Georgian

Sir Lewis Namier examines the British Parliamentary groupings of the country gentlemen and their reactions to the movements of public opinion during the years 1750-1783.

These letters, written between 1797 and 1815, are part of a series from Maria Josepha Stanley to her father Lord Sheffield. At the beginning of the period Maria Josepha had been married six months, and was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where her husband, a Captain in the Cheshire Militia, had been posted with his regiment to resist any attempted invasion by the forces of the Directorate. Edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley.

The tall army recruits known as the Potsdam Giants, F.L. Carsten writes, played a considerable part in the British diplomacy during the early 18th century, and the efforts of the Prussian recruiting sergeants to procure men of the desired size extended to the British Isles.

Thomas Balston profiles John Boydell, Lord Mayor of London in 1790, who created the first great printselling business in Britain, and could count Reynolds, Romney, Fuseli, Benjamin West, and Wright of Derby among the artists who worked for him.

An acceptable minister in peace-time, Lord North’s misfortune was to hold office at the time of the American Revolution and War, as Eric Robson here shows.

Roger Fulford introduces the life and career of 'perhaps the dimmest' British Prime Minister.

T.H. McGuffe describes the invasion, and subsequent hurried retreat, of England during the Jacobite Rebellion.

T.H. McGuffe analyses the failure of Admiral Byng to relieve the besieged British forces against French onslaught.

Alan Yorke-Long documents the beginnings of Georgian England's affair with the music of the Hanoverian composer.

A man of deep convictions, George III ruled at a time “when kings were still expected to govern. That he failed to acquire “true notions of common things”, Lewis Namier writes, was “perhaps the deepest cause of his tragedy.”