By Jake William Bransgrove (@Jake_Bransgrove)
At times of public celebration, the nocturnal Georgian city – otherwise dark, dangerous and shrouded in shadow – would be bathed in exceptional quantities of light. The act of illumination, as it was known, saw urban spaces lit in spectacular fashion. An instance of circumstantial festival, the mass deployment of candles, lamps, torches, flambeaux, and fire in all its light-emitting variety became a ritualistic means of commemorating political events with wide appeal. While known on the continent, in Britain the practice developed its own associations. These intersected with crowd and street politics, polite spectacle, and carnivalesque displays of ressentiment, seeing illumination and its reception become a crucial lens through which to view the engagement of various social strata in the shared spaces of cities and towns.
Illuminations could be officially mandated or spontaneous. In either case their success fed on the effects of spectacle. Celebrations of military victories, treaties and the cessation of hostilities; royal commemorations, births, deaths or marriages; and popular causes or heroes like Admiral Keppel and John Wilkes – all found voice in light at such times. A short-lived act, the practice of illumination lasted as long as the fuels which fed it, and it has as such left few records. Those instances where it is documented occur primarily in diaries, letters, memoirs, and other written material from the ‘long eighteenth century’, when it was a widely-practiced pastime. Exceptions include visual culture in the form of prints. As well as ‘transparencies’. These were pictures made with translucent paints on materials such as calico, linen, or oiled paper. Back-lit by interior lighting and often placed in street-facing windows, these were designed to maximise the spectacular impact of light in a nocturnal setting. Recently re-discovered examples can be seen on display now at Sir John Soane’s Museum as part of the exhibition ‘Georgian Illuminations’, which is open to all and free to visit until 7 January 2024.
Further Reading:
Alice Barnaby, Light Touches: Cultural Practices of Illumination, 1800–1900 (London and New York: Routledge, 2017)
Melanie Doderer-Winkler, Magnificent Entertainments: Temporary Architecture for Georgian Festivals (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013)
Nicholas Rogers, Crowds, Culture, and Politics in Georgian Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)
Simon Werrett, Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2010)
Image: J. C. Stadler (fl. 1780-1812) after A. C. Pugin (1762-1832), The House in Portman Square, of His Excellency L. G. Otto, Minister Plenipotentiary from the French Republic, 1802. Aquatint on paper. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, B1977.14.17640.
Doing History in Public 