The Parish Beadle

The Parish Beadle is a full scale sketch for the painting of the same name in the Tate Gallery, London (inv. no. N00241), executed by Sir David Wilkie in 1820-23. A beadle was an an official of the local church, tasked with various civil, educational, or ceremonial duties. This is a comic scene, depicting the excessive zeal of the officer arresting a troupe of itinerent entertainers. From the distinctive shape of the adults' hats, we can tell that these are Savoyard travellers; with their flamboyant dress, instruments and animals they subtly undermine the pompous authority of the stout beadle. Wilkie was not alone in his gentle mockery of this figure; Dickens repeatedly mocks the parish beadle in his early works, culminating in the ridiculous Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist (1838), probably his best known satiric portrait of the local official.