Georgian Witnesses: Great Britain & Ireland in the Long 18th Century, 1680-1840
This website is a web-companion to the book ‘The Georgians: The Deeds & Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain’ by Penelope J. Corfield.

GEORGIAN WITNESSES © 2022 | GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1680-1840

These Witness Listings are offered as a web-companion to
Penelope J. Corfield,
The Georgians:
The Deeds & Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain
(Yale University Press, 2022)

The book is available to buy online from Yale University Press (click for more information).

This book is available to buy online from Yale University Press. To order, or for more details, please click here

CAN I GET A WITNESS?

A witness throws light on things from the past – even from a long time ago. And witnesses equally reveal how so much of the past survives through time. And everything may bear witness, including:

songs – poems – plays – houses – gardens – trees – statues – battlefields – cemeteries – diaries – letters – novels – medals – paintings – ceramics – textiles – machines – transport systems – science – philosophy – the arts – bloodlines – legends – commemorations – as well as public records and private papers. 

EVERY WITNESS, HOWEVER, NEEDS
TO BE TESTED. NOTHING IS BEYOND DISPUTE. UNDERSTANDING THE PAST DEPENDS UPON TESTING AS WELL AS FINDING ALL POSSIBLE WITNESSES

Compiled by: Penelope J. Corfield
Illustrations by: Edwina Hannam
Design by: Edwina Hannam &
Suzanne Perkins/Grafica
SEO & Web Hosting by: Pilot Design

Index of listings

compiled in parallel with chapters in The Georgians

Listing 1: Introducing the Georgians – and placing them in historical context with three images of through-time linkages, plus three sets of symbols of Georgian Britain & Ireland and three intimate relics, signalling the immediacy of the past.

Listing 2: Nine travelogues (real + fictitious) plus six places to visit referencing immigration to Britain & Ireland and six places to visit overseas and in UK referencing British emigration.

Listing 3: Nine meditative / pessimistic C18 poems.

Listing 4: Six Georgian comedies.

Listing 5: Nine diaries from the long eighteenth century plus six places to visit in UK/ overseas referencing the globalisation of tastes.

Listing 6: Nine Georgian testimonies to the variegated arts of love plus nine Georgian novels about the quest for love and self-knowledge.

Listing 7: Three key Georgian educational resources plus nine Georgian libraries – cathedrals of the new world of literacy – plus one great Victorian library for good measure.

Listing 8: Nine Georgian contributions to religious worship plus nine monuments / contributions to scepticism.

Listing 9: Nine commemorations of Georgian power-broking, expressing a multi-faceted view of power by referencing taxation; military prowess; naval prowess; the civil service; the royal court; politicians in power; politicians in opposition; notable femocrats; parliament.

Listing 10: Six sites of contest, where different forms of popular politics were conducted ‘out-of-doors’ – both peacefully and at times with violence and bloodshed – plus one individual campaigner for political liberty.

Listing 11: Nine contributions to debates on social welfare, including three testimonies to mental anguish; plus three testimonies to the travails of poverty; plus two ballads about the gallows and one reasoned objection to the death penalty.

Listing 12: Nine contributions to Abolitionist campaigns against the slave trade and then against the institution of slavery, including the power of graphic imagery;  plus oratory; African testimony, theatre; petitions; and campaign organisation.

Listing 13: Testaments to grandeur and wealth, via nine conspicuous Georgian houses; plus nine great long-eighteenth-century gardens; plus nine monuments and/or follies.

Listing 14: Testaments to the emergent middle class, via five case-histories of families aspiring; rising; rising high; steady-stating; and failing; plus four commentaries on the ‘middle state’.

Listing 15: Testaments of Georgian workers, via  three different responses to industrial grievances – organised trade unionism – anonymous threats – Luddite machine-breaking; plus five different campaigners for a new social and/or political order; plus one anonymous song, greeting the advent of the workers (1795).

Listing 16: Georgian celebrity culture, illustrated by 300 non-royal and non-noble celebrities,  who achieved fame in their own day, plus one individual who lived and worked in obscurity but is now better known than most – but not all – of these celebs.

Listing 17: Georgian science and technology, illustrated via nine images of eighteenth-century craft workshops and industrial workplaces, plus two engineering feats plus one famous literary warning about the dangers of untrammelled invention.

Listing 18: Documenting Georgian Urbanisation via a selection of notable buildings and street scenes that survive today,  including nine Assembly Rooms; nine notable town houses; nine market houses or market crosses; nine Georgian town halls;  nine urban street scenes, nine town walks or promenades; nine Georgian theatres; nine Georgian artists who painted townscapes; and nine urban venues of special interest.

Listing 19: Perspectives on long-term assessments of the Georgian era, looking in turn at deep continuities; plus gradual evolutionary changes; plus drastic, sudden and revolutionary changes; and a final compound image of these categories interlocking.

Listing 20: names of 119 Georgians being actively commemorated today, by Societies founded in their names or to further their causes; plus four societies organised around significant eighteenth-century dates; plus the one Georgian outlaw who today has a football team named after him.

Coda – Listing 21: Three Georgian songs, of which two are often sung today.

The index of listings runs in parallel with chapters in ‘The Georgians: The Deeds & Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain’ by Penelope J. Corfield.
This website is a web-companion to the book ‘The Georgians: The Deeds & Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain’ by Penelope J. Corfield.

GEORGIAN WITNESSES © 2022 | GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1680-1840

These Witness Listings are offered as a web-companion to
Penelope J. Corfield, The Georgians:
The Deeds & Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain
(Yale University Press, 2022)

The book is available to buy online from Yale University Press (click for more information).

This book is available to buy online from Yale University Press.
To order, or for more details, please click here

CAN I GET A WITNESS?

A witness throws light on things from the past –
even from a long time ago.
And witnesses equally reveal how
so much of the past survives through time.
And everything may bear witness, including:

songs – poems – plays – houses – gardens – trees –
statues – battlefields – cemeteries –
diaries – letters – novels –
medals – paintings – ceramics –
textiles – machines – transport systems –
science – philosophy – the arts –
bloodlines – legends – commemorations –
as well as public records and private papers. 

EVERY WITNESS, HOWEVER, NEEDS TO BE TESTED.
NOTHING IS BEYOND DISPUTE.
UNDERSTANDING THE PAST DEPENDS UPON
TESTING AS WELL AS FINDING ALL POSSIBLE WITNESSES

Compiled by: Penelope J. Corfield
Illustrations by: Edwina Hannam
Design by: Edwina Hannam & Suzanne Perkins/Grafica
SEO & Web Hosting by: Pilot Design

Index of listings

compiled in parallel with chapters in The Georgians

Listing 1: Introducing the Georgians –
and placing them in historical context with three images of through-time linkages, plus three sets of symbols of Georgian Britain & Ireland and three intimate relics, signalling the immediacy of the past.

Listing 2: Nine travelogues (real + fictitious) plus six places to visit referencing immigration to Britain & Ireland and six places to visit overseas and in UK referencing British emigration.

Listing 3: Nine meditative/pessimistic C18 poems.

Listing 4: Six Georgian comedies.

Listing 5: Nine diaries from the long eighteenth century plus six places to visit in UK/ overseas referencing the globalisation of tastes.

Listing 6: Nine Georgian testimonies to the variegated arts of love plus nine Georgian novels about the quest for love and self-knowledge.

Listing 7: Three key Georgian educational resources plus nine Georgian libraries – cathedrals of the new world of literacy – plus one great Victorian library for good measure.

Listing 8: Nine Georgian contributions to religious worship plus nine monuments/contributions to scepticism.

Listing 9: Nine commemorations of Georgian power-broking, expressing a multi-faceted view of power by referencing taxation; military prowess; naval prowess; the civil service; the royal court; politicians in power; politicians in opposition; notable femocrats; parliament.

Listing 10: Six sites of contest, where different forms of popular politics were conducted ‘out-of-doors’ – both peacefully and at times with violence and bloodshed – plus one individual campaigner for political liberty.

Listing 11: Nine contributions to debates on social welfare, including three testimonies to mental anguish; plus three testimonies to the travails of poverty; plus two ballads about the gallows and one reasoned objection to the death penalty.

Listing 12: Nine contributions to Abolitionist campaigns against the slave trade and then against the institution of slavery, including the power of graphic imagery;  plus oratory; African testimony, theatre; petitions; and campaign organisation.

Listing 13: Testaments to grandeur and wealth, via nine conspicuous Georgian houses; plus nine great long-eighteenth-century gardens; plus nine monuments and/or follies.

Listing 14: Testaments to the emergent middle class, via five case-histories of families aspiring; rising; rising high; steady-stating; and failing; plus four commentaries on the ‘middle state’.

Listing 15: Testaments of Georgian workers, via  three different responses to industrial grievances – organised trade unionism – anonymous threats – Luddite machine-breaking; plus five different campaigners for a new social and/or political order; plus one anonymous song, greeting the advent of the workers (1795).

Listing 16: Georgian celebrity culture, illustrated by 300 non-royal and non-noble celebrities,  who achieved fame in their own day, plus one individual who lived and worked in obscurity but is now better known than most – but not all – of these celebs.

Listing 17: Georgian science and technology, illustrated via nine images of eighteenth-century craft workshops and industrial workplaces, plus two engineering feats plus one famous literary warning about the dangers of untrammelled invention.

Listing 18: Documenting Georgian Urbanisation via a selection of notable buildings and street scenes that survive today,  including nine Assembly Rooms; nine notable town houses;  nine market houses or market crosses; nine Georgian town halls;  nine urban street scenes, nine town walks or promenades; nine Georgian theatres; nine Georgian artists who painted townscapes; and nine urban venues of special interest.

Listing 19: Perspectives on long-term assessments of the Georgian era, looking in turn at deep continuities; plus gradual evolutionary changes; plus drastic, sudden and revolutionary changes; and a final compound image of these categories interlocking.

Listing 20: names of 119 Georgians being actively commemorated today, by Societies founded in their names or to further their causes; plus four societies organised around significant eighteenth-century dates; plus the one Georgian outlaw who today has a football team named after him.

Coda – Listing 21: Three Georgian songs, of which two are often sung today.

The index of listings runs in parallel with chapters in ‘The Georgians: The Deeds & Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain’ by Penelope J. Corfield.

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