The 18thC Concept of
‘Environment’
Professor David Fairer, of the School of English, kicked off
with a talk on ‘Eco-Georgic: Organic Economies in the Eighteenth Century’. He stressed
that the 18thC concept of environment was all embracing including the social,
the political, the cultural, human relationships, human interaction with other
forms of life, the economy of nature, needs, constraints and processes. He
argued that there had been an over concentration with ‘environmental’/’green’
sensibilities of the Romantics from the 1790s, at the expense of those
sensibilities throughout the Century. A
particularly useful point he made was that access to waste materials on common
land enabled the poor to have access to resources and develop their own
networks of exchange. These were diminished by the process of enclosure.
The State of the
Discipline
Because of the number of parallel panels in each section of
the timetable it is always a difficult choice to decide which one to attend. I
went to the one considering the state of the discipline. This was designed to
reflect on what had emerged from the excellent assessments of work on 18thC
Studies that had appeared in the current issue of BSECS Journal. The assessments cover a wide range of
specialist disciplines from politics to music, to expansion of specialisms including
medicine, and reviews of literature from other parts of the world. Developing
trends in recent years have included the triumph of cultural history over
political and economic history, a growing emphasis on material culture e.g. the
history of the book as a physical object, and a growing emphasis on consumption
rather than production such as the way
audiences reacted to music. There has been an emphasis on micro rather than
macro history and a decline in theory. The big data base projects driven by
funding have opened up considerably more
resources for historians, but have not yet shown to what extent they will
change understanding.
There has been a complete reassessment of the role of
religion in what was supposed to be the Age of Enlightenment and the
relationship between the Anglican Church and its parishioners. But all the work
on religion needs to be integrated within the wider picture. This is certainly
proving the case in the work I am involved in with the North East Popular
Politics Project, in which religious sermons and controversies are proving a
valuable source of understanding about the development of ideas of democracy
and governance within the different religious groupings, and the degree to
which ministers should be involved in political affairs.
There is clearly a tension between political and literary
historians and the degree to which students of 18thC literature should be
learning about the context in which novels were written or should concentrate
on close reading.
Penny Corfield told the panel that 18thC history was in a
confident state with growing student interest compared with a decline in the Tudor/Stuart
period. She had identified about 20,000 items of output in recent years, which
means that individual historians cannot keep up with the literature. The
democratisation of history through the web and databases is also overwhelming
historians.
Periodisation
While the Panel Chair Matthew Grenby pressed the panellists
very hard on the issue of whether 18thC Studies should continue to
be a category, none of them put up a
solid defence of why the Long 18thC was an important time periodisation. The
period 1688-1832 sees Britain between two constitutional crises, the first
through a coup d’etat and the second a conservative gesture to reform, in
between which it moves from being a marginal European to major international
player. The impact on the rest of the
world was enormous, even if for other parts of the world the concept of the
18thC has no relevance. Large areas were affected by the globalistion of trade,
colonisation, slavery and war, in which Britain was at the heart.
Democratisation and
Archival Material and Databases
The second issue in the debate is the degree to which the
‘democratisation’ through the web and databases is real. Much is only available on subscription or
being attached to an academic institution. The army of local, family and non-academic
specialist historians are at a great disadvantage.
There is the continuing problem of large amounts of archive
material not being catalogued or print catalogues not being on the web. These
last two points are of course not limited to 18thC studies.
Another concern is the long time it takes for the fantastic
work that is done by non-academics to filter into academic books and new
analyses of the period, and the lack of
close interaction between the academic
and non-academic history worlds (except where engagement is a funding
requirement, and commitment of some academics as individuals).
The Debate in 2010
Interestingly some of the above issues were discussed were
the same as those at the Long 18thC Seminar at the Institute of Historical
Research in February 2010. Most of those attending were postgraduate students
or those who had recently completed their PhDs. Their topics ranged over public
order control ion the second half of the 18thC, disorderly neighbourhoods in
the East End, charity and poverty, 18thC tickets as illustrative of social
relationships, the use of the cottage idea to improve the poor and the poor’s
reaction, shoplifting, women travellers to and from the Caribbean and Central
America, divorce cases as illustrative of power relationships, crowd formation
at public punishment sites, and textiles for babies left at the Foundlings
Hospital. Interestingly mature postgraduates were critical of some academics
who do not know how the real world works and make assumptions about what things
may have been in the past. The questions arising from the discussion included
whether the big data based projects enable a re-interpretation of the lives of
ordinary people, their place in society, the reactions of the upper and middle
classes, of the Anglican Church and other Protestant faith groups and of
Government. On slavery the question was posed as to whether the new work had begun
to provide the basis for a re-examination of the 18thC British economy, and
whether the work of English Heritage and the National Trust on the English
country house and slavery and the UCL Slave ownership project make for the
further need for re-interpretation. To what extent can the growth of the
anti-slavery movement be linked to other changes in social attitudes about the
problems facing the poor crime, and other social problems, and to the analysis
of concepts such as ‘civility’; and the control of human passions, the importance of education and self-education,
the development of civil society, the development of self-regulated
professions, the typing of different peoples as savages? Do some of the
disorderly neighbourhoods continue through the 19th and 20thC to be
ones characterised by social and economic disadvantage and disorderliness? How
many family and business archive collections which have not be fully catalogued
are full of tickets, leaflets and programmes giving details of ticketed events?
In the nature of the timescales of research and publication it is clearly too
soon to have answers, but these might be interesting issues to feature at
future BSECS Conferences and an annual assessment of the state of 18thC studies
in the Journal or on the BSECS website.
The Art of Gardens
The Art of Gardens Panel comprised three papers. Laurent Chatel
discussed environment, conservation and utopia in 18thC English Gardens, Felix
Vogel, Hirschfield’s ‘Theory of Garden’ and the politics of a ‘healthy
landscape’ and James Stevens Curl ‘Transformations: 18th Century
Landscape-Garden to Garden Cemetery’.
Chalel argued that there was too much concentration of the
aesthetics of nature on the picturesque and the sublime. He addressed the same
issue as in Fairer’s lecture, the extent to which there was a kind of
commitment to nature, a kind of environment/green awareness throughout the
18thC. He said that according to Roy
Porter it was Thomas Carlyle who first coined the word ‘environment’ in
1820. He argued that the Georgian period
laid the foundation of a ‘green discourse’.
Vogel’s talk about Hirschfield, a German writer (1742-92), concentrated
on his emphasis on the health aspects of gardens, the importance of fresh air
and breezes and being on higher ground away from pockets of dampness. He argued
the importance of plants and natural areas in urban settings, and the need for
public gardens to meet the needs of assembly, health, exercise and walking, to recoup from the day’s labour.
Death and Gardens
It was the reaction to the unhealthy state of many church
burial grounds that led to the development of cemeteries separate from
churches, argued James Curl. He pointed out the importance for those who
travelled to India of seeing the Calcutta Necropolis Cemetery from the 1760s. He discussed the way in which particularly
French freemasons developed the idea of putting tombs in gardens partly as a
political statement e.g. the creation of an island for Rosseau’s tomb, and
memorials to massacred Huguenots. The development of cemeteries not attached to
particular churches helped to loosen the hold of the Church.
Curl did not draw attention to Jonathan Tyers, the owner and
manager of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (1728-1762) whose sombre, religious,
death-fixated theme of his Denbies country estate garden with its Temple of Death, an 8-acre grove 'Il
Penseroso', a monument to Lord Petrie, a garden called the 'Valley of the
Shadow of Death, a gateway in the form of coffins on their ends topped with
skulls, contrasted with Vauxhall Gardens.
It was good to see Curl’s emphasis on the importance of the
freemasons, and his new book was on sale at the Conference. The closure of the
Centre of Research into Freemasonry at Sheffield University was a blow to the
opening up beyond masonic circles of a new understanding about the history of
freemasonry in Britain. In response to a
question he explained that French freemasonry had particularly developed from
the connection with the exiled
Jacobites, while in Britain it was purged of its Jacobite elements and
became very pro-Whig and Hanoverian. Of course by the 1790s many freemasons
were abolitionists, free blacks could be members, and (black) Prince Hall
freemasonry was developing in the United States whose members have ever since
been in the forefront for black rights.
Writing and Reading
the Landscape
At the Panel on ‘Writing and Reading the Landscape’, Amelia
Dale, a postgraduate from Sydney, talked about ‘Mr Shenston’s sluices, souls
and ‘The Spiritual Quixote’’, a satire on Methodism, tensions within Methodism between spiritual
and bodily senses, and the experience of God through nature. Laura Giacomini
from Torino discussed the way in which the Veronese architect Luigi Tezza
portrayed the landscape in his Italian travel journal of 1795, showing
illustrations covering natural features, bridges, roads, industries, urban streets
and ruins, and uses as well as natural environments. He had a concept of beauty linked to
usefulness.
Rebecca Ford
discussed the references to landscape in the correspondence of Bernardin
de Saint-Piere, a French writer, novelist and friend of Rousseau. Rebecca is
working on a project to make the correspondence
available in English. Many women were inspired by his ideas. One woman rejected
the idea of having her copy of his book
bound because it would make it more difficult to take with her on walks with
friends during which passages would be read out loud.
Politics of Place
At the Politics of Place panel I gave a talk on the politics
of landscape and environment in the North East. The other two speakers were
Beccie Randhawa on Tobias Smollett’s Humphrey
Clinker, and Robert Sayre on William Barton’s proto-environmentalist vision
of the American wilderness. Beccie concentrated on the concept of
‘creolisation’ of how emigrants to other parts of the world become different by
their experiences and when they and their descendents visit back to their
original country they are regarded as different. This is an interesting
analysis, because the multiple meanings of ‘creole’ do create problems of
interpretation, like the group of West Indian creoles mentioned in an account
of the 18thC Horn Fair. If Beccie is right then Edward Moulton Barratt was an
example of being ‘a creole’. Because she was born in Britain his daughter
Elizabeth Barratt Browning was not; her mother being the English daughter of
John Graham Clarke, a leading Newcastle industrialist and owner of Jamaica
slave plantations.
Bartram was the son of a Quaker botanist who became a
botanist himself and travelled through the Carolinas in 1773-7, though his book
about them was not published until 1791. Bartram was adopted by the emerging
eco-movement in the 1970s as a pre-romantic. Bartram saw all creatures as
interlinked, that the native Americans were not ‘savages’. He was against
cruelty to animals and waste of resources. Interestingly Robert did not mention
whether he made any comments on the slave economies of the Carolinas. Many
English North Easterners had gone to the Carolinas and become slave plantation
owners, and have been described by John Charlton, author of Hidden Chains, as a kind of mafia, who
retained family and friendship links back in Britain even after the Revolution.
Loyalism and
Radicalism
At the Loyalism and Radicalism panel Bill Speck gave a
fascinating talk discussing at what point Paine became radical, as before he
went to America he had been a defender
of Lord Clive of India. Frank O’Gorman suggested that loyalism of the 1790s was
much more embedded in society, more communal and more rooted in the middle and
artisan classes than has previously been thought, partly because it had long
origin going back to the Tudor and Stuart times. He summarised the history of
oaths of allegiance and bonds of association, the associations established to
support the Crown and in the Civil War period Parliament, the role of militias
in binding the population into defending the Crown, and the Loyal Association
to protect the King in 1696. In the
18thC the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745 and the war with the American
colonists all contributed to the further development of loyalism. Frank suggested that the Protestant
Association was a manifestation of loyalism leading to the Gordon Riots and
that loyalism peters out by the mid-19thC.
The third paper was by a postgraduate Jonathan Atherton on Birmingham
Nonconformity and the impact of the Priestley Riots of 1791.
Some of the issues raised in the discussion on the papers
related to what is meant by ‘loyalism’ and ‘patriotism’ and the way in which
Tories took ownership of the concepts, while there were other definitions, and
that loyalism continued on through such things as the Primrose League and
popular Toryism, and the celebration of Empire Day. Riots normally start
because a spark ignites an existing tinder-box. The interesting question is why
other areas with tinder boxes lacked the spark to trigger riots. Given the
severity of the Gordon Riots an issue to be explored is what effect they had on
the ruling elite in terms of the potential dangers of mass loyalist
mobilisation.
Art and Music
Other plenary sessions were a lecture by Ann Lewis, (French
Studies, Birkbeck), talking about landscape
and environment in the illustrations of Rousseau’s La Nouvelle, and Mark Hallett, Professor of History of Art at York,
on Sir Joshua Reynolds’ paintings Streatham Worthies for Hesta Thrale and her
husband’s library. The concert on the Thursday evening had The Parley of
Instruments play a series of pieces of music interspersed by readings under the
title ‘The Genius of the Place’.
Tensions at the
Conference
The Conference had many enjoyable components and it is
always good to renew acquaintances and meet new people. Sometimes these lead to
on-going interaction; sometimes not.
There are a number of tensions within the format of the
Annual Conference. The attempt to have inter-disciplinary dialogue does not
seem to work as each discipline talks in its own language that often means
little to the others. Political and social historians seem to have to struggle
to be listened to within what seems to be the dominance of cultural historians.
Science and engineer historians were noticeably absent illustrating the
continued ‘Two Cultures’ divide.
There are too many panel sessions meaning that those
attending cannot attend all the ones they would like to. There does not seem to
be any logic behind the grouping of some papers in the same session. It is also
very embarrassing when some panel sessions have small numbers, 5 or 6
especially when some of the presenters are from abroad.
While the opening plenary talk was a very interesting and
useful contribution, it did not give an overview of the range of papers to be
delivered and the interconnections. The Conference faded out with people
drifting off before lunch or after lunch.
It is possible that some papers had been prepared in a hurry
because of the late acceptance of proposals. 20 minute papers do not allow
speakers to do enough justice to their topic.
Overcoming These
Tensions
It would be very helpful if the BSECS Committee would
consider taking the decisions on which paper proposals to accept earlier in the
year to enable speakers more time to prepare. More guidance should be issued to
potential speakers as to what the main areas the Conference organisers want to
see covered in proposals are, particularly emphasising why the contributions
from different disciplines are useful to others, and high-highlighting
cross-disciplinary themes.
The opening plenary could be in two parts. Firstly, an introduction
to the range of papers that are to be presented and the key inter-disciplinary
issues that arise from them, and secondly a talk on an aspect of the theme. There
should be fewer panel sessions and fewer papers, perhaps two papers of 30
minutes each. It would be helpful to Panel chairs if they were given the
reasons why the papers were put together
in the same panel and the details of the paper proposals.
To ensure higher attendances at some panels Conference
attendees could be asked to make a 1-3 choice of which ones in each session
they want to go to with a limit of say 20 being allowed to attend any
particular panel. The Conference could usefully end with a plenary session
either before or after lunch at which e.g. an assessment of the issues and
themes that have emerged should be discussed and at which final thanks should
be given.
Finally papers or summaries of them could be usefully placed
on the BSCECS website after the
Conference where presenters give permission, and later there could be 2/3 articles in the Journal reviewing all the
papers that were given.
2013 Conference
Theme: Credit, Money and the Market
In relation to the thinking about the themes and the
explanation given in the 2012 programme I wonder whether more detailed guidance
should be given.
Should a four page contextual overview be prepared so that people proposing
papers have to show how their proposal fits in?
Could the Panels be divided into the following sections. (a)
How the economics operated: inc: (merchant trading, slave plantations, industrial
enterprise, agriculture, estate development, financing cultural activities, urban
development, the development of the market: roads, shops, distribution systems,
the rise and fall of specialist trades, the movement of centres of trades
around the country. (b) The banking credit/deficit crises, inc: South Sea
Bubble, regional banks. (c) Polemics inc. in religious sermons. (d) Issues of
capital and credit represented in literature. ( e) The role of Non-Conformists
in the development of credit and markets. (f) The class differences in access
to credit and having market choice. (g) The financing of books and pamphlets,
inc: the role of subscribers and the experiences of publishers and booksellers.
(h) The financing of art, drama and music, inc: purchasing art in/from Europe,
and valuations of art. (i) ‘Popular’ reactions to problems of credit, money and
markets, inc. (j) Regional comparisons. (k) Autobiographies and diaries dealing
with issues of capital, money and the market. (l) Bankruptcies: estate and
businesses. (m) International aspects of credit, money and markets, inc: the use of non-monies
as mediums of exchange e.g. cowrie shells; the situation in other countries and
the impact of conflicts between different countries.
Given the problems more and more people are having
financially, and with questions over their jobs, there may well be a drop in
registrations for the 1913 Conference especially if people have consider that
the tensions discussed above reduce the value given the cost.
Although the above analysis may appear to be critical, my
suggestions are aimed at increasing the value of attending future Conferences.
Taking into account my own experience in Conference organisation, a big thanks to all the people involved in
organising the 2012 event.
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