scholarly journals Inns And Elite Mobility In Late Georgian Britain*

2020 ◽  
Vol 247 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-76
Author(s):  
Daniel Maudlin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
British Isles ◽  
National Network ◽  
Building Technology ◽  
Interior Spaces ◽  
Good Taste ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Everyday Reality

Abstract This paper considers the significance of the spaces and material culture of the ‘principal inn’ as the centre of a distinct world of elite mobility in eighteenth-century Britain. Inns were central to the expansion and improvement of the travel network that brought the British Isles closer together through the long eighteenth century. The turnpike system introduced improved surfaces to old and new roads while new coach-building technology allowed faster movement on those roads. However, it was the national network of inns, regularly and reliably punctuating Britain's roads, that made fast and efficient travel a practical, everyday reality from London to York, Bristol to Holyhead, Edinburgh to Inverness. On arrival the inn provided food and accommodation for travellers, hay and stables for horses and grease for carriage axles. From cross-country travel to crossing the inn-yard, finding a table in the parlour or climbing the stairs to bed, the inn served the traveller across different scales of space and mobility. Moreover, for the elite traveller, inns were not simply blank containers for travel-related activities; they were material constructs that gave those activities form and meaning. Within the principal inn refined interior spaces and well-made, fashionable things placed the elite traveller in a reassuringly familiar cultural space, a bubble of comfort, luxury and good taste which they did not leave from one inn to the next.

“Men of the World”: British Mariners, Consumer Practice, and Material Culture in an Era of Global Trade, c. 1660–1800

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverly Lemire
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Global Trade ◽  
The World ◽  
Material Practice ◽  
Transnational Exchange ◽  
Rhetorical Authority ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

AbstractGrowing numbers of sailors powered British fleets during the long eighteenth century. By exploring mariners' habits, dress, and material practice when in port, this article uncovers their roles as agents of cultural change. These men complicated material hierarchies, with a broad impact on developing western consumer societies, devising a distinctive material practice. They shaped important systems of transnational exchange and redefined networks of plebeian material culture. Mariners were also endowed with a growing rhetorical authority over the long eighteenth century, embodying new plebeian cosmopolitanism, while expressing facets of a dawning imperial masculinity. Marcus Rediker described eighteenth-century Anglo-American mariners as plain dealers, wageworkers, and pirates, as well as “men of the world.” This international contingent mediated between world communities, while demonstrating new tastes and new fashions. They also personified the manly traits celebrated in Britain's burgeoning imperial age.

CULTURAL CHANGE IN PROVINCIAL SCOTTISH TOWNS, c. 1700–1820

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
BOB HARRIS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Urban Change ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

ABSTRACTIn the decades which immediately followed the union of 1707, most Scottish towns saw limited economic and cultural change. The middle of the eighteenth century, however, marked the beginnings of a new provincial urban dynamism in Scotland, which, from the 1780s or so onwards, was accompanied by far-reaching and rapid cultural change. This article seeks first to establish the scope, nature, and geography of this cultural transformation before discussing its wider historical significance, not only for our view of modern Scottish urbanization but in terms of patterns of urban change within the British Isles in the long eighteenth century. It is a story in part of convergence on Anglo-British cultural norms, but more saliently of the emergence of an increasingly British cultural synthesis, albeit one with distinctively Scottish elements. Another underlying purpose of the article is to re-direct views of Scottish urbanization away from Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen and on to a group of towns which hitherto have barely featured in discussions of British urbanization in this period.

scholarly journals Towns, government, legislation and the ‘police’ in Jamaica and the British Atlantic, 1770–1805

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Aaron Graham
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Urban Renewal ◽  
Alternative Pathway ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Urban Modernity ◽  
British Atlantic ◽  
Slave Society ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Government Legislation

AbstractUrban renewal in the British Isles in the long eighteenth century was based on new municipal powers made possible by parliament. Focusing on Jamaica between 1770 and 1805, which passed legislation for the ‘policing’ – in the broader Scottish sense – of its towns, demonstrates that it was a global phenomenon common to the whole British Atlantic. However, the solutions it produced were also specific to local circumstances. Jamaican elites feared invasion, revolt and the dissolution of the slave society. Their police acts reflected these concerns, and demonstrate the alternative pathway that urban modernity took in this part of the British Atlantic.

The Material Culture of Dissent

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Lounsbury
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
House Design ◽  
Internal Configuration

The long eighteenth century was the period in which Dissenting meeting houses moved out of the backstreets into positions of public prominence. Initially, hard to distinguish from the domestic dwellings that surrounded them, Dissenting meeting houses developed a distinctive style of their own. Often lacking the towers of their Anglican counterparts, they were designed as venues for preaching, rather than elaborate ceremony and ritual, and their internal configuration and decoration reflected these priorities. While drawing inspiration from earlier Puritan and European models, concerns about visibility and status made a significant impact on meeting-house design. As concerns about Dissenters’ social and political positions diminished, structures became more permanent and ornate, while retaining the central emphasis on the pulpit.

scholarly journals The urban inn: gathering space, hierarchy and material culture in the eighteenth-century British town

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (04) ◽  
pp. 617-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL MAUDLIN
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Central Location ◽  
Interior Spaces ◽  
Polite Society ◽  
Key Sites

ABSTRACT:This article locates the ‘principal inn’ within the physical and cultural space of the eighteenth-century British town. The principal inn was the all-purpose venue for the sociable activities of polite society: from dining, drinking and conversing with friends to business deals, meetings of club and societies, legal proceedings, military musters, civic and religious proceedings. Through their central location, carefully designed interior spaces and refined material culture of furniture, fixtures and fittings, principal inns were key sites in the elite control of urban space, the enforcement of social hierarchies and the reinforcement of social values.

Materializing Maternal Emotions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Holloway
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Expression Of Emotion ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Emotional Value

This chapter analyses the material expression of emotion during the birth and renunciation of infants in England over the long eighteenth century. These transformative moments in the life cycle were shaped by the creation, purchase, and display of objects. The chapter focuses primarily on textiles with particular emotional or symbolic significance, exploring the changing emotional meanings of childbed linen, blankets, ribbons, cockades, and quilts. It argues that a mother’s touch provided a key means of imbuing these items with emotional value, as women carefully inked, pinned, and embroidered objects by hand. The motifs they selected worked to create a powerful material vocabulary of maternal feeling, utilizing symbols from the wider material culture of maternity, including hearts, crowns, acorns, and blossoming flowers. Through these rituals, women could wish love, health, happiness, and prosperity into their children’s future lives.

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