Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:01:38.403Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Eighteenth-Century English Politics: Recent Work and Current Problems*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Jeremy Black
Get access

Extract

The Annual Bibliography of British and Irish History published for 1991, contains 393 items in section G, “Britain 1714-1815,” a section that excludes works devoted to “long periods” that also cover the period. Of those 393, twenty were in Ga “General,” thirty-six in Gb, “Politics,” eight in Gc “Constitution, Administration and Law,” thirty-two in Gd “External Affairs” and thirty-seven in Ge “Religion.” Though politics is in theory restricted to Gb, in practice it overlaps with these other categories, and, indeed, in part, with the categories Economic Affairs, Social Structure and Population, Naval and Military, and Intellectual and Cultural. Restricting, however, the survey to Gb, the figures for 1988, 1989 and 1990 respectively were fifty-six, fifty-two and fifty-four. It is thus clear that while political history no longer dominates eighteenth-century historiography as it once did, there is still a formidable quantity of it produced. This is not a situation to be regretted, but it does emphasize the subjectivity of any assessment of recent work and of current problems. Such a situation, however, is not simply a question of problems derived from quantity, for any attempt to produce an historiographical account focusing on earlier scholarship would itself encounter many difficulties. The absence of consensus among modern scholars extends to their assessment of historiographical trends. This was demonstrated clearly by Jonathan Clark in 1986. Having, the previous year, in his English Society 1688-1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 1985), asserted the strength of conservatism and religious identity and the marginality of reform and radicalism in eighteenth-century England, he offered, inter alia, in his Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1986), a combative interpretation of the methodology and historiography of the period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , Fall 1993 , pp. 419 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank John Deny, David Eastwood, William Gibson, and Colin Haydon for their comments on earlier drafts.

References

1 Sharpe, K., Kishlansky, M., Schwoerer, L. and Dickinson, H. T., “Symposium: Revolution and Revisionism,” Parliamentary History 7 (1988): 328–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Clark has recently summarized his views in “Reconceptualizing Eighteenth-Century England,” British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 15 (1992): 135–39Google Scholar.

2 Rousseau, O. S., “Revisionist Polemics: J. C. D. Clark and the Collapse of Modernity in the Age of Johnson,” in The Age of Johnson, 3, ed. Korshin, P. J. (New York, 1989), pp. 423–52Google Scholar.

3 Holmes, O., British Politics in the Age of Anne (London, 1967; repr. London, 1986)Google Scholar, prefaced by a long historiographical review. Holmes's essays and articles have been collected together in Politics, Religion and Society in England, 1679–1742 (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

4 O'Gorman, F., The Whig Party and the French Revolution (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

5 Hill, B. W., The Growth of Parliamentary Parties 1689–1742 (London, 1976)Google Scholar, British Parliamentary Parties 1742–1832 (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

6 Colley, L. J., In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party 1714–60 (Cambridge, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cruickshanks, E., Political Untouchables: The Tories and the '45 (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Clark, J. C. D., The Dynamics of Change: The Crisis of the 1750s and English Party Systems (Cambridge, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Thomas, , “Party Politics,” p. 202Google Scholar.

8 Brewer, J., Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Thomas, , “Party Politics,” p. 203Google Scholar.

10 Colley, , Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, 1992), pp. 72, 392 n 45Google Scholar.

11 McLynn, F. J., Charles Edward Stuart (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Monod, P. K., Jacobitism and the English People, 1688–1788 (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar; Szechi, D., Jacobitism and Tory Politics, 1710–1714 (Edinburgh, 1984)Google Scholar.

12 Colley, , Namier (London, 1989)Google Scholar, is the most successful recent treatment of the influences on a major academic, though there is possibly too little close scrutiny of Namier's work in the History of Parliament.

13 Lottes, G., Polltische Aufklärung undplebejisches Publikum: Zur Theorie und Praxis der englischen Radikatismus im spáten 18. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1979)Google Scholar; Wellenreuther, H., “Korruption und das Wesen der englischen Verfassung im 18. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 234 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Winlder, K., “Nachzensur und kommerzialisierte Publizistik: Zur obrigkeitlichen Kontrolle des Tagesschrifttums in der Ara Walpole,” in Unmoralisch an sich! Zensurim 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Gosfert, H. G. and Weyrauch, E. (Wolfenbuttel, 1988) pp. 149–76Google Scholar, and “The forces of the market and the London newspaper in the first half of the eighteenth century,” Journal of Newspaper and Periodical History 4/2 (1988): 22–35Google Scholar; Abbattista, O., Commercio, Colonie e Impero alia vigilia della Rivoluzione Americana: John Campbell pubblicista e storico nell' Inghilterra del sec. XVIII (Florence, 1990)Google Scholar; Kleinhenz, R., Königtum und parlamentarische Vertrauensfrage in England 1689–1841 (Berlin, 1991)Google Scholar.

14 Gascoigne, J., Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment. Science, Religion and Politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Peters, M., Pitt and Popularity: The Patriot Minister and London Opinion during the Seven Years War (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar, and “Historians and the eighteenth-century English press: a review of possibilities and problems,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 34 (1988): 37–50Google Scholar.

16 Monod, , Jacobitism, pp. 8–10Google Scholar.

17 Bahlman, D. W. R., The Moral Revolution of 1688 (New Haven, 1957)Google Scholar; Curtis, T. C. and Speck, W. A., “The Societies for the Reformation of Manners: a case study in the theory and practice of moral reform,” Literature and History 3 (1976): 45–62Google Scholar; Isaacs, T., “The Anglican Hierarchy and the Reformation of Manners,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 33 (1982): 391–411CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Innes, J., “Politics and Morals: The Reformation of Manners Movement in Later Eighteenth-Century England,” in The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century, ed. Hellmuth, E. (Oxford, 1990), pp. 57–118Google Scholar; Hayton, D., “Moral Reform and Country Politics in the Late Seventeenth-Century House of Commons,” Past and Present 128 (1990): 48–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rose, C., “Evangelical Philanthropy and Anglican Revival: the Charity Schools of Augustan London, 1698–1740,” London Journal 16 (1991): 35–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Hainsworth, D. R., Stewards, Lords and People: The Estate Steward and His World in Later Stuart England (Cambridge, 1992), p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Ideology can be approached through Dickinson, , Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Clark, English Society; Philp, M., ed., The French Revolution and British Popular Politics (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Innes, , “Politics, Property and the Middle Class,” Parliamentary History 11 (1992): 291Google Scholar.

21 McCahill, M. W., Order and Equipoise: The Peerage and the House of Lords, 1783–1806 (London, 1978), pp. 90–112Google Scholar; Thome, R. G., ed., The House of Commons, 1790–1820, 5 vols. (London, 1986), 1: 335Google Scholar; Handley, S., “Local Legislative Initiatives for Economic and Social Development in Lancashire, 1689–1731,” Parliamentary History 9 (1990): 14–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Innes, , “Parliament and the Shaping of Eighteenth-Century English Social Policy,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser., 40 (1990): 63–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Stevenson, J., ed., London in the Age of Reform (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar; DeKrey, G. S., A Fractured Society: The Politics of London in the First Age of Party, 1688–1715 (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar.

23 Barry, J., “The press and the politics of culture in Bristol, 1660–1775,” in Culture, Politics and Society in Britain, 1660–1800, ed. Black, and Gregory, J. (Manchester, 1991), pp. 49–81Google Scholar.

24 Newton, R., Eighteenth Century Exeter (Exeter, 1984)Google Scholar.

25 Knox, T. R., “Popular Politics and Provincial Radicalism: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1769–1785,” Albion 11 (1979): 220–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, “Wilkism and the Newcastle Election of 1774,” Durham University Journal 72 (1979–1980): 23–37Google Scholar, “‘Bowes and Liberty’: The Newcastle By-election of 1777,” Durham University Journal 77 (1985): 149–64Google Scholar, “‘Peace for Ages to come’: The Newcastle Elections of 1780 and 1784,” Durham University Journal 84 (1992): 3–19Google Scholar.

26 On Bristol, London and Norwich, Rogers, N., Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and Pitt (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar.

27 Bradley, J. E., Popular Politics and the American Revolution in England: Petitions, the Crown, and Public Opinion (Macon, Ga., 1986), pp. 59–89Google Scholar, and Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism: Non-conformity in Eighteenth-Century Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 195–330CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Bourne, J., Georgian Tiverton: The Political Memoranda of Beavis Wood, 1768–98 (Exeter, 1986)Google Scholar; Phillips, J. A., “From Municipal Matters to Parliamentary Principles: Eighteenth-Century Maidstone,” Journal of British Studies 27 (1988): 327–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Fisk, J., ed., The Oakes Diaries: Business, Politics and the Family in Bury St. Edmunds, 1778–1827, vol. 1 (Woodbridge, 1990), p. 131Google Scholar.

30 Urdank, Religion and Society, pp. 125–27Google Scholar.

31 Rollison, D., The Local Origins of Modern Society: Gloucestershire, 1500–1800 (London, 1992), p. 7Google Scholar.

32 By Force or by Default? The Revolution of 1688, ed. Cruickshanks, E. (Edinburgh, 1989)Google Scholar, is the most “revisionist” of the commemorative volumes.

33 Haydon, C., Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England (Manchester, 1993)Google Scholar.

34 De Krey, , Fractured Society, pp. 74–120Google Scholar; Barry, , “Culture in Bristol,” p. 52Google Scholar; Bradley, , Popular Politics, pp. 211–12Google Scholar; O'Gorman, , Voters, pp. 350–52, 359–68Google Scholar; Phillips, J. A., Electoral Behavior in Unreformed England (Princeton, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Hole, R., Pulpits, Politics and Public Order in England, 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mather, F. C., High Church Prophet: Bishop Samuel Horsley (1733-1806) and the Caroline Tradition in the Later Georgian Church (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sack, J. J., From Jacobite to Conservative: Reaction and Orthodoxy in Britain, c. 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar.

36 Warne, A., Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century Devon (Newton Abbot, 1969), pp. 92–93Google Scholar.

37 Clark, , English Society, 1688–1832 (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar, and “England's Ancien Regime As a Confessional State,” Albion 21 (1989): 450–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 The Archdeaconry of Richmond in the Eighteenth Century: Bishop Gastrell's “Notita,” the Yorkshire Parishes 1714–1725, ed. Butler, L. (Leeds, 1990)Google Scholar; The Diocese of Uandaff in 1763: The Primary Visitation of Bishop Ewer, ed. Guy, J. R. (Cardiff, 1991)Google Scholar; Barrie-Curien, V., Clerge et Pastorale en Angleterre an XVIII siècle: le Diocese de Londres (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar.

3 Virgin, P., The Church in an Age of Negligence: Ecclesiastical Structure and Church Reform, 1700–1840 (Cambridge, 1989), p. 267Google Scholar; Gibson, W. T., Church, State and Society, 1760–1850 (London, 1993)Google Scholar.

40 Rogers, , “Riot and Popular Jacobitism in Early Hanoverian England,” in Ideology and Conspiracy: Aspects of Jacobitism 1689–1759 (Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 70–88Google Scholar; Monod, , Jacobitism, pp. 161–232Google Scholar; Ditchfield, G. M., “The Priestley Riots in Historical Perspective,” Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society 20 (1991): 3–16Google Scholar.

41 Rogers, , “The Gordon Riots Revisited,” Canadian Historical Association Historical Papers (1988): 16–34Google Scholar; Haydon, , “The Gordon Riots in the English Provinces,” Historical Research 63 (1990): 354–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Porter, R., “English Society in the Eighteenth Century Revisited,” in British Politics and Society from Walpole to Pitt 1742–1789, ed. Black, J. (London, 1990), pp. 29–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See more generally Porter's, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (2nd ed.; Hardmonsworth, 1990)Google Scholar, and most recently his “Georgian Britain: An Ancien Regime?” British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies 9 (1992): 141–44Google Scholar.

43 Introduction in Brewer, J. and Porter, , eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (1993), p. 6Google Scholar.

44 The subject is discussed in Hellmuth, E., ed., The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1990), pp. 1–36Google Scholar, Black, , “Convergence or Divergence?: Britain and the Continent 1660–1992,” Centre for European Studies Working Paper (Durham, 1992)Google Scholar.

45 Brewer, , Sinews, pp. 61–63Google Scholar.

46 Reid, P., The Concept of Representation in the Age of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1989)Google Scholar.

47 Gregg, E., Queen Anne (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Hatton, R., George I (London, 1978)Google Scholar; Owen, J. B., “George II Reconsidered,” in Statesmen, Scholars and Merchants, ed. Whiteman, A., et al. (Oxford, 1973), pp. 113–34Google Scholar.

48 Black, , A System of Ambition? British Foreign Policy 1660–1793 (Harlow, 1991), pp. 12–42Google Scholar.

49 Newman, A., The World Turned Inside Out: New Views on George II (Leicester, 1988)Google Scholar.

50 Brooke, J., King George III (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Christie, , “George III and the Historians—Thirty Years On,” History 71 (1986): 205–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomas, , “George III and the American Revolution,” History 70 (1985): 16–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Black, , Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain (London, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Pitt the Elder (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar; Lawson, P., George Grenville (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar; Schweizer, K. W., ed., Lord Bute: Essays in Re-interpretation (Leicester, 1988)Google Scholar; Mitchell, L. G., Charles James Fox (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jupp, P., Lord Grenville, 1759–1834 (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar; Ehiman, J., The Younger Pitt: The Reluctant Transition (London, 1983)Google Scholar. There is also a recent useful series of annotated bibliographies, Harvey, A. D., William Pitt the Younger (Westport, Conn., 1988)Google Scholar, and Lord Grenville (Westport, Conn., 1989)Google Scholar; Schweitzer, D., Charles James Fox (Westport, Conn., 1991)Google Scholar; Cornish, R. T., George Grenville (Westport, Conn., 1992)Google Scholar.

52 McCahill, M. W., Order and Equipoise: The Peerage and the House of Lords, 1783–1806 (Woodbridge, 1978)Google Scholar; C. and Jones, D. L., eds., Peers, Politics and Power: The House of Lords, 1603–1911 (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Jones, C., ed., A Pillar of the Constitution: The House of Lords in British Politics, 1640–1784 (London, 1989)Google Scholar.

53 Thorne, R. G., ed., The House of Commons, 1790–1820, 5 vols. (London, 1986)Google Scholar; useful review article by Party, J., “Constituencies, Elections and Members of Parliament, 1790–1820,” Parliamentary History 7 (1988): 147–60Google Scholar.

54 O'Brien, P. K., “Political preconditions for the Industrial Revolution,” in The Industrial Revolution and British Society, ed. O'Brien, and Quinault, R. (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 124–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Wilson, K., “Empire, Trade and Popular Politics in Mid-Hanoverian Britain: The Case of Admiral Vernon,” Past and Present 121 (1988): 74–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jordan, G. and Rogers, N., “Admirals as Heroes: Patriotism and Liberty in Hanoverian England,” Journal of British Studies 28 (1989): 201–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marshall, P. J., “‘Cornwallis Triumphant’: War in India and the British Public in the Late Eighteenth Century,” in War, Diplomacy and International Politics: Essays in Honour of Sir Michael Howard, ed. Freedman, L., Hayes, P., and O'Neill, R. (Oxford, 1992), pp. 57–74Google Scholar.

56 Sutherland, L. S., The East India Company in Eighteenth Century Politics (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar; Lawson, , The Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution (Montreal, 1989)Google Scholar; Bowen, H., Revenue and Reform: The Indian Problem in British Politics, 1757–1773 (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Thomas, , British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution, 1763–1767 (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar, The Townshend Duties Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767–1773 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar, Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, 1773–1776 (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar.

58 Bullion, J. L., A Great and Necessary Measure: George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act, 1763–1765 (Columbia, Missouri, 1982)Google Scholar; Donoughue, B., British Politics and the American Revolution: The Path to War 1773–1775 (London, 1964)Google Scholar; Clayton, T. R., “Sophistry, Security and Socio-Political Structures in the American Revolution, or Why Jamaica did not rebel,” Historical Journal 29 (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perry, K., British Politics and the American Revolution (London, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Black, , War for America: The Fight for American Independence (Stroud, 1991)Google Scholar; Clark, , The Language of Liberty: Political Discourse and Social Dynamics in the Anglo-American World, 1660–1800 (Cambridge, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Black, , The Politics of Britain, 1688–1800 (Manchester, 1993)Google Scholar.