Georgian

Newspapers and Politics in the 18th century

‘Have the authors of a two-penny weekly journal, a right to make a national inquiry'? 18th-century governments thought not and neither did the newspapers’ readers of the time.

Georgian Liverpool’s battle for the Big Society

In the late 18th century the merchants, manufacturers and traders of Liverpool founded one of the first chambers of commerce in Britain with the aim of promoting the local economy. Bob Bennett looks at early parallels with the Coalition government’s plans for local partnerships.

Georgian Ghosts: An Aristocratic Spectre

A series of violent attacks by pale shrouded figures on lone pedestrians, especially women, was widely reported in the early 19th century. Jacob Middleton uncovers the sham ghosts of Georgian London.

Flights of Georgian Fancy

Lucy Worsley reveals the strange stories of the cast of characters on the King’s Grand Staircase at Kensington Palace, painted by William Kent for George I in the 1720s.

Peter the Wild Boy

A mysterious child from northern Germany, portrayed by William Kent on the King’s Grand Staircase, became one of the sensations of the Georgian age, as Roger Moorhouse explains.

General Wolfe’s Men in Quebec

In 1759 a British army under General James Wolfe won a momentous battle on the Plains of Abraham. A neglected ingredient in Wolfe’s dramatic victory was the professionalism of the army he had helped to create.