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Class by Name and Number in
Eighteenth-Century England
This essay examines England's shift from a society
of intricately formalised 'ranks' to one of looser groupings
known as 'classes', tracing change over many centuries
with a special focus upon the eighteenth-century.
The discussion forms part of a trilogy of essays, to be
read in conjunction with Pdf/8
and Pdf/9.
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Hats and the Decline of Hat
Honour
This essay supports the case for social fluidity in
Georgian Britain and afterwards, by showing how styles
of greeting between individuals were adapted. The old
ceremonial bowing and removal of the hat (known as 'hat
honour') was gradually giving way to briefer tugs of the
forelock and a casual cap-touching. In the long run, moreover,
the handshake between equals began to take over, before
being upstaged in the later twentieth century by the continental
embrace and kiss(es) on the cheek.
The discussion forms part of a trilogy of essays, to be
read in conjunction with Pdf/7
and Pdf/9.
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The Rivals: Landed and Other
Gentlemen
Over time, the alluring status of the 'English gentleman'
became ever more popular and more flexible, both in social
teaching and actual usage. The broadening range of people
claiming this unofficial title in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries constituted a bridge between the titled nobility
and the middle class. Eventually, the ideal of 'nature's
gentleman' was ever more elevated into the proxy for a
secular saint and the social usage expired in the effort
of applying it to a mass democracy.
The discussion forms part of a trilogy of essays, to be
read in conjunction with Pdf/7
and Pdf/8. |
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Walking the City Streets: The
Urban Odyssey in Eighteenth-Century England
People learned town ways by osmosis from the abundant
diversity and vitality of eighteenth-century street life
in an era of distinctive urbanisation. Separate sections
of the essay highlight the art of urban walking; the mixed
reactions to town ways, including due vigilance as well
as appreciation; and the kaleidoscopic appeal of encounters
with urban strangers. Thus what Dr Johnson enjoyed as
'full tide of human experience' in the Strand, London,
became the unfolding epic, the updated Odyssey, of our
times.
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"Giving Directions to the Town":
The Early Town Directories
This essay, written with Serena Kelly, looks at another
important source for understanding urban social and economic
life in early industrial Britain from the 1770s to the
1830s. Town directories provided long lists of leading
urban 'worthies', identified alphabetically by their names,
addresses, titles (if any), and their chief occupations.
The range, distribution and frequency of these Directories
provides a guide to urban economic life - serving especially
London, the resorts, and industrial centres with many
small businesses rather than one single employer. As a
genre, the Directories were also key resources for the
'knowledge economy', now spreading in print as well as
via traditional word-of-mouth information.
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Eighteenth-Century Lawyers and
the Advent of the Modern Professional Ethos
This essay explores the collective self-image and pride
of the lawyers as an emergent profession in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. It then examines the countervailing
role of public satire, as a form of holding the lawyers
to account (in a popular source of admonitory humour which
remains internationally current to this day). And the
discussion concludes by assessing the lawyers' quest for
professional self-regulation in the early nineteenth century,
led by the attorneys. The fact that in the UK (though
not in the USA) the 'attornies' were gradually renamed
as 'solicitors' marked the upgrading of their collective
reputation - a necessary process for a profession reliant
upon trust - and one which needs continual attention in
every generation.
This discussion may be usefully read in conjunction with
CorfieldPdf/13;
and with P.J. Corfield, Power and the Professions
in Britain, 1700-1850 (1995; 1999). |
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From Poison Peddlers to Civic
Worthies: The Reputation of the Apothecaries in Georgian
England
Trust is not automatically granted to providers of
professional services. The doctors of Georgian England
were, by later standards, deficient in medical knowhow,
particularly before the mid-nineteenth-century scientific
understanding of antiseptics, and were much satirised.
Nonetheless, the emergence of a coherent medical profession
indicates that the picture was far more positive than
the satirists implied. Patients sought care as well as
cure; and medical practitioners had no problems in finding
custom. This essay reassesses the apothecaries' role in
the slow transition whereby reputable practitioners differentiated
themselves from 'quacks'. They emerged as 'urban worthies'
and trusted care-givers in most eighteenth-century towns;
and they also linked together to form their own local
and national networks of communication. As public trust
grew, Parliament was emboldened in 1815 to license the
Apothecaries Society as the regulatory body for the medical
rank-and-file, so launching the distinctive Anglo-American
system of arm's-length state regulation.
This essay may be usefully read in conjunction with CorfieldPdf/12;
and with P.J. Corfield, Power and the Professions
in Britain, 1700-1850 (1995; 1999).
It was first published in Social History of Medicine,
22 (2009), pp. 1-21, and is also available online:
see shm.oxfordjournals.org |
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Rhetoric, Radical Politics and
Rainfall: John Thelwall in Breconshire, 1797-1800
John Thelwall (1764-1834), Britain's amazing polymath
- a democratic activist, political theorist, Romantic
poet, and later a pioneering elocutionist - remains an
outstanding and under-appreciated figure. This essay analyses
a significant turning point in his career. After the Pitt
government's repression of the campaign to gain votes
for all adult males, John Thelwall essayed a green 'return
to the land' as a farmer in the small village of Llyswen
in Breconshire (1797-1800). His motivations and experiences
are reassessed, as he continued to write poems, plays
and essays, seeking to 'bear witness' as a man of letters.
Ultimately Thelwall's alternative career as a small farmer
was drowned out, following local hostility and the heavy
rainfall of two of the wettest years of the century. But
his stay in Llyswen was a significant moment - not only
for himself but also as part of the cultural history of
Anglo-Welsh encounters.
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Thelwall versus Wordsworth: Alternative Lifestyles in Repressive Times.
This essay is a companion piece to CorfieldPdf14. It further analyses William Wordsworth's jealous response to the radical John Thelwall's 'green' retreat to mid-Wales. While there, Thelwall continued his literary outpourings as well as farming the land. By contrast, Wordsworth's retreat to the Lakes made him a cultural guru and later a 'green' icon. But he was no son of the soil. He lived off a family legacy and aristocratic patronage, long before he made money as a poet. Wordsworth's conflicted views over these rival radical lifestyles are revealed in key poems: read this essay and see if you agree.
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