Enfilade

From the conference website:

Georgian Pleasures
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute and The Holburne Museum, Bath, 12–13 September 2013

Georgian Pleasures is an interdisciplinary two-day conference which takes the diversity of the experience of pleasure as its theme. Georgian pleasures were myriad. Some were exclusive — specific to certain classes, ages or genders — others were inclusive and/or overlapping. High life or low life, licit or illicit, private or public, domestic or commercial — there were pleasures to suit all tastes and circumstances. This conference will explore what it was that people of the period enjoyed and what we, as academics, re-enactors and period performers, can learn about society and culture from a better appreciation of pleasure, Georgian-style.

The conference will take place in Bath on 12–13 September 2013. On the 12th the conference will be held in the impressive Queen’s Square home of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute and on the 13th in the recently refurbished Holburne Museum, itself the centre-piece of Sydney Gardens, the last of Bath’s famous Georgian Pleasure Gardens. On Thursday evening, there will be a launch for Bath History Journal, volume 13, and the conference will end on Friday evening with a gala musical concert in the grounds of the Holburne Museum. We welcome academics of all disciplines and interested non-specialists. All are welcome!

Keynote speakers:
John Strachan, Bath Spa University
Cynthia Hammond, Concordia, Montreal
Adrian Teal, author of The Gin Lane Gazette

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

T H U R S D A Y ,  1 2  S E P T E M B E R  2 0 1 3

9:15  Registration and coffee

9:30  Plenary 1
• John Strachan (Bath Spa University), ‘The Pleasures of the Chase’: The Literature of Late Georgian Fox-Hunting

10:30  Pleasure and Moral Order
• Paul Holden (NT Lanhydrock), ‘The weakest woman sometimes may, the wisest man deceive’: Mary Toft and the Pleasures of Humiliation
• Steve Poole (University of the West of England), Pleasure … and Shame: Reputation and Respectability in Sydney Gardens, Bath, 1820–30

11:50  Theatricality
• Anna Meadmore (Royal Ballet School), John Weaver: The ‘Father of English Pantomine’
• Bill Tuck, From Carnival to Pleasure Garden: The Venetian Connection

12:50  Lunch

14:00  Music
• Nicola Pink (University of Southampton), The Experience of Domestic Vocal Music for Young Gentry Women, 1790–1830
• Andrew Clarke (Bristol University), Loder and Sons, Bath: A Band of Musicians
• Madeline Goold, A Portrait of Mrs Luther, ‘…a Lady of taste and of great discernment.’ Harpsichords, Pianoforte, and Subscription Concert Society in Georgian London

15:20  Tea

15:45  Satire and Conviviality
• Jessica Monaghan (Exeter University), Simulation and Satire: Feigned illness and the Georgian Health Resort in the Works of Christopher Anstey and His Imitators
• Heather Carroll (University of Edinburgh), Pleasure in Excess: Corporeality and Hedonism in the Satirical Prints of Albinia, Countess of Buckinghamshire
• Jeremy Barlow, The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks: Contexts, Traditions, and Early Membership

17:05  Spectacle
• Matthew Spring (Bath Spa University), Bath’s Grand Gala Concerts: A Combination of Pleasure ‘after the Manner of Vauxhall’
• Mike Rendell (London Historians), Roll up, roll up, the Greatest Show on Earth
• Vicky Vanruysseveldt (Vrije Universiteit), Travelling Entertainers and the Use of Public Space in Brabantine Cities

19:00  Wine and nibbles sponsored by Bath History / Launch of Bath History, volume 13

F R I D A Y ,  1 3  S E P T E M B E R  2 0 1 3

9:15  Plenary 2
• Cynthia Hammond (Concordia University), ‘The Gardens will be Illuminated’: Gendered and Georgian Pleasures in the Sydney Gardens, Bath

10:15  Fashionable Consumption
• Elenor Ling (Fitzwilliam Museum), The Allure of Luxury Shops: The Blathwayt Family in London
• Mike Baldwin (London Metropolitan University), Consuming the Harp in Late Georgian England: Products, Services and Customers of the Erat Manufactory, 1821–24

11:15  Coffee — Charles Wiffen will be playing the Schantz fortpiano (1795)

11:30  Healthy Living
• Sarah Spooner (University of East Anglia), ‘Fields of Corn make a Pleasant Prospect’: Gardening and Agriculture in Georgian England
• Linda Watts (Cleveland Pools Trust), The Cleveland ‘Pleasure Baths’: Secluded Pleasures in a Spa City
• Robin Jarvis (University of the West of England), Hydromania: The Natural and Unnatural Pleasures of Swimming in Late Georgian England

13:00  Lunch

14:00  Dance
•  Barbara Segal, Dance: A Most Popular Georgian Entertainment

14:30  Music in the Air
• Peter Holman, Politics in the Pit: Directing from the Keyboard [or Not] in the Georgian Theatre
• Andy Lamb (Oxford University), Stealing from the French: The Rise of Wind Harmony Music
• William Summers, Music, Naturalism, and Royal Power Struggles Surrounding Hampton Court Palace, 1716–21

15:30  Tea

15:50  Popular Culture
• Kevin Grieves (Bath Spa University), The Female Bruisers: Women Prizefighters of the Eighteenth Century
• Nick Nourse (Bristol University), Controlling Georgian Pleasures: Music and Entertainment, Legislation and the Law
• Nick Rogers (York University, Toronto), ‘Pleasures for the Poor?’ The Dilemma of Gin Drinking

17:30  Adrian Teal, The Gin Lane Gazette

During the conference Steven Parsons, Diana Russell and Kate James, PGR students at Bath Spa University, will be presenting a poster session.

19:00  Georgian Pleasures — An evening’s entertainment in the manner of a Georgian Garden Gala concert with a pleasure gardens band (The Vauxhall Players) in a specially constructed and lit ‘orchestra’, plus singers, a troupe of entertainers performing a comic intermezzo piece – The Death of Pulcinella, and strolling wind band performing in the gardens between items. The concert will take place outdoors in the Sydney Gardens (Holburne) or at Burdall’s Yard (7a Anglo Terrace, Bath, BA15NH), if the weather is inclement.