The Long Eighteenth Century

by Frank O'Gorman

  Methodists and Dissenters

  Methodism has been rather better served than Dissent by the historical work of the last generation. See G. Lloyd, Charles Wesley and the Struggle for Methodist Identity (2009); D. Hampton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (2006); J. Gregory, ed., John Wesley: Tercentenary Essays (2005); G. Hammond and P. Forsaith, eds, Religion, Gender and Industry: Exploring Church Methodism in a Local Setting (2011). I. Whyte, Zachary Macaulay, 1768-1838: The Steadfast Scot in the British Anti-Slavery Movement (2011). Older works on Methodism include S. Andrews, Methodism and Society (1970); A. Armstrong, The Church of England, the Methodists and Society (1973); R. Currie, Methodism Divided (1968); R. Davies and E. G. Rupp, eds, A History of the Methodist Church of Great Britain, 2 vols (1965); F. Dreyer, ‘A “Religious Society under Heaven”: John Wesley and the Identity of Methodism’, Journal of British Studies, 25(1) (1986); K. Newport et al., eds, Charles Wesley: Life, Literature and Legacy (2007); D. Hempton, Methodism and Politics in British Society, 1750–1850 (1984); B. Semmel, The Methodist Revolution (1973); E. R. Taylor, Methodism and Politics, 1791–1851 (1935). There is a modern study of Queen of the Methodists: the Countess of Huntingdon and the Eighteenth Century Crisis of Faith by B. Schlenthe (1997).

  Books on the Dissenters include C. G. Bolam, The English Presbyterians (1968); T. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture (1976); I. Sellers, Nineteenth Century Nonconformity (1967); A. C. Underwood, History of the English Baptists (1947); M. Watts, The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (1978). There is interesting material to be found in R. Cornwall and W. Gibson, eds, Religion, Politics and Dissenters, 1660-1832: Essays in Honour of James E. Bradley (2010).

  CHAPTER 11. THE SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE LATER HANOVERIAN REGIME, 1757–1832

  The United Kingdom

  Many of the titles listed for Chapter 4, under ‘The Identity of Britain’, have relevance in this section, especially those by Hilton, Colley, Lenman and Kearney. For a more recent view, see M. Pittock, Celtic Identity and the British Image (1999); D. Wahrman, The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture (2004); J. Bonehill and G. Quilley, eds, Conflicting Visions: War and Visual Culture in Britain and France, c. 1700-c. 1830 (2005).

  Works on Scotland have poured from the presses in recent decades. The following is a small selection: Bob Harris, The Scottish People and the French Revolution (2005); J. Campbell and H. Parker, eds, The Shaping of Scottish Identities: Family, Nation and the Worlds Beyond (2011); G. Pentland, The Spirit of the Union: Popular Politics in Scotland: 1815-20 (2011); G. Pentland, Radicalism, Reform and National Identity in Scotland (2008); C. Whatley, Scottish Society, 1707-1830: Beyond Jacobitism and towards Industrialization (2000); M. Fry, The Scottish Empire (2001); R. Clyde, From Rebel to Hero: the Image of the Highlander, 1745-1830 (1995); L. Davis, Acts of Union: Scotland and the Literary Negotiation of the British Nation, 1707-1830 (1999); D. Hamilton, Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World, 1750-1820 (2005); T. Barnard: Making the Grand Figure: Lies and Possessions in Ireland, 1641-1770 (2004); M. Towsey, Reading the Scottish Enlightenment: Books and their Readers in Provincial Scotland, 1750-1870 (2010); C. Camic, Experience and Enlightenment: Socialization for Cultural Change in Eighteenth Century Scotland (1983); M. Fry, The Dundas Despotism (1992); R. Houston, Scottish Literacy and Scottish Identity: Literacy and Society in Scotland and Northern England, c. 1600–1800 (1988); C. Kidd, Subverting Scotland’s Past (1993); J. Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (1985).

  On Ireland, a veritable renaissance in the field of eighteenth-century studies has been taking place. See, for example, S. Connolly, Divided Kingdom: Ireland 1630-1800 (2008); T. McLoughlin, Contesting Ireland: Irish Voices against England in the Eighteenth Century (1999). Older works include D. Dickson, New Foundations: Ireland 1660–1800 (1987); N. Curtis, The United Irishmen (1994); M. Elliot, Partners in Revolution (1982); A. P. Malcolmson, John Foster: The Politics of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy (1978); R. B. McDowell, Ireland in the Age of Imperialism and Revolution, 1760–1801 (1979); J. Smyth, Men of Property (1992); G. O’Brien, Anglo-Irish Politics in the Age of Grattan and Pitt (1987); M. Fuchs, Edmund Burke, Ireland and the Fashioning of Self (1996). On Wales, see R. Davies, Hope and Heartbreak: A Social History of Wales and the Welsh, 1776-1871 (2005).

  Economy and Empire

  The literature on these topics is little less than mountainous. Several general items from Chapters 1, 4 and 7 are of continuing relevance here, not least those by Kerridge (2013), Armitage (2003), Armitage and Braddock (2003) and Marshall (2003). See also H. Hoock, Empires of the Imagination: Politics, War and the Arts in the British World, 1750-1850 (2010); G. Williams, ed., Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments (2004); A. Rudd, Sympathy India, 1770-1830 (2011). Further useful material on the empire in the second half of the long eighteenth century is led by C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (1989); P. N. Miller, Defining the Common Good: Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth Century Britain (1994); B. Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism (1970); V. T. Harlow and F. Madden, British Colonial Developments, 1774–1834 (1953); P. J. Marshall, Problems of Empire: Britain and India, 1757–1813 (1968).

  A very brief selection of works on the economy would include the following: On Population: M. W. Flinn, British Population Growth, 1700–1850 (1970); E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction (1981). On Industry: M. Berg, The Age of Manufacture, 1700–1820 (1985); M. J. Daunton, Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain, 1700–1850 (1995); P. Hudson, ed., Regions and Industries: A Perspective on the Industrial Revolution in Britain (1989); P. Matthias, The First Industrial Nation (1969); J. Rule, The Vital Century: England’s Developing Economy, 1714–1815 (1992). On Commerce: P. J. Cain, Economic Foundations of British Overseas Expansion, 1815–1914 (1980); V. T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–93, vol. I (1952). On the Cost of the French Wars: P. O’Brien, ‘Public Finance and the Wars with France, 1793–1815’, in H. Dickinson, ed., Britain and the French Revolution, 1789–1815 (1989).

  The Social Order

  A Transfiguring Aristocracy

  Works by Hilton, Colley and Kearney are relevant here. Several of the titles listed for Chapter 4, under ‘The Ruling Order’, are equally relevant to this section, especially those by Beckett, Cannon, Clark and Stone. Further reading includes R. Sweet, Cities and the Grand Tour: the British and Italy c. 1690-1820 (2012); The Pleasure Garden: from Vauxhall to Coney Island (2013); J. Bourne, Patronage and Society in Nineteenth Century England (1986); D. Cannadine, Lords and Landlords: The Aristocracy and the Towns (1980); L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (1992); D. Eastwood, Governing Rural England: Traditions and Transformation in Local Government, 1780–1840 (1994); P. Horn, The Rural World: Social Change in the English Countryside, 1780–1850 (1980); D. R. Mills, Lord and Peasant in Nineteenth Century Britain (1980); H. Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880 (1969); M. Reed, The Georgian Triumph, 1700–1830 (1984); F. M. L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (1963).

  A Cohering Middle Class

  The work of Bourne in the previous section gives a view of the aspirant members of the middling orders seeking political advancement. Langford’s works listed for Chapter 4 are likewise relevant, as are those of Hilton, Corfield, Clark, Chalklin, (J.) Raven and Wilson. In general, the middling orders may be rapidly recovering from their traditional neglect. See D. T. Andrew, Philanthropy and Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century (1989); L. Davidoff and C. Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1730–1850 (1987); T. Koditschek, Class Formation and Urban Industrial Society: Bradford, 1750–1850 (1990); J. Money, Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760–1800 (1977); W. D. Rubinstein, Elites and the Wealthy in Modern British History (1987); G. Ru
ssell, The Theatres of War: Performance, Politics and Society, 1793–1815 (1995); D. Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class (1995); J. Walvin, English Urban Life, 1776–1851 (1984); J. Wolff and J. Seed, eds, The Culture of Capital: Art, Power and the Nineteenth Century Middle Class (1988). The entire volume of Journal of British Studies, 32(4) (1993) is given over to essays on ‘Making the English Middle Class, c. 1700–1850’.

  A Self-conscious Working Class

  All discussions of this subject begin with E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963; rev. edn 1968). Other books listed earlier (Chapter 4, under ‘The Common People’) may profitably be consulted in this section, especially that by Snell. Studies more particularly devoted to the period covered by this chapter include A. Kidd, State, Society and the Poor in Nineteenth Century England (1999); M. Steinberg, Fighting Words: Working Class Formation, Collective Action and Discourse in Early Nineteenth Century England (1997); S. King, Poverty and Welfare in England, 1700-1850: a Regional Perspective (1999); T. Shakeshelf, Rural Conflict, Crime and Protest: Herefordshire 1800-1860 (2003), A. Eccles, Vagrancy in Law and Practice under the Old Poor Law (2012); C. Behagg, Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century (1990); R. W. Bushaway, By Rite: Custom, Ceremony and Community in England, 1700–1800 (1982); D. Bythell, The Sweated Trades (1978); J. Foster, Class Struggle in the Industrial Revolution (1974); E. J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men (1964); E. J. Hobsbawm and G. Rudé, Captain Swing (1969); E. Hopkins, A Social History of the English Working Classes (1979); T. Laquer, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture, 1780–1850 (1976); J. Rule, The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England, 1750–1850 (1986); R. Wells, Wretched Faces: Famine in War-time England, 1793–1801 (1988).

  Constructions of Gender in Later Hanoverian Britain

  From the dozens of titles which have poured from the presses, the following selection of general works can be recommended: T. Hitchcock, English Sexualities, 1700-1800 (1997); H. Barker and E. Chalus, eds, Gender in Eighteenth Century England: Roles, Representations and Responsibilities (1997); P. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society: Britain 1660-1800 (2001); K. O’Brien, Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth Century Britain (2009); A. Laurence, Women in England, 1500-1760: a Social History (1994); A. London, Women and Property in the Eighteenth Century English Novel (1999); M. Prior, ed., Women in English Society, 1500–1800 (1985); K. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor. Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660–1900 (1985); K. Straub, Sexual Suspects: Eighteenth Century Players and Sexual Ideology (1992); A. Clark, Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in England, 1770–1845 (1987); A. Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the English Working Class (1995); L. Davidoff and C. Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (1992); S. Conger, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Language of Sensibility (1994).

  On women writers there is a wide literature. See V. Jones, ed., Women and Literature in Britain, 1700-1800 (2000); P. Backscheider, Revising Eighteenth Century Women’s Fiction and Social Engagement (2000); M. Woodworth, Eighteenth Century Women Writers and the Gentlemen’s Liberation Movement (2011); A. Mellor, Mothers of the Nation: Women’s Political Writing in England, 1780-1830 (2000); E. Copeland, Women writing about Women’s Fiction in England, 1790-1820 (1995); C. Shiner and J. Haefner, eds, Revisioning Romanticism: British Women Writers 1776-1837 (1991); M. Ferguson, Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670–1834 (1992); B. Fowlkes-Tobin, ed., History, Gender and Eighteenth Century Literature (1994); C. Turner, Living by the Pen: Women Writers in the Eighteenth Century (1992). Interesting, but for an earlier period, is P. Backscheider and J. Richette, eds, Popular Fiction by Women, 1660-1730 (1996). For the social background to women writers see G. Russell and C. Tuite, eds, Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture, 1770-1840 (2000). See also J. Pearson, Women’s Reading in Britain, 1750-1835: A Dangerous Recreation (1999).

  On women and national identity, see H. Guest, Small Change, Women’s Learning; Patriotism 1750-1810 (2000); E. Major, Madam Britannia: Women, Church and Nation, 1712-1812 (2011); G. Malmgreen, Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760–1930 (1986); M. Hyde and J. Milam, eds, Art and the Politics of Identity in Eighteenth Century Europe (2003).

  On women and children there are a number of recent titles: A. Wilson, Ritual and Conflict: the Social Relationships of Childbirth in Early Modern England (2013); A. Wilson, The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England, 1660-1960 (1995); A. Francis, Monstrous Motherhood: Eighteenth Century Culture and the Idea of Domesticity (2012).

  On women and work see K. Honeyman, Gender and Industrialisation in England, 1700-1870 (2000); P. Sharpe, Women’s Work: the English Experience, 1650-1914 (1998); B. Hill, Women, Work and Sexual Politics in Eighteenth Century England (1989).

  On the issue of maternity see M. Jackson, Newborn Child Murder: Women, Illegitimacy and the Courts in Eighteenth Century England (1996).

  CHAPTER 12. THE RENEWAL OF THE REGIME, 1820–1832

  The Coming of Reform, 1820–1830

  The Reform Crisis is covered in a number of works listed for Chapter 10, including those by Davis, Hilton, Stewart, Smith and Coleman. Relevant works listed in Chapter 11 include those by Cannon, Colley, Eastwood, Thompson, Hobsbawm, Rudé and Foster. See also L. G. Mitchell, The Whig World, 1760-1837 (2005); W. Hay, The Whig Revival, 1808-1830 (2005); G. Pentland, Radicalism, Reform and National Identity in Scotland, 1820-1833 (2008); R. Brent, Liberal-Anglican Politics: Whiggery, Religion and Reform, 1830–41 (1987); M. Brock, The Great Reform Act (1973). On the Tories, see J. Ramsden, An Appetite for Power: a History of the Conservative Party since 1830 (1998). The late Professor Peter Jupp produced a masterly analysis of British Politics on the Eve of Reform: the Duke of Wellington’s Administration (1998).

  The Passage of Reform, 1830–1832

  Recent accounts include P. Scherer, Lord John Russell: a Biography (1999); L. G. Mitchell, Lord Melbourne (1997). N. Lopatin’s study of Political Unions, Popular Politics and the Great Reform Act of 1832 (1999) has much valuable, and local, detail. Other recent studies include P. Mandler, Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals, 1830–52 (1990); I. Newbold, Whiggery and Reform, 1830–41: The Politics of Government (1990). See also J. Epstein, In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain (2003). For traditional accounts see M. Brock, The Great Reform Act (1973), chs 4–9 and the still useful J. R. M. Butler, The Passing of the Reform Bill (1914).

  The Reform Act of 1832

  On the effect of the act itself, in addition to works listed above by Stewart, Coleman and Cannon see the authoritative account in P. Salmon, Electoral Reform at Work: Local Politics and National Parties, 1832-1841 (2002). See also the essays in C. Jones, P. Salmon and R. Davis, eds, Partisan Politics: Principle and Reform in Parliament and the Constituencies, 1689-1880 (2005); F. O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons and Parties: The Unreformed Electorate of Hanoverian England, 1714–1832 (1989); R. Blake, The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill (1970); N. Gash, Reaction and Reconstruction in English Politics, 1832–52 (1965); Politics in the Age of Peel, rev. edn (1977); T. Hoppen, Elections, Politics and Society in Ireland, 1832–85 (1984); D. C. Moore, The Politics of Deference (1976); J. A. Phillips, The Great Reform Bill in the Boroughs: English Electoral Behaviour, 1818–41 (1992); J. Prest, Politics in the Age of Cobden (1977); C. Seymour, Electoral Reform in England and Wales (1970 edn); J. Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c.1815–67 (1993).

  INDEX

  abolition of slavery here, here, here, here, here

  abolition of Slave Trade here, here–here, here

  Aboukir Bay here

  accession of George III here–here, here

  Act of Settlement (1701) here–here, here, here, here, here, here

  Act of Uniformity (1662) here


  Act of Union (1707) here, here, here, here, here, here

  Adam, William here, here

  Addington, Henry here, here, here

  Addison, H. here, here

  Administration of Justice Act (1774) here

  Africa here, here, here

  agriculture here–here

  Ailesbury Plot (1691–92) here

  Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty (1748) here, here

  Congress (1818) here

  Alleghenies here–here

  alliance, church and state here–here

  Althorp, Lord here, here, here, here

  Althorp here

  American colonies

  British view here–here

  country sentiment here–here

  identity here–here, here

  Loyalists here–here

  American Revolution

  crisis here

  importance here

  origins here–here

  American War of Independence here, here

  British defeat here–here, here

  British strategy here

  British unity as consequence here–here

  Amherst, Lord here

  Amiens, Treaty of (1801) here, here, here

  Amsterdam here

  Anglicanism here, here

  ancien régime, types of here–here

  Anglo-Dutch wars here, here, here

  Anglo-French Treaty (1786) here–here, here

  Anglo-Irish Treaty (1785) here–here

  Anglo-Saxon Constitution here

  Anne, Queen here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here

  annual Parliaments here

  annus mirabilis here–here

  Anson, Lord here

  Anti-Jacobin novel here

  Anti-Jacobin, The here