This article seeks to nuance our understanding of how the penal laws against Roman Catholics were interpreted in eighteenth-century England and how English Catholics of the era experienced their status as a penalised minority. Using evidence from Ushaw Library’s Vincent Eyre Mansucripts, it examines how propertied Catholics navigated proscriptions against owning and selling property. Although much scholarship has emphasised the flexibility that the statutes afforded Catholics, this article focuses not on the enforcement of these laws but on the pressure they exerted on Catholics’ daily consciousness. Vincent Eyre, a Derbyshire conveyancer, trained under Catholic conveyancers in London and worked as agent for the tenth Duke of Norfolk in Sheffield. His manuscripts, which consist principally of legal opinions and briefs on conveyancing cases, testify to the pervasive uncertainty under which Catholics laboured as they sought to assert a ‘good title’ to property, protect their faith from legal discovery, and assert their standing as subjects despite laws that disabled them from full belonging to the nation. This article builds on recent work that charts Catholics’ affective experiences in eighteenth-century Britain as their dynamic contributions in the period are increasingly recognized.

Adolph Hummel, from Hesse, established in Soho a music publishing business that lasted 12 years (1760–1772). His publishing strategy differed in several ways from that commonly adopted by London publishers: he published only foreign-born (mostly German or Italian) composers; he did not issue vocal music; and, while taking the common routes of advertising his publications by notices in contemporary newspapers and listing issues in the imprints to title pages, he was highly unusual in that he produced no catalogue. He was also unusual in obtaining a royal licence to protect his copyright. He was the first publisher in London to issue a string quartet, and possibly the first to add violin accompaniments to already-published solo harpsichord sonatas to create accompanied sonatas. He was probably related to the Hummel music publishing brothers of the Netherlands. Personal information about him is hard to come by, but we know that Frau Anna Maria Mozart was godmother to his youngest child; he was a particular friend of J. C. Bach; he was prosecuted, for an undisclosed reason, by the musician Rudolf Straube; and he was the founder of three generations of the musical ‘English Hummells’. The final part of this article comprises a detailed catalogue of Hummel’s publications.

One of the most important and valuable resources available to researchers of eighteenth-century social history are the lists of subscribers that were attached to a wide variety of publications. Yet, the study of this type of source material remains one of the areas most neglected by academics. These lists shed considerable light on the connections that an author or composer had with other like-minded individuals and the support that they received from members of the middle and upper classes. In cases where a single composer published a series of works by subscription, there is an opportunity to gain an insight into the growth of the public's appreciation of the composer and the contacts he or she forged over the course of a lifetime. Charles Avison is one of the best known British composers from the eighteenth century. He issued six works by subscription between 1740 and 1767 and they together provide a unique insight into his growth into one of this country's leading native musicians. Although a respectable number of the associations discussed are already known through other sources, this study not only reinforces the importance of these associations, but additionally gives an insight into those links for which there is no other known evidence. This research ultimately reveals that Avison's location in the North-East of England did not significantly impact on his ability to forge connections across Britain and beyond.

One of the most important and valuable resources available to researchers of eighteenth-century social history are the lists of subscribers that were attached to a wide variety of publications. Yet, the study of this type of resource remains one of the areas most neglected by academics. These lists shed considerable light on the nature of those who subscribed to music, including their social status, place of employment, residence, and musical interests. They naturally also provide details as to the gender of individual subscribers.

As expected, subscribers to most musical publications were male, but the situation changed considerably as the century progressed, with more females subscribing to the latest works by the early nineteenth century. There was also a marked difference in the proportion of male and female subscribers between works issued in the capital cities of London and Edinburgh and those written for different genres. Female subscribers also appear on lists to works that they would not ordinarily be permitted to play. Ultimately, a broad analysis of a large number of subscription lists not only provides a greater insight into the social and economic changes that took place in Britain over the course of the eighteenth century, but also reveals the types of music that were favoured by the members of each gender.