced his career satire was old, but personal caricature was in its infancy. Other exponents in this form of art were soon overshadowed by Gillray's superior craftsmanship. His figures were full of vitality, titillating and reflective of some political crisis or private scandal. As his popularity increased so did demand by the public to see more of his work. In the rapidly changing politics of the late18th century he would produce a plate in twenty-four hours. Although sometimes overlooked his speech bubbles were elaborate and Gillray would spend considerable time composing and redrafting the text.
Between 1791 to 1807 his career continued successfully in association with William and Hannah Humphrey. There after Gillray's health began to suffer. He eventually slipped into madness and died shortly before the Battle of Waterloo on June 1st 1815. Hannah, who had a close relationship with him nursed Gillray through out his final years and following his death the copper plates then formed part of Hannah's estate when she died in 1818. The executor's of Hannah's estate sold Gillray's painstakingly worked plates for there second hand copper weight. Hearing of this, the then publisher, Bohn who had previously expressed an interest in buying the plates set about purchasing them from a variety of different sources. Eventually acquiring over 500. In 1851 Bohn republished the engravings in a large folio volume, "The Works of James Gillray".
