The Life and Works of Robert Wood (1717-1771) commemorates the Irish classicist and traveller on the 250th anniversary of his death and provides the general reader with a source book for the fascinating life and career of a much-neglected figure in the realm of Irish eighteenth-century travels and antiquarianism.

First published in 1999, this rewarding volume offers a close and systematic analysis of the General Infirmary at Bath, which was founded in 1739 to grant ‘lepers and cripples, and other indigent strangers’ access to the spa waters. Four main themes are pursued in order to locate the hospital within its economic, socio-cultural and political contexts: arrangements for management and finance under the conditions of a prospering commercial economy; the rewards and restrictions experienced by the physicians and surgeons who donated their professional services free of charge; and the constructions of an integrated social and political élite around the physical and moral rehabilitation of the sick poor. In this way, the example of Bath – a stylish resort whose visitors and residents exemplified the dynamic of fashionable philanthropy – is used to open up issues of significance to our understanding of Georgian Britain as a whole.

This book explores Edmund Burke's economic thought through his understanding of commerce in wider social, imperial, and ethical contexts.

This study presents new information about the four Quaker businessmen who helped found the London Abolition Committee in 1787 and remained active in the late anti-slave trade movement throughout their lifetimes. Drawing on previously unused primary sources, the study traces the close personal, business, social and religious ties binding the men together and shaping their abolition activities and arguments. By closely examining the lives of Joseph Woods, James Philips, George Harrison and Samuel Hoare, the study presents a new view of the factors shaping the arguments and strategies of abolitionism in Britain.

How did the penitentiary get its name? Why did the English impose long prison sentences? Did class and economic conflict really lie at the heart of their correctional system? In a groundbreaking study that challenges the assumptions of modern criminal justice scholarship, Laurie Throness answers many questions like these by exposing the deep theological roots of the judicial institutions of eighteenth-century Britain. The book offers a scholarly account of the passage of the Penitentiary Act of 1779, combining meticulous attention to detail with a sweeping theological overview of the century prior to the Act. But it is not just an intellectual history. It tells a fascinating story of a broader religious movement, and the people and beliefs that motivated them to create a new institution. The work is original because it relies so completely on original sources. It is mystical because it mingles heavenly with earthly justice. It is authoritative because of its explanatory power. Its anecdotes and insights, poetry and song, provide intriguing glimpses into another era strangely familiar to our own. Of special interest to social and legal historians, criminologists, and theologians, this work will also appeal to a wider audience of those who are interested in Christianity's impact on Western culture and institutions.

This book examines the events surrounding the establishment of a settlement in West Africa in 1787, which was later to become Freetown, the present-day capital of Sierra Leone. It outlines the range of ideas and attitudes to Africa which underlay the foundation of the settlement, and the part played by the black settlers themselves, London's Black Poor. Was the settlement based on a racist deportation designed to keep Britain white (as some accounts claim), or a voluntary emigration in which the blacks themselves played a part?