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19. A Statue of Queen Anne
By Emily Rhodes (@elrhodes96) Presiding over the library in Blenheim Palace, the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, is a marble statue of Queen Anne, carved by Flemish sculptor John Michael Rysbrack. The inscription dedicates the statue to the monarch, thanking her for the gift of land and funds which enabled the building of the…
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5. A Mince-Pie Administration
by David Cowan (@david_cowan) The accession of George III in 1760 ended the ‘Whig Supremacy’ and ushered in an era of political volatility as the party system broke down, producing a series of short-lived ministries and factional division until the emergence of Lord North in 1770. When Lord North’s ministry came to an end in…
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5. Children’s drawings in a calico book
By Zara Kesterton (@ZaraKesterton) The V&A holds a large collection of textile designs by William Kilburn, one of the most innovative designers of eighteenth-century Britain.[1] Born in Dublin in 1745, Kilburn completed his apprenticeship at a cotton printing factory before moving to London to establish himself in the trade. He specialised in botanical motifs, depicting familiar and exotic…
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Jake Bransgrove – Historian Highlight
Jake Bransgrove, interviewed by Tiéphaine Thomason Historian Highlight is an ongoing series sharing the research experiences of historians in the History Faculty in Cambridge and beyond. For our latest post, we sat down with Jake Bransgrove, a second-year PhD candidate at Trinity Hall, who will be taking over our Historian Highlight series this academic year.…
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An Elephant and a Drunk Priest – Itinerant Entertainment in the Streets of an Eighteenth-Century Port City
by Tiéphaine Thomason The plywood tables and plastic chairs of the reading room in the municipal archives of Nantes have the feel of a secondary school classroom. Located at 1 rue d’Enfer (‘1 hell street’), the archive nonetheless boasts a handful of fantastic archivists and colourful police records. These records show a persistent concern with…
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