Bath and Beyond

This book re-examines spa and assembly culture as key venues for sociability in the eighteenth century.

Focused chiefly on the eighteenth century, this book looks forward into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While many of the chapters concern aspects of the city of Bath, the book stretches beyond Bath’s confines, taking in comparative British towns such as Tunbridge Wells, European spa towns, such as Nice, and the impact Bath had on spa towns in America. The chapters not only reconsider familiar themes such as the marriage market but also offer new insights into the architectural development of the city and the role of Masters of Ceremonies: the officials who oversaw Assembly Rooms’ rules and culture. There are also insights into the musical culture of spa towns and the varied backgrounds of the artists and performers. As places that attracted the wealthy and powerful, the book rounds off with consideration of Bath and other spa towns’ importance as centres of culture and diplomacy and of their place in the tourist industry.

This accessibly written book appeals to a broad readership, including undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as academics and informed non-specialists interested in social and cultural history, British history, and modern history.

Dr Hillary Burlock is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Liverpool, working on a project on British assembly rooms, and a historian of eighteenth-century dance and sociability, with interests in politics, embodiment, and performance. She previously worked on the Eighteenth-Century Political Participation and Electoral Culture project and publications include 'Party Politics: Dancing in London's West End, 1780-9' (2021).

Dr Robin Eagles is the Editor of the House of Lords 1660–1832 section at the History of Parliament, whose research interests include the history of Parliament from the late seventeenth to the close of the eighteenth century; the old Palace of Westminster; Frederick, Prince of Wales and the development of opposition politics at Leicester House; John Wilkes. Publications include Champion of English Freedom: the life of John Wilkes, MP and Lord Mayor of London, 1725–1797 (2024).

Tatjana LeBoff is the Project Curator at the Bath Assembly Rooms for the National Trust and is working on a new visitor experience at the Bath Assembly Rooms which will bring to life the Georgian heyday of the Rooms. Research interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century social history, as well as considering how curatorial practice can weave together heritage, social history, and contemporary arts and programming.