Admiral Keppel's Arrival in Bath in 1779

The Bath Chronicle of Thursday, 18th March 1779, reported on Admiral Keppel's arrival in Bath the previous Friday. Keppel was almost certainly coming to Bath to seek treatment for his chronic ill health following a fever he had contracted during his service in the West Indies.

A member of a leading Whig aristocratic family (which had come to England with William of Orange), Augustus Keppel was the second son of Willem van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle and Anne van Keppel, a daughter of the 1st Duke of Richmond (himself an illegitimate son of King Charles II).

The most prominent period of his life belonged to the opening years of the American Revolutionary War. Keppel had been promoted to full admiral on 29 January 1778 and appointed to command the Channel Fleet, the main fleet prepared against France; at the time of his appointment, he expressed the view that the First Lord would be glad for him to be defeated.

Before 1778, Keppel had failed to persuade the Lords of the Admiralty to copper sheath any of their ships. He had remarked that coppering "gave additional strength to the navy". The lack of coppering the Navy is often considered one reason Britain lost the 13 colonies.

One of Keppel's subordinate admirals was Sir Hugh Palliser, a member of the Admiralty Board, a member of parliament, and, in Keppel's opinion, responsible with his colleagues for the bad state of the Royal Navy. The First Battle of Ushant, which Keppel fought with the French on 27 July 1778, ended badly. Reasons included Keppel's own management but also the failure of Palliser to obey orders. Keppel had become convinced that he had been deliberately betrayed.

Though Keppel had praised Palliser in his public despatch, he had attacked him privately. The Whig press, with Keppel's friends, had begun a campaign of calumny. The ministerial papers answered in the same style, and each side had accused the other of deliberate treason. The result was a scandalous series of scenes in parliament and of courts-martial. On the 11th of February, Keppel's court-martial pronounced the charges against him malicious and unfounded. Following this verdict, there had been a wave of riotous popular celebrations across the country. 

Keppel, painted by Lawrence in 1779

These celebrations were to greet Keppel on his arrival on 12th March with window displays, parades, cheering crowds, and popular demonstrations, including the burning of effigies outside the Crescent being ‘only slightly constrained by the modest protests of their hero’.

On Wednesday the 17th, twenty-five 'Ladies of the first distinction in this city'  held 'an elegant and sumptuous breakfast' 'in compliment to Admiral Keppel'. These 'Ladies of the first distinction' 'selected out of the company here at present here upwards of two hundred Ladies and Gentlemen to partake of it'. This event was put on at the Upper Rooms, and the Admiral was accompanied by 'several distinguished Naval Officers' in uniform.

The breakfast was held in the Tea Room and was accompanied by music provided by a band stationed in the gallery.

After Breakfast, the party moved into the ballroom, where they were treated to an "elegant collation of fruits, sweetmeats, ices of various sorts, jellies etc etc’. At this point, the younger invitees continued the celebrations by dancing cotillions and country dances until 3 p.m. The company ended by dancing a long minuet composed and presented by a lady described as “a young Lady of distinguished worth and musical abilities”.

The crowds of the uninvited admirers of the Admiral had gathered outside the door and made it difficult for the party to leave.

The newspaper further tells us of Bath and Bristol’s intentions to make the Admiral a freeman of their respective cities and that the Admiral intended to honour the Theatre with his company the following evening. There, he would have been treated to a performance of Sheridan’s ‘The Rival’ and a farce entitled ‘The Liverpool Prize’.

Singleton Hall a dance from the 1780s

From 8 Cotillions, 6 Favorite Country Dances and two Minuets, with their proper Figures for the Harp, Harpsichord and Violin ... Book xviii, for the Year 1785 by Francis Werner

Francis Werner was a dancing master and master of the ceremonies at Almack's and the Festino Rooms. He lived at 6 Lower St. James' Street, Golden Square, in 1782 and died in 1787. Campbell, Fentum, Birchall, Andrews, and others published his yearly books.

Not Jane Austen Again!

A visitor to Bath could easily get the impression that Jane Austen was the only Georgian woman novelist with significant Bath connections, but this was far from the case. Many women writers lived in and visited the City and drew inspiration from it. Some were much more famous and widely read in their own time than Austen. What follows are short accounts of just some of them.

Sarah Fielding

Younger Sister of the more famous novelist Henry, Sarah Fielding wrote more than 4,000 pages of prose fiction, a 366-page translation of Xenophon’s Memoirs of Socrates, a part of which was still in print as late as 1937, and a short pamphlet of literary criticism last reprinted in 1985. Her novel The Governess, or the Little Female Academy, published in 1749, is considered the first novel written in English aimed at children. In her lifetime, her literary output often came close to outselling that of her more celebrated brother.

Sarah had many links to Bath and was a frequent visitor. Finally, she moved to Bath permanently around 1754 until her death, probably in Walcot in 1768. She and Henry were at the centre of the literary circle that formed around the generosity of Ralph Allan and James Leake, Bath’s famous bookseller and publisher, who was brother-in-law to Sarah’s friend, the novelist Samuel Richardson. The Fielding’s were also linked to Bath via the Fielding family's relationship to the Dukes of Kingston, whose land holdings in Bath are still marked in our street names today. Sarah’s second novel is set in Bath and demonstrates considerable knowledge of the city. The place in Bath most associated with Sarah is Widcombe Lodge, where a plaque still marks her residence. However, much of what is written about Sarah’s residences in Bath comes from the writing of R.E.M Peach, which modern historians have failed to substantiate. 

Sarah was born in East Stour, Dorset, in 1710. Around 1720, her father placed his children in the care of their maternal grandmother, Sarah Lady Gould, in Salisbury, where she and her sisters attended Mary Rooke’s boarding school where girls were ‘to be educated and learn to work and read and write and to talk French and Dance and be brought up as Gentlewomen’. Lady Gould won legal custody of the Fielding children. Sarah stayed with her in Salisbury, where she made important friendships that would improve her education and nurture her writing talent. 

Lady Gould died in 1733, and Sarah seems to have left Salisbury for extended visits to East Stour, London and Bath. Sarah’s first published work was a ‘letter’ from ‘Leonara to Horatio’, which was included in her brother's novel Joseph Andrews, published in 1742. The following year, Sarah’s short fictional life of Anne Boleyn appeared in Henry’s ‘A Journey from this World to the Next’. Then, in 1744, she published her first complete novel ‘The Adventures of David Simple’. ‘Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters of David Simple and Others’, set in Bath, appeared in 1747. In 1749, she published her only volume of literary criticism ‘Remarks on Clarissa’ and in the same year ‘The Governess, or the Little Female Academy: being the History of Mrs Teachum and her Nine Girls, with their Nine Days Amusement’ which was the first children’s school story exclusive about and for young girls. In 1753, a final sequel to Sarah’s first novel was published ‘The Adventures of David Simple, Volume the Last.’ 

By the end of 1754, she had lost all her immediate family and was in poor shape financially, but with help from her many friends, she moved permanently to Bath. In 1754, she and Jane Collier published ‘The Cry: a New Dramatic Fable.’ In 1757, backed by 441 subscribers and following prodigious amounts of research, she published her double fictional autobiography ‘The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia’. ‘The History of the Countess of Dellwyn’ followed in 1759, which included an essay on literary theory. Her most popular novel ‘The History of Ophelia’ followed the next year. Sarah’s final triumph came in 1762 with the publication of a work she had been writing and researching since 1758, ‘Xenophon’s Memoirs of Socrates, with the Defence of Socrates before his Judges translated from the original Greek.’ This book was printed in Bath by the printer and publisher Cornelius Pope.

Sarah is buried in St Mary’s Charlcombe, and a monument to her is in Bath Abbey. The inscription, however, contains several factual errors.

Sarah Scott

Sarah Scott was born Sarah Robinson in 1720, the daughter of Mathew Robinson of Edgeley and West Layton Hall, Yorkshire. Her sister Elizabeth married a much older, wealthy mine owner, Edward Montagu, and, following his death, used her freedom and wealth to create a circle of upper-class intellectual men and, more importantly, women who became known as the Bluestockings.

Sarah was left to care for her dying mother, who had cancer. After her mother died in 1746, Sarah stayed with various friends and relations until, after a visit to Bath, she decided to stay on as a companion to the invalid Lady Barbara Montagu. Sarah published her first book in 1750, a novel titled ‘The History of Cornelia,’ but it enjoyed only modest success.

In 1751, Sarah married George Lewis Scott and set up house in Leicester Square with Lady Barbara as part of the household. The marriage was not a success, and after a minor scandal in 1752, Sarah left her husband, and she and Lady Barbara returned to Bath, where they lived in modest circumstances and devoted their time to good works. From 1754, the two women began spending their summers in Bath Easton and the winters in the city at Beauford Buildings. During this period, Sarah enjoyed a close friendship with Sarah Fielding. At one point, Sarah Fielding is impatient about going and living with Scott and Lady Barbara but is dissuaded by Mrs Montagu. However, Scott and her sister provided much discrete financial assistance to Fielding.

To help with their income, Sarah took up her pen to publish a translation of a French novel and a novel of her own ‘A Journey through Every Stage of Life’ both published in 1754.

Sarah produced ‘The History of Gustav Ericson, King of Sweden’ in 1761 and the following year ‘History of Mecklenburgh, from the first Settlement of the Vandals in that Country to the Present Time’. Also that year, she produced her most successful work, a Utopian novel entitled ‘Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent’ which went to 4 editions. Millenium Hall was a female commune that Elizabeth Montagu once proposed, making a reality involving her sister and Sarah Fielding.

Lady Barbara died in 1765, but Sarah stayed on in Bath and, with the encouragement of her sister, continued writing. In 1766, she published another Utopian novel, The History of Sir George Ellison.

In 1772, Scott published ‘The Life of Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigne’ a French protestant much admired in England, and in the same year, produced her last novel ‘The test of Filial Duty’ in a series of letters between Miss Emilia Leonard and Miss Charlotte Arlington.’

The death of Edward Montagu in 1775 allowed her sister the freedom to render direct financial assistance, and Sarah stopped publishing and moved around the country, staying with her sister and her friends. In 1787, after an extended stay in Norwich, she took a small house at nearby Catton, where she died in 1795

Ann Ford

Today, Ann Ford is best known as the sitter in Gainsborough’s wonderful portrait known as ‘Portrait of Mrs Philip Thicknesse’, painted around 1760 when she would have been 23. In her time, she was known as a famous beauty, a virtuoso musician and for a life which generated much gossip and scandal. She was also a writer, and her works include ‘Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses’, ‘Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Ladies in France’, ‘Biographical Memoirs’ and her only novel ‘School of Fashion’ whose characters are all thinly disguised members of contemporary society.

Ann spent much time in Bath and lived there from 1767 to 1791, though that period was punctuated by two long continental tours. Latterly, she resided in the Royal Crescent. The Bath concert master Rauzzini greatly admired her talents as a singer. Her husband was the author of ‘The New Prose Bath Guide: for the year 1778’.

As a niece of Dr Ford, the Queen’s physician, and of Gilbert Ford, Attorney General of Jamaica, Ann was readily accepted by fashionable society, where she was celebrated for her beauty, musical talents, and dancing. The cream of London society came to her Sunday concerts, where she played alongside some of the leading professionals. However, her father was so violently opposed to her performing in public that he used a magistrate’s warrant to take her prisoner. Escaping from captivity, she raised £1500 in subscriptions to perform five concerts at the Haymarket’s Little Theatre. At the first of these, her father surrounded the theatre with Bow Street runners who were only dispersed when one of Ann’s aristocratic supporters threatened to bring in a detachment of guards. In 1762, aged 25, she married the notorious Philip Thickness. A journey they made to Italy in 1792 was interrupted by the death of Philip just after they departed from Boulogne. Left alone, Ann was arrested and confined in a convent, but on the death of Robespierre in 1794, she was released. In 1800, she published her novel. Ann died in 1824,  aged 86.

Mary Ann Costello

On 28th March 1827, Mrs Hann, aged 81, died in the house in Henrietta Street where she had lived for the last 20 years. This brought to an end an extraordinary life during which she had been a leading actress and a quack medicine seller and had given birth to 13 children by 3 fathers, including 4 sets of twins. One of these children rose to be Prime Minister of Great Britain. She also managed to write a novel considered worthy of being republished in the 21st century.

Mary Ann Costello was born in Ireland in 1747. Her father was a Connacht squire. She appears to have been orphaned at a young age and was raised in London by her maternal grandfather, Col. Guydickens. 

She was lauded for her beauty but had little money, so when she met and married George Canning in 1768, it was against the wishes of his family, who cut him off from any prospect of inheritance. In early 1769, Costello gave birth to a daughter, Letitia, who died a few months later. On 22 April 1770, she had the couple's second child, George Canning, the child destined to become Prime Minister. 

By 1771, Costello was widowed and was pregnant again, with no financial support. Her third child, a son Thomas, also died in infancy. She became an actress to support her young son; she debuted in Jane Shore at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in November 1773. It was unsuccessful, and Costello had to move to work in more provincial theatres in the west and north of England.

In 1775, when she was performing in Bristol, she began a 6-year relationship with the actor Samuel Reddish, having 5 children with him, including 2 sets of twins. She referred to herself as Mrs Reddish, but there is no evidence of their marriage. Her eldest son, George, was removed from her care and went to live with his uncle Stratford Canning. During this time, she wrote her novel ‘The Offspring of Fancy’, which was published in 1778. This seems to have been one of several money-making schemes she undertook as the condition, probably tertiary syphilis, that would ultimately lead Reddish to be declared insane, destroying his career and earning power.

In February 1783, Mary married a silk mercer from Plymouth, Richard Hunn, a great admirer of all things theatrical. The couple had 5 children, including another 2 sets of twins. Costello's marriage to Hunn ended with his death in the 1790s, and she retired from acting. Before his death, Hunn’s business had failed, and once again, she was left in penury. Mary attempted to make money with an eye ointment, Collysium, but it failed. At this point, her son George came to her rescue, securing her a pension of £500 a year, which enabled her to retire to Bath, where she appears to have lived as a highly regarded member of the community.

Sophia Lee

She was born in 1750 to a theatrical family. Her father was the actor-manager John Lee. After her father’s death, and using money she had earned from her early and very successful playwriting, she and her sisters opened a school for young ladies at Belvedere House in Bath. The sisters enjoyed the friendship of both the Linleys and the Sheridans. Other close friends in Bath included Mrs Siddon, whose daughter was a pupil, Mrs Piozzi and Sir Thomas Lawrence. A wonderfully vivid picture of the school appears in the memoirs of Susan Sibbald, who was a pupil in 1797. The school consisted of some 50 boarders and 20 day scholars, ages 8 to 19 years old, and they were taught French, grammar, geography, writing and arithmetic. They also had music and dancing lessons, the latter provided by the Grand Dame of Bath dancing mistresses Ann Flemming. Every three years, pupils put on a performance at the Upper Assembly Rooms, which were often attended by Royalty.

Sophia’s first play was ‘The Chapter of Accidents’, first produced by George Coleman at the Haymarket in 1780. Her subsequent works included an early best-selling Gothic novel ‘The Recess, or a Tale of Other Times’ published in 1785, admired by Ann Radcliffe and ‘Almeyda, Queen of Grenada’ in 1796. The latter was a tragedy in Blank Verse, which opened in Drury Lane with Sarah Siddens in the lead role.

Sophia also produced several translations. She died in Bristol in 1824.

Frances Burney

Frances Burney was a frequent visitor to Bath and expressed great affection for the city. She had first visited the city in 1767 with her father and lived here with her friends, the Thrales, in 1780 in 14 South Parade. She returned to Bath at 23 Great Stanhope Street between 1815 and 1818. Burney died in 1847 and is buried at St Swithen’s Walcot. She is also a visitor to her friend Hester Thrale's house in Gay Street following Hester’s marriage to the Italian piano teacher Gabriel Poizzi. Hester herself was an established writer. 

Frances was born in Lynn Regis, now Kings Lynn, in 1752 to the musician and musicologist Charles Burney and his first wife. Like Austen, she began writing very young. From 1786 to 1790, she was “Keeper of the Robes” to Queen Charlotte. In 1793, at 41, she married the exiled French General Alexandre D’Arblay and had her only child, Alexander, in 1794. Her first novel, Evelina, was a huge bestseller and won critical acclaim, including from her friend Dr Johnson. She went on to write another three novels and several plays. She also wrote a memoir of her father. Frances left many letters and journals on which much of her modern reputation rests. Jane Austen acknowledged having been significantly influenced by Burney.

Harriet Lee

Harriet Lee was born in 1757, the youngest of three sisters, including the bestselling novelist and playwright Sophia.  Harriet lived much of her life in Bath, helping her sisters run their much-admired school.

In 1786, Harriet published her first novel, ‘The Errors of Innocence’. More than ten years later, she began what was to be her masterpiece, ‘The Canterbury Tales’, which includes some small contributions by Sophia; by its completion in 1807, it ran to five volumes. The Canterbury Tales was in print for many years and won much admiration from critics and other writers, including Lord Byron.

In addition to this, Harriet produced another novel and a play.

Harriet Lee died in 1851 at the age of 94.

Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire 1757 - 1806, socialite, political organiser, leader of fashion, author and notorious gambler whose marriage to William 5th Duke of Devonshire united two of the great aristocratic families of England, the Spencers and the Cavendishes.

Georgiana lived in and visited Bath throughout her life, and even in old age, she delighted in attending the pupil balls run by Bath’s many schools and dancing teachers at the Assembly Rooms. 

The Duchess was an avid writer and an extensive correspondent who wrote poetry and prose from a young age.

Her first published work, in 1773, when she was 16, was a novel entitled ‘Emma; Or, The Unfortunate Attachment: A Sentimental Novel.’  Five years later, she published her most successful work, ‘The Sylph, ’ which satirises the fashionable London Ton, of which she was a central figure for many years. It was commercially very successful, earning four reprints.

Ann Radcliffe

Ann Radcliffe is another novelist who influenced Austen and is explicitly mentioned in Northanger Abbey. The young Ann Ward came to live in Bath at the age of 8  in 1772 when, through the good offices of her uncle Thomas Bentley, her father was appointed to manage the showroom being opened by Bentley and his more famous partner Josiah Wedgwood. Bentley had secured premises in Westgate buildings in 1770, and William Ward is listed as the tenant as early as December 1771. Before this appointment, Ann’s father, William, had been the proprietor of a haberdashery in Holborn. By May of 1772, when Mrs Wedgwood was in Bath recuperating from an illness, her niece was able to report that she had received ‘the kind attention of a respectable couple named Ward who were to manage the showroom.’

Josiah himself came to Bath to help with the opening in June 1772. The showroom was decorated with yellow wallpaper to better show off the black basalt vases. The opening was delayed by supply issues, missed the season, and postponed to autumn.

When the showroom finally opened, Wedgwood was shocked by Ward’s marketing methods, which he regarded as vulgar.

However, despite all the setbacks by early 1773, Wedgwood was ‘glad to hear that Mrs Ward had some hopes of the business answering to them at Bath. Pray make my best respects to her and my love to Miss Nancy’. Miss Nancy was Ann’s family nickname.

Wedgwood had never liked Westgate Street, which he described as being ‘full of Coal Carts, Coal Horses & Asses - & a great way from the Town and the Parades’. So, at the end of 1774, the showroom and the Wards relocated near the bottom of Milsom Street. In 1779, they moved again to No. 22, one door from the top. The directories of the time suggest that the Wards supplemented their earnings by operating part of their home as a lodging house.

It is possible that Ann spent at least fifteen of the most formative years of her life in Bath but rarely acknowledged it. Her first biographer only mentions it twice, once in relation to her recollections of Mrs Siddons and once in regard to her marriage to William Radcliffe in Bath in 1787 when she was 23. This, in part, reflects the amount of time she spent in her uncle's house in Chelsea but may also reflect the shame she seems to have felt at her father's lowly status in Bath society.

Ann became one of the foundational authors of the Gothic school of novel writing. She has been credited with making the genre respectable. She was one of the most successful writers of her time and was widely admired by both readers and critics. Of the six novels she wrote, The Mysteries of Udolpho, thanks mainly to Austen, is probably the best known today.

Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley developed and wrote much of the novel ‘Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus,  on which her reputation rests while living in Bath. 

In 1816, after leaving Byron in Geneva, Percy Shelley, the 19-year-old Mary Godwin, the heavily pregnant Clare Clermont Mary’s stepsister and Mary’s 2-year-old son and his nurse travelled through France to Le Havre, where they took ship for Portsmouth. At Portsmouth, Shelley left the party to visit a friend in Great Marlow, and the others went on to Bath. Arriving in Bath on the 10th of September, Mary and Clare took two sets of lodgings in Bath, the first at 5 Abbey Church Yard, the location of which is now marked by a plaque. The other address was at 12 New Bond Street.

It was now that Mary started earnestly to turn the story idea she had conceived in Geneva into a full-blown novel and purchased new notebooks to begin her writing. On the 5th of December, Mary wrote to Shelley saying she had completed chapter 4.

Mary and Percy left Bath for London on 30th December, where they were married at St Mildred’s Church. Claire remained in Bath and gave birth to a daughter on the 12th of January 1817. The Shelleys left Bath on the 27th of February 1816. Mary was pregnant for the third time when they left and just starting on the second notebook.

"Just fit to Be Quality at Lyme"

Writing to her sister Cassandra from Lyme on Friday 14th September 1804, Jane Austen recounts her experiences at a ball at the Assembly Rooms, which were at the end of Broads Street and had a sea view.

"The Ball last night was very pleasant, but not full for Thursday. My Father staid very contentedly till half past nine - we went a little after eight - & then walked home with James and a Lanthorn, tho' I believe the Lanthorn was not lit, as the Moon was up. But this Lanthorne may sometimes be a great convenience to him. My mother & I staid about an hour later.  Nobody asked me the two first dances - the two next I danced with Mr Crawford Mrs Granville's son - whom my dear friend Miss Armstrong offered to introduce me - or with a new, odd looking Man who had been eying me for some time, & at last without any introduction asked me if I meant to dance again. - I think he must be Irish by his ease, & because I imagine belong to the Honble Barnwalls, who are the son & son's wife of an Irish Viscount - bold, queer-looking people, just fit to be quality at Lyme."

Lyme Assembly Rooms 1815

Two Dances from the 1730s

Taken from "Twenty-Four Dances for the year 1738 with proper tunes Figures or Directions for each Dance." published by Benjamin Cooke in 1738.

Benjamin Cooke (? - 1743) was an organist, music publisher and music seller based at the Golden Harp in New Street, Covent Garden, from 1726 to 1743. Cooke had, in 1723, married the widow of John Jones, who had operated as an instrument maker and music publisher at the Golden Harp until 1720.

His second wife, Elizabeth Wayet, was the sister-in-law of Lancelot (Capability) Brown, the legendary garden designer, who gave birth to the composer Benjamin Cooke(1734 - 1793).

As well as collections of dance music, Cooke's production included a seminal edition of the collected works of Arcangelo Corelli in study scores comprising all five books of sonatas and the twelve concerti grossi. Indeed,  Cooke was in many ways a pioneering music publisher with his insistence on sourcing music from composers or their agents rather than other publisher's material.

Dance and Satire

The Spectator was a daily publication founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England, and published from 1711 to 1712.

In May of 1711, they claimed to have received the following letter from someone they described as a "substantial tradesman".

'Sir,

I am a Man in Years, and by an honest Industry in the World have acquired enough to give my Children a liberal Education, tho' I was an utter Stranger to it my self. My eldest Daughter, a Girl of Sixteen, has for some time been under the Tuition of Monsieur Rigadoon, a Dancing-Master in the City; and I was prevailed upon by her and her Mother to go last Night to one of his Balls. I must own to you, Sir, that having never been at any such Place before, I was very much pleased and surprized with that Part of his Entertainment which he called French Dancing. There were several young Men and Women, whose Limbs seemed to have no other Motion, but purely what the Musick gave them. After this Part was over, they began a Diversion which they call Country Dancing, and wherein there were also some things not disagreeable, and divers Emblematical Figures, Compos'd, as I guess, by Wise Men, for the Instruction of Youth.

Among the rest, I observed one, which, I think, they call Hunt the Squirrel, in which while the Woman flies the Man pursues her; but as soon as she turns, he runs away, and she is obliged to follow.

The Moral of this Dance does, I think, very aptly recommend Modesty and Discretion to the Female Sex.

But as the best Institutions are liable to Corruptions, so, Sir, I must acquaint you, that very great Abuses are crept into this Entertainment. I was amazed to see my Girl handed by, and handing young Fellows with so much Familiarity; and I could not have thought it had been in the Child. They very often made use of a most impudent and lascivious Step called Setting, which I know not how to describe to you, but by telling you that it is the very reverse of Back to Back. At last an impudent young Dog bid the Fidlers play a Dance called Mol Patley, and after having made two or three Capers, ran to his Partner, locked his Arms in hers, and whisked her round cleverly above Ground in such manner, that I, who sat upon one of the lowest Benches, saw further above her Shoe than I can think fit to acquaint you with. I could no longer endure these Enormities; wherefore just as my Girl was going to be made a Whirligig, I ran in, seized on the Child, and carried her home.

Sir, I am not yet old enough to be a Fool. I suppose this Diversion might be at first invented to keep up a good Understanding between young Men and Women, and so far I am not against it; but I shall never allow of these things. I know not what you will say to this Case at present, but am sure that had you been with me you would have seen matter of great Speculation.

I am

Yours, &c.'

Note: the dances mentioned are taken from editions of Playford's The Dancing Master

Feet Positions in Beauchamp Feuillet Notation

The notation was commissioned by Louis XIV (who had founded the Academy Royale de Danse in 1661) and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. The notation system was first described in detail in 1700 by Raoul-Augur Feuillet in Chorégraphie. Feuillet also then began a programme of publishing complete notated dances. It was used to record dances for the stage and domestic use throughout the eighteenth century, being modified by Pierre Rameau in 1725, and surviving into at least the 1780s in various modified forms.

First Position

Second Position

Third Position

Fourth Position

Fifth Position

Love Forever a dance of the 1790s

From "The scholar's companion: containing a choice collection of cotillons & country-dances" by M.J.C. Fraisier 1796.

'The second gentleman allemande with the 1st lady, the 1st gentleman does the same with the 2nd lady, lead down the middle, up again and cast off one couple. 6 hands round and cast off one couple one couple on the right hand and right and left at the top.'

Miss MacDonald's Fancy a dance from 1808

Goulding’s Select Collection of Twelve Favorite Country Dances for the year 1808, published by Goulding, Phipps and D’Almaine

Goulding & Co, a firm of music publishers, sellers and instrument makers, was created in 1785 by George Goulding.

Thomas D'Almaine (c.1784-1866) and Phipps joined George Goulding's existing company in 1789. The company was subsequently known as Goulding, Knevett & Co (1803-1816 in Dublin), Goulding & D'Almaine, or Goulding, D'Almaine & Co. and several other varieties(until 1823). They entered a partnership with James Wood and Potter. The firm specialised in woodwind instruments and pianos. The name changed in 1834 to D'Almaine & Co. In 1847, D'Almaine retired to be succeeded by his nephew Thomas Macinklay, who had joined the firm in 1840. In 1866, D'Almaine and Mackinlay died, effectively ending the company's operations. The firm's name continued until 1934 under different patronage, mainly producing pianos.

This great firm was commenced initially by George Goulding, who was probably in business before 1784. He issued sheet songs from the pantomime of Don Juan, acted in 1787, and other sheet music prior to and contemporary with this.

His address at this time was at “The Haydn’s Head, No. 6. James Street, Covent Garden,” and shortly afterwards, an additional one at 17 Great Turnstile, Holborn. About 1790, this latter gave place to one at 113 Bishopsgate Street, but while keeping his principal place of business in James Street, these two latter addresses must have been only in force for a short time.

From James Street, he issued annual sets of twenty-four dances in oblong octavo. One of these is for 1792, and on it is advertised a collection by Mr Carter for the year 1788. Another yearly set of dances from James Street is for 1797. Early in 1799, he moved to 45 Pall Mall and took others into partnership.

The new firm was styled Goulding & Co., or Goulding, Phipps, & D’Almaine, and they became music sellers to the Prince and Princess of Wales. In 1803, they took additional premises at 76 St. James Street, and in 1804-5, they gave both these addresses up and removed them to 117 New Bond Street, with an agency at 7 Westmoreland Street., Dublin.

In 1808-9, the number in New Bond Street was changed to 124. Phipps retired from the concern about this time and probably commenced business on his own account. The firm was now Goulding, D’Almaine, & Potter.

At the end of 1811, they removed their London address to 20 Soho Square, and 124 Samuel Chappell took the shop at New Bond Street. The firm remained at 20 Soho Square till 1858. Sometime between 1830 and 1837, Goulding’s name was dropped from the firm, which was then D’Almaine & Co., and in 1838, they advertised a catalogue of 200,000 engraved plates.

In late years, the name of the firm was D’Almaine & Mackinlay, and in 1867, the whole stock and plates were sold off by auction, owing to the death of Mr D’Almaine, which occurred in 1866 in his 83rd or 84th year.

The Darker Side of the Assemblies - The Sex Trade

Walcot Street, Avon Street and the Holloway district of Bath were notorious as centres of the sex trade.

Such was the problem that in 1713, the Corporation agreed on building a constables' prison in the Market Place to secure night walkers and other disorderly persons.

The famous courtesan Fanny Murray was born in Bath around 1729. Orphaned at age 12, she worked as a flower girl until she was seduced by John Spencer, a grandson of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. According to her memoir, she had become a mistress to Beau Nash by 1743, at the age of just fourteen, and soon moved to London, where she became an indentured prostitute. [1]

In August 1779, the clergyman James Woodford noted in his diary how he met two "common prostitutes" one aged about 15, the other17, as he walked in the fields around Bath.

Many young girls came from the country to Bath and other cities in search of employment. Once they discovered that jobs were not always easy to come by and only those living in the city for five years were eligible for Poor Law relief, they were easy prey to brothel keepers.

This was such a common fate that even Jane Austen alluded to it in correspondence with her family in a letter dated 18th September 1796, written to her sister Cassandra. Jane Austen makes this remark, referring to her plans to visit the Pearsons, the family of Henry Austen’s then-fiancée, unaccompanied:

“I had once determined to go with Frank tomorrow and take my chance, etc., but they dissuaded me from so rash a step-as I really think on consideration it would have been: for if the Pearson’s were not at home I should inevitably fall sacrifice to the arts of some fat Woman who would make me drunk with small beer…” [2]

She is referring to the first picture of Hogarth’s series “The Harlots Progress”, which portrayed the arrival in London of an innocent country girl who is befriended by, in Jane Austen’s own words, “a fat Woman.” This was none other than one of the most notorious procuresses of the Georgian era, Elizabeth “Mother” Needham.

Sex workers plied their trade in all the places of public amusement – the theatre, outside the Assembly Rooms and pleasure gardens, and in the vicinity of local inns. Once a customer had been found, he could be taken to any number of local houses.

In her novel Persuasion, Jane Austen chose the White Hart Inn as the setting for Captain Wentworth’s proposal to Anne Elliot. The White Hart was a well-known Bath inn, and the stables at the rear were particularly popular with local sex workers. Mary Musgrove enjoys looking out the window at the White Hart spies, Mrs. Clay and William Elliot. Mrs. Clay is about to elope, and he is trying to ‘buy’ her services so that she won’t marry Sir Walter Elliot.

Garrick writing from Bath in the 1790s says in passing “I have gain’d two inches in the waist, & the Girls at Night call me Fatty!” 

John Skinner, rector of Camerton near Bath at the start of the nineteenth century, recorded in his journal, ‘I was not a little astonished, as I walked through Bath, to observe the streets so crowded with prostitutes, some of them apparently not above 14 or 15 years of age’.

 In 1802, the Society for the Suppression of Vice was formed. One of its objects was ‘the Protection of Female Innocence, by the Punishment of Procurers and Seducers’.

In 1805, the Female Penitentiary and Lock Hospital was established in Walcot Street, some of the building still exists, to rescue 'fallen' women and treat venereal disease.

One local paper estimated that in the 1820s, there were 300 sex workers in Avon Street alone.

In 1825, the Reverent Skinner recorded:

March 21: I was occupied in visiting the sick in Colliers Row. Mrs Biven seems going very fast. This woman, now at the point of death, is the eldest daughter of Sarah Somer of Red Hill, and has been a prostitute from her earliest years; her mother brought her up in the vocation, as she has done all her daughters.

1. Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray 2nd June 2014 by Barbara White

2. Osborn, Melanie Erin. "The Bitter Relicks of My Flame: The Embodiment of Venereal Disease and Prostitution in the Novels of Jane Austen." 2012,  https://core.ac.uk/download/235716853.pdf.

Thomas Potter rake, pornographer and Recorder Of Bath

In October 1752 the wife of the politician Thomas Potter gave birth to a daughter, an event which Potter described as ‘the odious yell of a young Female Yahoo that thrust herself into the world’ and which seems to have driven him from home. He decided to escape to Bath and sent a note to his friend, the radical journalist and politician, John Wilkes:

'If you have either religion or morality. If you have but a pretence to one single social virtue, if you prefer young women and whores to old women and wives, if you prefer the toying away hours with little satin-back to the evening conferences of your mother-in-law … if life and spirit and wit and humour and gaiety, but above all if the heavenly inspired passion called LUST have not … deserted you and left you a prey to dullness and imbecility, hasten to town that you may take a place in my post chaise for Bath next Thursday morning.'

Thomas Potter, born in 1718, was the second son of John Potter, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas grew up to become a man of fashion, exceedingly handsome, a wit and orator but also a notorious libertine.

Thomas trained as a lawyer and his father made him principal registrar for the Province of Canterbury. In 1740 he married Anne Manningham, described by a newspaper of the time as: 'a young lady of fine accomplishments and a handsome fortune,' but as he never appeared to like her one must assume it was a marriage of convenience.

In 1747 he inherited his father's fortune of £100,000 (about £11 million today) his elder brother having been disinherited following his marriage to a servant. He quickly used his new wealth to enter the House of Commons as MP for St Germans in Cornwall. He was at first a follower of the Prince of Wales but after 1751 joined the Pitt-Grenville group: Horace Walpole, in his survey of the House at the end of 1755, included Potter amongst its foremost speakers.

Following the death of his first wife, he married a Miss Lowe who would become the mother of the Female Yahoo. It's from around this time that Potter’s health began to fail him and he made frequent trips to Bath to take the waters and enjoy the pleasures the town offered a wealthy and well connected young man.

At what point during his visits he met Ralph Allen isn't clear, but certainly part of the attraction for him in becoming one of Allen’s circle was Allen’s niece, Gertrude, the wife of the Rev. Warburton: Gertrude was 30 years younger than her husband and a beauty.

It was also in Bath, around 1750, that Potter first met John Wilkes and within months the two had become the closest of friends. 'The highest pleasure that can be afforded me next to the company of a woman,' Potter wrote, 'is that of my dear Wilkes.' It is around this time that Potter became a Monk of Medmenham or, in other words, a member of what is now commonly known as the Hell Fire Club founded by the notorious rake Sir Francis Dashwood.

In 1754 Potter was returned as MP for Aylesbury, apparently unopposed, and by the end of the year was again staying at Prior Park in company with Gertrude Warburton. Potter wrote to Wilkes on the 10th October that 'the Pedant', (Warburton,) had left Prior Park, and he then described in the most graphic terms how he intended to take advantage of Warburton's absence to seduce Gertrude. Indeed Potter was widely believed to be, and almost certainly was, Gertrude’s lover and was rumoured to be the real father of the Warburtons’ only child.

At the beginning of 1756 Thomas was once more in Bath staying with the Allens. Potter’s presence at Prior Park brought his friend William Pitt to dinner there on at least two occasions and soon Potter was being described by Pitt as one of the best friends he had in the world which, when the new Administration was being formed in November 1756, might have marked Potter out for the lucrative office of joint paymaster. The King ‘objected in the strongest manner ... as a thing unheard of at the first step in his service,’ but the appointment went through nevertheless. However, when the time came to kiss hands, on 4 December, Potter was too ill to attend. He felt: ‘doomed to the wicker chair for the rest of his life.’ From this time on he spent most of his time at Prior Park.

In the Newcastle-Pitt Administration of July 1757, Potter became joint vice-treasurer of Ireland, although according to Charles Lyttelton ‘most people thought he was not entitled to an employment of such rank and profit.’ The assumption of office by Pitt and Potter, as well as the Bath MP Sir Robert Henley's promotion to Keeper of the Great Seal, precipitated a reshuffle engineered by Potter and paid for by Wilkes. Pitt replaced Henley at Bath, Potter replaced Pitt at Okehampton, and Wilkes replaced Potter at Aylesbury. In addition, Sir Robert Henley promised to resign the post of Recorder of Bath. Potter wrote to Allen that while Sir Robert had recommended a Mr. Pratt for the post: '… if you approve it, I have many reasons which induce me to take it myself, having had an education at the bar, and being, I trust, qualified for it.' Allen did approve and Potter duly became Recorder of Bath.

It was from Prior Park on 30 September 1758 that Potter applied to the Duke of Bedford for his support in standing for the seat when a Parliamentary vacancy opened up in Bedfordshire. Bedford in his reply on 2 October promised his fullest support on this occasion, but would not give ‘any absolute promise for the next general election.’ Although with this endorsement Potter was reasonably certain of being elected, he stood down; writing to Pitt, from Prior Park, on 25 October he explained: ‘I have been obliged to renounce the project in Bedfordshire, by which I have renounced an establishment for my son; for to him I should have resigned at the general election, depending for myself on the friendship of my good host, who is more to me than a father.’ 

From this, it would seem that Potter was hopeful of becoming the member for Bath, and was anticipating Ralph Allen's support: the seat was due to come vacant in two years’ time and it was probably with this in mind that he threw a dinner for the Corporation followed by a ball. However, his standing down from the Bedfordshire seat prompted questions. On the 5^th November, the Duchess of Bedford wrote to her husband: ‘People begin to come round to my opinion that there was some mystery in Mr Potter's declining to stand for the county, whether there was or no I think it much better as it is.’ Potter's health might well have been his reason for his standing down as around this time the politician Temple wrote to Grenville: ‘Potter exceedingly ill.’ .

Thomas Potter died 17 June 1759 and Wilkes succeeded to his friend’s offices in the Hell Fire Club.

The death of this once brilliant orator and politician went almost unnoticed in London. It was marked by a mere two line announcement in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

Potter had once written to Wilkes speculating about how he might be remembered after his death and thought it would most likely be for the time he was seen copulating with a cow on Wingrove Common! While the cow is often mentioned when Potter’s name appears in histories of the period, it is not for this that he is chiefly remembered; it was for his involvement with Wilkes in the creation of the Essay on Woman, an obscene parody of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man. The poem was to remain a private matter for the most part until some years after Potter's death when it provided the government with the ammunition it needed to attack John Wilkes.

The essay, dedicated to the Bath-born courtesan Fanny Murray, was not only obscene but it also ridiculed Ralph Allen’s brother-in-law who, by then, was Bishop of Gloucester and who had edited Pope’s essay. Potter had personal reasons for doing this as his admiration and affection for Ralph Allen led him to resent what he saw as Warburton's arrogant assumption of authority at Prior Park and, of course, his relationship with the Bishop’s wife. The poem is too obscene to quote in an article of this nature but its tone can probably be gauged by saying that the title page gives the author as Pego Borewell Esq, pego being slang for penis.

The poem, notwithstanding its scurrilous content, has historical significance because of the central role it played in John Wilkes' battle with the British establishment over free speech and the powers of the state. This battle inspired many others to fight for civil liberties and, in particular, influenced the leaders of American resistance to British rule. To understand how this came about we need to look in more detail at the life of John Wilkes who, incidentally, continued to be a frequent visitor to Bath.

John Wilkes was born in Clerkenwell, London, the second of six children of the distiller Israel Wilkes and his wife Sarah. The Wilkes' family were Presbyterians, so following a largely private education in England, Wilkes completed his education at the University of Leiden in the Dutch Republic. His studies were interrupted when he returned to England to join a Loyal Association during the Jacobite Rebellion but he returned to Leiden after the battle of Culloden. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1749.

In 1747, he married Mary Meade and came into possession of an estate and income in Buckinghamshire. They had one child, Mary (known as Polly), to whom John was utterly devoted for the rest of his life. Wilkes and his wife, however, separated after 10 years in 1756, a separation that became permanent. Wilkes never married again, but had numerous mistresses and liaisons with married women and is known to have fathered at least two other children.

In 1754 he was appointed High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire and decided to enter parliament, standing unsuccessfully for Berwick-upon-Tweed. In 1757, after an election campaign said to have cost him £7,000, he was returned to parliament for Aylesbury. The huge cost of his campaign left Wilkes in debt but he hoped to retrieve his fortunes by political advancement.

He was elected for Aylesbury again in 1761, avoiding a contest for his seat by offering 300 of the 500 voters £5 each. It was that year the King’s First Minister, the Earl of Bute, set up The Briton newspaper, edited by Smollett, to publicize his policies.

In response to this in 1762 Wilkes started a radical satirical weekly, The North Briton, to attack Bute and his government. In the first edition, he wrote: 'the liberty of the press is the birthright of a Briton, and is justly esteemed the firmest bulwark of the liberties of this country.' 

One of Bute's followers was William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot and Lord Steward who, having been ridiculed in issue 12 of The North Briton, challenged Wilkes to a duel. They met on 5 October 1762, but despite the close range and both of them firing, neither was hit and, apparently, honour having been satisfied, they went to a nearby inn to share a bottle of claret.

Wilkes's continued his campaign of criticism, culminating in an attack on George lll's speech at the opening of Parliament on 23 April 1763 in issue 45 of The North Britain. Wilkes wrote that the king's speech had given 'his sacred name to the most odious measures and the most unjustifiable public declarations from a throne ever renowned for truth, honour and the unsullied virtue.'

The King felt personally insulted by the attack and general warrants were issued with Wilkes being charged with seditious libel. A general warrant provides a law-enforcement officer with broad discretion or authority to search and seize unspecified goods or persons. Forty-nine people, including Wilkes, were arrested and searches carried out. General warrants, however, were very unpopular and Wilkes gained considerable support as he protested their unconstitutionality.

At his court hearing, he claimed that parliamentary privilege protected him from arrest on a charge of libel. The Lord Chief Justice ruled that parliamentary privilege did indeed protect him and he was restored to his seat. Wilkes then sued the law officers who had been involved in searching his house for trespass.

In response to these developments, Parliament swiftly voted in a measure that removed protection of MPs from arrest for the writing and publishing of seditious libel. As a result of this episode, the slogan: Wilkes, Liberty and Number 45, entered common parlance.

Bute resigned in April 1763, but Bute's successor was George Grenville, another man of whom Wilkes disapproved and, just as strenuously, opposed. It was at this point that the Essay on Women entered the public arena. 

Potter and Wilkes had originally written the Essay purely for their own amusement. However, in 1762 during a period of military service, Wilkes had amused himself by designing a version for publication, probably just among his friends. He had had some proofs made by a printer and it was one of these that had fallen into the hands of his opponents. Foremost among them was the notorious rake John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. 

Sandwich’s animus against Wilkes stemmed in part from embarrassment caused him by a prank played by Wilkes at one of the meetings of the Hellfire Club, as well a number of witty public put-downs. He also had reason to be personally affronted by the dedication of the Essay to Fanny which was widely assumed to be a reference to his former mistress the courtesan Frances Rudman.

At the instigation of the king George Grenville decided to prosecute Wilkes for seditious libel, to which Wilkes immediately responded: 'The government have sent the spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophesy, that it will never be extinguished, but by the extinction of their power. A nation as sensible as the English, will see that a spirit of concord, when they are oppressed, means a tame submission to injury, and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise, and I am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight of the grievance they feel.'

In November 1763, Samuel Martin, a supporter of George III, challenged Wilkes to a duel (rumoured to have been part of a government plot to kill Wilkes) and had better luck than Talbot, as he managed to wound Wilkes in the stomach. A week later, Wilkes was tried on a charge of publishing: ‘a most obscene and impious libel.’ At the trial, Sandwich read aloud the Essay to the assembled House of Lords. Horace Walpole describes how Lord Lyttleton, a friend of Pope, ‘groaned in spirit and begged they might hear no more, but his fellow Peers cried “Go on, go on” and urged Sandwich to continue.’ Having heard it all, the Lords declared the poem obscene and blasphemous, and moved to expel Wilkes from Parliament; Wilkes, anticipating this, had judiciously fled to Paris before any expulsion or trial. He was, though, tried and found guilty in absentia of obscene and seditious libel, and declared an outlaw on 19 January 1764.

When eventually his French creditors began to pressure him for settlement, he had little choice but to return to England. He visited London briefly in December 1767, returning again in February 1768, living quietly under the name of Osborn until parliament was dissolved on 11th March 1768. Wilkes stood in the next election for the City of London but came in bottom of the poll of seven candidates, probably due to his late entry.

The government, unwilling to risk the kind of popular unrest that had resulted from his prosecution over North Britain 45, did not issue warrants for his immediate arrest. Even before the poll in the city closed, Wilkes announced his intention to stand for the county of Middlesex where most of his support was located. This campaign was much better organized; by five am on the morning of the poll 'Wilksites,' as his supporters were being called, had taken control of the Great North Road. Wilkes’ friend Boswell recorded: 'All the road was roaring with ‘Wilkes and Liberty’, which with ‘No 45’ was chalked on every coach and chaise.' In addition, the mob forced every traveller to don a blue cockade, Wilkes' colour.

Realising his position was inevitably going to lead to imprisonment, Wilkes surrendered himself to the King's Bench in April, waiving his parliamentary privilege to immunity. On 8th June 1768 Wilkes was found guilty of libel and sentenced to 22 months, but the Lords' sentence of outlawry was overturned. His outraged supporters now appeared before King's Bench chanting 'No liberty, no King.' Troops opened fire on the unarmed men, killing seven and wounding fifteen, the incident, known as the St George's Fields Massacre, led to further disturbances in the capital. The Irish playwright Hugh Kelly, a prominent supporter of the government, unwisely defended the right of the army to use force against rioters, which increased the anger of Wilkes' supporters. They began another riot at the Drury Lane Theatre during the performance of Kelly's new play forcing it to be abandoned.

In America, Wilkes’s trial and imprisonment were front page news with Wilkes being seen as the model of a decent rational man standing up for liberty in the face of government aggression. In Boston, ‘Wilkes and Liberty’ were as much a rallying cry as in London and the number 45 was inscribed on houses all over the town. John Hancock, who would go on to be the first signatory to the American Declaration of Independence, named a ship ‘Liberty’ in Wilkes's honour. The historian Merrill Jensen says that: 'By the end of 1768 ‘Wilkes and Liberty’ was a toast from one end of the colony to another.' So, when Parliament assembled in January 1769 they knew it wasn't just the eyes of their own citizens who were watching their handling of Wilkes.

Nonetheless, Parliament expelled Wilkes in February 1769 on the grounds that he was an outlaw when he'd returned from France, at which point Wilkes became an Alderman to strengthen his position. His Middlesex constituents re-elected him the same month only for him to be expelled again. He was re-elected once more in March but in April, after his expulsion and another re-election, Parliament declared his opponent, Henry Luttrell, the winner. Supporters of Wilkes now formed the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, initially to raise fund to rescue Wilkes from his debts and pressure Parliament to accept the will of the Middlesex electorate, but going on to pursue a radical programme of parliamentary reform and support for the American revolutionary cause including sending military supplies.

John Wilkes was released from prison in April 1770 although he was still barred from the House of Commons. In February 1771, Parliament attempted to prevent several newspapers in London from publishing parliamentary debates, Wilkes already hailed as a champion of press freedom on both sides of the Atlantic, saw his opportunity to act. Over the next three years with the backing of the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights Wilkes perused a brilliant legal and political campaign which gained widespread popular support and finally got both Houses of Parliament to submit to the full reporting of their debates. Wilkes also, eventually, succeeded in convincing Parliament to expunge the resolution barring him from sitting which gave him a platform to further condemn Government policy towards the American colonies. Wilkes sponsored many radical causes as an MP and was particularly active in legislation on working conditions. Many riots and celebrations by working people continued to use the slogan 'Wilkes and Liberty.'

In 1774 John Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor of London but, in the words of one historian of the period, the Lord Mayors day of that year would be the last occasion on which the: ‘inferior sort of London would march in support of, or celebration of, Mr Wilkes.' According to one of his biographers, Peter Thomas: 'The mayoralty of Wilkes was one of the most splendid in London's history. His generosity, popularity, and flair for publicity combined to make it memorable; and affection for his daughter, Polly, an elegant lady mayoress, also explained why he put on such a show. He gave frequent and lavish entertainments - his expenses of £8,226 exceeding by £3,337 his official allowances - and he ended heavily in debt.'

In 1779 Wilkes was elected to the lucrative position of Chamberlain of the City of London and began to withdraw from political activism. His attendance at the house became increasingly irregular and at the 1790 general election he announced he would not be campaigning but was open for being nominated for Middlesex; no one showed any inclination to do this. John Wilkes died in December 1797.

In England Wilkes’ key achievement was to protect the freedom of the press by gaining passage for a bill to remove the power of general warrants and to end Parliament's ability to punish political reporting of its debates. However, his greatest impact was on British subjects in the American colonies for whom his struggles convinced many that the British constitution was being subverted by a corrupt ministry, an idea that contributed to the justification for Revolution. The story of his struggle with authority and his writings played an important role in establishing the right to freedom of the press in the United States. After the Revolution, the authors of the new Constitution included wording to prevent Congress from rejecting any legally elected member and to proscribe the sort of general warrants that had been central to Wilkes prosecution.