Aristocratic Britain, from the 1680s to the 1780s
1. This non-narrative approach begins with the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the country before
examining its legal, religious, political, and cultural history
2. Demography (the study of population, its size, distribution, and
composition)
A. Guesstimates necessary with no official censuses until 1800s
B. England and Wales (5.5 million); Scotland (1.2); Ireland (2.3)
and North America (.3 million), making Great Britain
smaller than France, Germany, Russia, and Italy, but larger than Spain,
Holland, Belgium, and Sweden
C. Gregory King's figures for England and Wales
1) 3% upper ranks (peers and gentry); historians still agree
2) 42% middling sort (merchants, professionals, farmers,
tradesmen); historians think much smaller, maybe 12%
3) 55% poor (laborers and paupers); historians think much
larger, maybe 85%
D. Distribution of peoples (Cambridge Social History of Britain)
1) Most lived in the south of England, Wales, and Scotland;
northwest of Ireland; Atlantic coast of North America
2) Overwhelmingly rural; London had 500,000 (Paris had 450,000 Rome 130,000; Amsterdam, Vienna, St. Petersburg
100,000)
3) In 1700, only two towns (Bristol and Norwich) with more
than 20,000 people; in course of 1700s, there would be others
E. Distribution of land (Gordon Mingay)
1) 20% great landlords
2) 60% gentry
3) 20% freeholders
F. Distribution of income (see Walter Arnstein=s
anthology)
3. Society (ranks and gradations, not upper, middle, and lower classes,
for the reality much more complex, with regional
variations and big differences
between urban and rural areas; paucity of data; bucolic biases
A. Their resources, lifestyles, and education
1) Peers (dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, barons)
2) Gentry (baronets, knights, esquires, mere gentlemen)
3) The middling sort--merchants, professionals, farmers, and
tradesmen, located mostly in towns
4) Laboring poor and paupers in country and towns
B. Historians know much more about the literate few than the many
C. Comparisons with European continent
D. Women in Georgian England
E. Family, children, apprenticeship, schools
F. Living standards: wages and prices; housing; food; clothing; entertainment
G. The poor law administered locally
H. Attitudes of the upper ranks toward the poor and vice versa
4. Economy--not simply mercantilism vs. liberalism or government control
vs. free markets or Dutch vs. French model, but
instead broken down into
different sectors at home and overseas
A. The biggest fortunes made in overseas trade beyond Europe
1) East India Company and the Pitt family
2) The Navigation Acts of 1650s-protectionism.
3) Atlantic trade most lucrative--slaves, sugar, tobacco
4) Big government contracts hinged on connections
B. Capital not idle, but invested
1) From royal charters to joint-stock companies
2) The Bank of England, the old lady of Threadneedle Street
3) Speculation and the backlash to the South Sea Bubble
C. Domestic industry localized, not lucrative
1) Cottage industry, labor-intensive, not capital-intensive
2) Textiles
3) Brewing
D. Agricultural revolutions by big landowners with capital
1) Better techniques, not machines
2) Breeding breakthroughs
3) Positive image of agriculture: "Farmer George"
E. Transportation improvements
1) Canals by local initiative
2) Turnpikes by users
F. Labor--last and least
1) A big pool, so pay was generally low
2) Wages in northern England half those in the south
3) Rural workers had to make 2/3 their annual income during the warm
months
5. An aristocratic case study: the Sykes of Sledmere, Yorkshire; the Kirby landowners married the Sykes banking family
and developed their estate; Capability Brown did the landscaping; the Adam brothers did the interiors; some of Professor
Adelson's experiences and impressions while doing research and living at Sledmere House in the early 1970s, and on
subsequent visits.
6. London--the political, economic, and cultural capital of the British Isles--has received much historical attention recently
A. London's population ( approx. 500,000 in the 1680s, 900,000 in
the 1780s) made it the largest city in all Europe (Paris
had 450-500,000 in this period, while the others had ca100,000 with Amsterdam, St. Petersburg and Vienna having ca200,000)
B. As the giant of the British Isles, London led in trade, politics, economics, and culture
C. London grew fast and sprawled mostly westward
1) The City of London--approx. 1/4 of Londoners live
in this small area, the country's trading center with
docks on the
Thames, commerce, exchange, finance
2) The largest concentration of overseas merchants,
substantial shopkeepers, cosmopolitan tradesmen
3) The most extensive institutions of self-government
in London's corporation, which enjoyed economic, municipal, and
political liberties.
4) To the south lay Westminster; further on the west
side of the Thames were the outer parishes of Middlesex D.
London's wealth critical to British world power: City credit, advances, contracts, interests.
E. Such wealth could support and/or corrupt the state and capitalist institutions
F. The center of modern capitalism from the eighteenth to
the twentieth century was different from the earlier so-called
Atraditional@,
Acommand@,
or Amarket@
economies
G. London's role in science, communications and culture, breaking down some parochialisms. According to Gary S. DeKrey: "the leaders of provincial society in many counties displayed a striking absorption of the capitalist mentality and the individualistic ethos of the City. The designation of metropolitan styles and standards of dress, decor, and deportment was integral to the development of the more homogeneous culture of the eighteenth -century ruling class.@
7. Law and Disorder
A. Historiographically active in England and North America
B. Crime in London and the countryside: petty & organized crime, drunkenness, colorful criminals; no police force except for local magistrates and Mr. Fielding's People
C. The administration of justice--the most serious criminal cases were usually tried by trained judges with the itinerant royal courts, called assizes; the more minor cases were handled by 3,000 justices of the peace foreach parish who did not have to be legally trained; the use of juries varied between these two levels.
D. There were no public prosecutors, so one had to pay to get a case tried, serve subpoenas, get witnesses, etc.
E. New legislation: the Riot Act of 1715; many capital crimes
F. Punishment: execution, incarceration, transportation
G. The ideology of law--majesty, equality, and mercy
H. Trends of the eighteenth century--crime declined in the countryside, but escalated in cities and towns.
8. Religion
A. Historiographically rather inactive since World War II
B. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 re-established the state church: the Corporation Act of 1661; Act of Uniformity of 1662 (those who did not conform became 11 nonconformists"); the Test Act of 1673; Act of Settlement of 1701 guaranteed protestant succession.
C. Institutionalized Anglicanism
1) Archbishops of Canterbury and York
2) 26 Bishops seated in the House of Lords
3) Clergy salaries paid by tithes
4) Church controlled schools and universities
5) Advowson on the parish level
6) Worldly complacency; science and reason
D. High Tory Churchmen vs. Whiggish Latitudinarianism
E. The Toleration Act of 1689
F. Non-Anglicans: Nonconformists, Occasional Conformists,
and Dissenters
G. The Amazing Methodists
1) John Wesley (1703-1791)
2) Upsetting the Anglican establishment
H. Evangelical spin-off inside and outside the state church led to
what R. K. Webb calls Aa
new seriousness"
9. Politics oligarchical on the local, national, and imperial levels, i.e.,
Aa government of the few,
for the few, and by the few@
10. Local politics were dominated by the aristocracy and the landed gentry
A. England's 3,000 parishes (eccelesiastical units)
1) Each parish had its own justice of the peace
2) With executive, legislative, and judicial functions
3) Held his position for life, and virtually irremovable
4) Ruled through the elected, unpaid members of the parish vestry (usually the priest, leading tenant farmers) who appointed
churchwardens, overseers of poor, constables and others.
5) J.P. and parish vestry could be sued by private citizens
B. England's 40 counties (2 parliamentary seats for each county)
1) Headed by the Lord Lieutenant, who was the leading political personage, known in Westminster and in the
county; the older, bigger his estate, the more influence
2) Ld. Lieut. not involved in day-to-day administration
and worshiped in his own home, not in parish church
3) Everyone who had a freehold worth 40 shillings a year
could vote in county elections--a fairly wide suffrage
C. England's 203 boroughs, with franchise from wide to narrow:
1) "Potwalloper "--everyone with a hearth to boil a pot in
2) "Scot & Lot"--everyone who paid these poor rates
3) "Freemen "--designated members of town corporations
4) "Corporate"-- the mayor and members of the town council
5) "Burgage"-owners of specified property
6) "Pocket" or "Rotten" --virtual property, mostly in south
D. Local politics directly affected more people than imperial affairs
10. National politics were dominated by the wealthy
A. The House of Commons
1) 489 members from England (80 from 40 counties; 4 from
Oxford & Cambridge Universities; 405 from boroughs) 24 from Wales
45 from Scotland 558 total MPs (Members of Parliament)
2) Elections expensive, but held at least every five years;
12 elections from 1689 to 1715; 13 from 1715 to 1800; MPs loosely divided into country or court party Sir Lewis Namier=s emphasis upon patronage, interests, and connections
B. The House of Lords
1) The numbers varied, but usually about 220
2) The 26 bishops voted with the Court The King in Parliament---" the king ruled as well as reigned," removing
the king's ministers and king's officers, dispensing court patronage
1) George 1 (1714-27)
2) George II (1727-60)
3) George III (1760-1820-regency from 1810 to 1820)
4) George IV (1820-1830)
9. Imperial politics and foreign affairs
A. War with France. During the years from 1689 to 1815, Britain fought France almost half those years: King William's and Queen Anne's
Wars (1689-1714); King George's War (1739-1748); Seven Years'
War (1756-1763); American War of Independence (1776-1783);
French Revolutionary War (1792-1802); Napoleonic War (1803-1815)
B. Eighteenth-century warfare, unlike "total warfare" in the
twentieth century involving civilians as well as the military,
was much smaller in scale, had aristocratic officer codes with
firing patterns for cannons and guns, relying on social dregs and
mercenaries; think of the Redcoats...
C. British cautious about "balance of power" in Europe, but
more aggressive about lucrative imperial trade in India and
the
Atlantic, which the British dominated
D. New historian, John Brewer: "the military-bureaucratic state"
E. The costs vs. profitability of war, Tories vs. Whigs
F. J.H. Plumb on Sir Robert Walpole in the 1720s and 1730s
G. The Earl of Chatham's championing the Seven Years' War
H. War debt doubled during Seven Years' War to f147,000
The new 5-volume Oxford History of the British Empire,
edited by William Roger Louis
10. Some political case studies of Aristocratic Britain
A. North America Questions--the colonists were not nationalists;
they were never more English than when they
demanded the
rights of Englishmen in 1776; nothing is inevitable until it happens;
AHA study of national biases in British and U.S. textbooks;
Yale as center for colonial historians, C.M. Andrews, E.P.Morgan,
and John Demos. A simplified
chronology:
1) Testing and compromise, 1763-1770
2) The quiet before the storm, 1770-1773
3) The crisis years, 1773-1776
4) The years of war, 1776-1783
B. New Questions about India--from company to parliamentary ontrol
C. John Wilkes, abortive reform, and the Gordon Riots of 1780
D. France from 1789 to 1815 confirmed Britain's prejudices against
democracy (French Revolution) and military rule
(Napoleon)