Georgian jobs
Websites
Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Cotton Times – Children
www.cottontimes.co.uk/childreno4.htm
Extracts from interviews with former mill scavengers – children from the
age of four swept and maintained the cotton weaving machines, forced to work
14-hour days as virtual slaves.
Early 18th-century newspaper reports
www.infopt.demon.co.uk/grub/vagrants.htm
Newspaper articles from the early 1700s on vagrants, beggars and apprentice boys who frequently died at the gallows in 18th-century Britain. A real insight into the lives of the common people.
The English hermit
www.capra.group.shef.ac.uk/1/hermit.html
Account of John Harris, the 18th- and early 19th-century hermit, and the excavation
of what may have been his cave residence.
Foulridge: A brief history of the village
www.foulridgepc.co.uk/history_of_foulridge.htm
Interesting historical piece about this Lancastrian village and the Mile Tunnel near it, which remains one of the Georgian age's engineering achievements. Constructing the tunnel was a dangerous task and several 'navvies' and one poor 'legger' died of asphyxiation.
Georgian underworld
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/
G/georgian_underworld/
Looks at the great social upheavals of the age and examines why they came about
and what they led to.
Industrial Revolution
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook14.html
An excellent gateway site for information on agricultural, textile and engineering advancements of the 18th century, with essays on the resulting social reforms and new distinctions of class.
Textile industry
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Textiles.htm
Portal to a plethora of links to do with the 19th-century textile industry. Of particular relevance are the links under the heading ‘Life in a textile factory’, which cover accidents, food, working hours and much more.
Life at sea in the Royal Navy of the 18th century
www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/
life_at_sea_01.shtml
Historian Andrew Lambert went on a modern-day voyage to Australia on a replica
of Cook's ship Endeavour. He argues that the Royal Navy of the 18th
century offered a surprisingly decent life for professional sailors.
Smugglers cove
www.swgfl.org.uk/dorset/html/smuggler/
funding.htm
Brief account of smuggling and the role of the riding officer (tax collector)
of the 18th century.
The wages of skin
www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/
0,11710,1065521,00.html
Guardian article by James Fenton on life as an artist's
model in 18th-century London, and the rarity of finding any female models
named in the history books.
When castration was accepted
www.circumstitions.com/Castrati.html
Interesting article on the practice of castration through the ages, including
the 'castrati' of the 18th century.
Word of the day – Loblolly
www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?
date=20000829
The origins of this excellent word, used in the 18th century to refer to a
boy at sea working as the surgeon's assistant on a man-o'-war.
The Workhouse
www.workhouses.org.uk/
An account of the workhouses in 18th-century Britain – a fascinating mixture of social history, politics, economics and architecture.
Books
Dr.
Johnson's London: Everyday life in London in the mid-18th century by
Liza Picard (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001)
Fascinating account of realities of life in the city of Hogarth, Fielding and
Dr Johnson, based on contemporary evidence.
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this book
Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London by Tim Hitchcock (Hambledon & London, 2004)
Packed with anecdotes and biographies of the poor in 18th-century London.
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this book
Eighteenth-century Popular Culture: A selection, edited by John Mullan and Christopher Reid (Oxford University Press, 2000)
Articles examining particular themes, such as crime, religious enthusiasm and popular politics, by telling the stories of notorious criminals. The book also illustrates how the very idea of popular culture was formed in the period.
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English Society in the 18th Century by Roy Porter (Penguin, 1990)
Boldly drawn portrait of 18th-century England that defines a nation from its
princes to its paupers, from the metropolis to the smallest hamlet. The topics
covered run the gamut; diet, housing, prisons, philanthropy, bordellos, plays,
paintings, work and wages.
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this book
The First Industrial Revolution by Phyllis Deane (Cambridge University
Press, 1980)
Identifies the strategic changes in economic organisation, industrial structure
and technological progress that took place in Britain between 1750 and 1850.
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this book
Nollekens and his Times by J T Smith (Pimlico, 1986)
Biography of a Georgian sculptor of Flemish origin who used female models for
his work. This is a rare example of a book that mentions a paid female model
by name, Bet Belmanno.
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this book
Con Men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian underworld,
edited by Lucy Moore (Penguin, 2002)
Presents the 18th-century criminal underworld, with extracts from popular journalism
and biographical accounts of infamous thieves and murderers, whores and highwaymen,
pirates and fraudsters.
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this book
The World of the Castrati: The history of an extraordinary operatic
phenomenon by Patrick Barbier (Souvenir Press, 1998)
A study of the phenomenon of the castrati in relation to the Baroque period,
which looks at the lives of 60 singers over three centuries. Explores their
social origins, backgrounds, training and debuts, careers, relations with society
and the Church, and their decline and deaths.
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this book
The Wooden World: Anatomy of the Georgian navy by N A M Rodger (Fontana Press, 1988)
Well-researched history of the royal navy, written with authority.
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