A large folio broadside: The Royal Songster / The Harmonicon c1846

[BROADSIDE]. The Royal Songster / The Harmonicon.
Manchester: printed and sold by T. Wilkinson, 19, Ridgefield, Back King-street, [c.1846–55].
 
Large folio broadside (600 × 380 mm), printed one side only, on wove paper; two panels side by side, each with title at head, within ornamental vertical borders; The Royal Songster headed by a large woodcut of a dandified “royal” court figure, The Harmonicon by a bold woodcut of an armoured horseman on a caparisoned steed; below, densely-set text in four columns per panel containing some forty song lyrics, including patriotic numbers, naval ballads, comic songs and popular stage fare; marginal nicks and small losses, a chip of around 2cm to the right hand edge, shallow losses to the top edge, light handling creases, overall, well-preserved and in very good condition.
 
This unusually large sheet is very much in keeping with similar songster broadsides of the time, crammed full of songs and ballads. The printer T. Wilkinson used the title and woodcut devices as a branding hook, primarily to catch the eye. The contents mix evergreen patriotic and naval material (“Our King! A True British Sailor”, “England, the Anchor and Hope of the World”) with comic and pastoral turns. 
 
A striking survival. Wilkinson is a comparatively elusive provincial printer, although a handful of their broadsides are placed in institutions such as ‘The Cumbrian Minstrel’ and ‘Old Mother Hubbard and her dog’, but there is no sign of this one recorded, and as such rare.