Seminar 7
Seminar Questions
- Assess the repercussions of the American Revolution on British Politics.
- Who were the targets of the Gordon rioters and why?
- How 'popular' were radical movements before 1832?
- Who were the Wilkites?
- How did Wilkes exploit the press?
- How was the Wilkes affair represented in popular culture?
- Was the eighteenth century a time of press freedom?
- How important was print culture in shaping public opinion?
The American Revolution
B Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire
C Bonwick, English Radicals and the American Revolution
J Bradley, Popular politics and the American revolution in England
I Christie, Crisis of Empire: Great Britain and the American colonies
J Derry, British politics and the American revolution
P Langford, ‘London and the American Revolution’ in J Stevenson (ed.), London in the Age of Reform
P Marshall, The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Eighteenth century
P D G Thomas, ‘George III and the American Revolution’, History, 1985
K Wilson, The sense of the people
Wilkes and radicalism
J Bradley, Religion, revolution, and English radicalism
J Brewer, Common People and Politics
J Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III
J Brewer (ed.), An Ungovernable people
I R Christie, Wilkes, Wyvill and Reform
L Colley, Britons
History of Parliament, 1745-1790 (section on Middlesex)
G Rude, Wilkes and Liberty
G Rude, 'The Middlesex electors of 1768-9', Eng.H.R. 1960
J Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England, 1700-1832
P Thomas, ‘The House of Commons and the Middlesex Elections of 1768-9’, Parliamentary History, 1993
P.D.G. Thomas, ‘John Wilkes and the Freedom of the Press’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 1960
K Wilson, The sense of the people
D Wright, Popular Radicalism
The Gordon Riots
George Rudé, ‘The Gordon rioters and their victims’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1956
N Rogers, ‘Crowd and people in the Gordon riots’ in E Hellmuth (ed.), The Transformation of Political Culture
N Rogers, Crowds, Culture and Politics in Georgian Britain
Print Culture
R. Alston, ‘The British Book Trade, 1701 to 1800’, Publishing History, 1984
A. Aspinall, ‘The circulation of newspapers in the early nineteenth century’, Review of English Studies (1946)
I. Christie, ‘British newspapers in the later Georgian Age’, in I. Christie, Myth and Reality in Late Eighteenth-Century British Politics
G.A. Cranfield, The Development of the Provincial Newspaper, 1700-1760
M. Harris, ‘The Management of the London Newspaper Press during the Eighteenth Century’, Publishing History, 1978
M. Harris, and A. Lee (eds.), The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
E.Hellmuth, ‘The palladium of all other English liberties: reflections on the liberty of the press in England during the 1760s and 17702’ in Hellmuth (ed.), The Transformation of Political Culture
A. Jones, Powers of the Press: Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth Century England
C. R. Kropf, ‘Libel and Satire in the Eighteenth Century’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 1974-5
W.C. Lowe, ‘Peers and Printers: The Beginnings of Sustained Press Coverage of the House of Lords in the 1770s, Parliamentary History, 1988
M. Peters, Pitt and Popularity: the patriot minister and London opinion during the Seven Years War
J. Raymond (ed.), News, Newspapers and Society in early modern Britain
D. Read, Press and People 1790-1850: opinion in three English Cities
P.D.G. Thomas, ‘The Beginning of Parliamentary Reporting in the Newspapers, 1768-1774’, English Historical Review, 1959
R.B. Walker, ‘The Newspaper press in the reign of William III’, Historical Journal, 1974