Promoting Taste in the Provincial Press: National and Local Culture in Eighteenth-Century

Newcastle upon Tyne

HELEN BERRY

In existing analyses of the cultural history of Britain in the eighteenth century, historians have wavered between asserting the strength of diverse regional identities and arguing for the universalising tendencies of a variety of factors such as commerce and consumption, Protestantism, and anti- French sentiment in the quest for the origins of British national identity.’ The main forces of resistance against British unification (a process which is often regarded, in cultural as well as political terms, as a synonym for English imperialism) are most usually identified in the existing historiography as being among the Scots, Welsh and Irish (as neighbouring victims of English colonisation). The distinct cultural identities within different regions of England have therefore frequently been elided or ignored altogether.’ At a historical moment when political devolution has brought the question of national identity to the fore (with some querying whether a truly ‘British’ culture has ever existed), the moment is ripe to re-evaluate the complex cultural fabric of Britain in the eighteenth century.

The work of Hannah Barker and James Raven3 has done much to assert the importance of the rise of the provincial press in the development of what Renedict Anderson has famously termed the ‘imagined community’ of the nation.“ Much work remains to be done, however, on the contribution of provincial newspapers to fostering the idea of British unity in the century after the Act of Union. This paper seeks to redress this omission in part by exploring the cultural significance of the provincial press in North-East England during the eighteenth century. It is a little-acknowledged fact that, by ISOO, Newcastle had become the most important printing centre in England outside of London and the university towns.5 Newcastle upon Tyne. like other ports such as Bristol and Liverpool, was a fast-growing provincial centre throughout the 1700s. Its population doubled in size between 1660 and 1750 to about 29000 people, and the town prospered mainly due to its coal and glass-making industries.‘ Newcastle participated fully in what Peter Borsay has called the ‘English urban renaissance’: by the 1780s the town boasted new assembly rooms, theatre and public baths, in addition to the widest range of venues for leisure and cultural pursuits, such as coffee- houses, lending libraries and bookshops.’ Yet, in the existing historiography, it is the economic significance of Newcastle’s coal trade which continues to

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predominate, fostering the impression of cultural barrenness (or rather, collective cultural amnesia) with regard to the cultural contribution of the North East in the eighteenth century, and its significance in a broader national perspective.

Before we proceed to examine the neglected history of Newcastle's print culture in more detail, how are we to conceptualise the wider relationship between cultural production and the formation of national identity in the eighteenth century? Like Peter Borsay. Dror Wahrman sees the cultural development of eighteenth-century Britain in terms of the creation of a 'national society' in which civic klites, local gentry, and the growing sector of the middling sort participated. This 'national society' looked to London for its model of cultural activities: concerts, theatrical performances, fashions and pleasure gardens, and sought to create its own version of these in its localities. In contrast to this 'London-centred and London-orientated' cultural outlook was one which focused upon the distinct values and cultures of regional difference, a form of 'localism' which, argues Wahrman, became associated specifically with 'plebeian' culture, a bifurcation which tended to underscore social division and class stratification.x While Wahr- man's analysis is not unproblematic in its rather generalised account of British cultural development (his model is tested in what follows), it provides a broader contextual framework for considering the slippage between local and national identities in the texts of eighteenth-century provincial newspapers. There was clearly potential for conflict between the post-Act of linion attempts to build a unified, more cohesive society and what could be seen as the divisive influence of taste in encouraging cultural, and social, stratification. Tensions could potentially arise in encounters between different cultural horizons, particularly in the relationship between London and provincial urban centres, in the face of attempts to colonise regional identities.

Within this complex process of cultural change, the arts became particularly important as 'sites for the formulation of individual and group interests, as embodiments of national history and of individual g e n i ~ s ' . ~ The idea of taste became the watchword in public discourses, deployed in order to express the quality of the subject, with the effect of enhancing its prestige and merit. According to one contemporary definition, 'taste' to the eighteenth- century reader meant 'that quick discerning faculty or power of the mind by which we accurately distinguish the good, bad or indifferent'.'" Taste was increasingly evoked as a marker of social distinction between different groups -those with taste by definition wished to distinguish themselves from those who lacked that particular quality." The printed word clearly had a primary role in disseminating ideas about culture in Britain during an era of unprecedented growth in literacy and improvement in the availability and distribution of a wide range of popular print culture. A project of improving 'National Taste', for example, had been launched by Joseph Addison in the Spectator in 1712, by means of an essay in which he encouraged the 'better

The Proviiicitrl Prc~ss in Newcastle up011 Tyrie 3

sort' to appreciate visual arts, music, architecture, the beauty of nature and literature." Taste was to the material realm what politeness was in the realm of interpersonal human relations: both were essential to the development of civil society in eighteenth-century Britain. What is under consideration here is the origin of a broader consensus about what taste was, and how the rules of taste were elucidated, in this case, through the text of newsprint. In elevating certain cultural activities and patterns of consumption as tastejd, Newcastle newspapers participated in the construction of an idea of polite, 'national' society in which the North East participated fully. Aesthetic judgement was figured as a mark of social prestige and membership of the influential group who wielded power in their local community. The idea of taste, as we shall see, was evoked in the Newcastle papers in reports about cultural activities and events, particularly those involving the performing arts, and also in the numerous advertisements for luxury goods imported from London and overseas. Thus. the creation of a language of prestige in the Newcastle press was closely linked with the idea of taste. and had social, political and economic ramifications both for the North East and for Britain as a whole.

Publishirig History The Norwich Post is credited as being the first English regional newspaper, and started in 1701.'~ Other pioneer newspapers were established, most of them short-lived: for example, the Bristol Post-Boy (1701 or 1702) and the Exeter Post-Man in 7 7 0 4 . ' ~ The first attempt at a newspaper in the North East was the short-lived Newcastle Gazette, or The Norther11 Courant (1710). printed by John Saywell at Piperwell, Gateshead, for Joseph Button, who had operated his publishing business on the Tyne Bridge since 1704.'~ John White set up the second permanent press in Newcastle in 1708 or I 71 I in premises first in the Close, then moved to the Side, where he conducted business between 1712 and r769. He began to print the NewcastIe Courant in 1711. It was the first successful paper to be printed north of the Trent, published first tri-weekly, then weekly, up to 1876." A royalist paper with high church sympathies, it was regarded as reactionary and pro-establish- inent, although this characterisation belies the degree of experimentation with format and content in the Courant over time, the debates between readers of different political complexions which appeared within its pages, as well as the ever-growing section that was devoted to local news.

The first serious rival to the Courant, the Newcastle Journal, published by the Quaker printer Isaac Thompson, appeared in 7739 and ran until 1788.'~ The JooLirnal held moderate Whig views, but was a less experimental paper in terms of format and content than any of its contemporary rivals. Thomas Slack began the Newcastle CIiroiiide in March 1764. the year after leaving his former employer Isaac Thompson. He quarrelled with Thompson in disputes over alleged slurs upon his character, which spilled over onto the pages of

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their respective newspapers. Slack's daughter, Sarah, married Solomon Hodgson, her father's apprentice, who later published the works of Thomas Bewicli. Together with her sister Elizabeth, she inherited her father's publishing business." Solomon Hodgson became the reporter, editor and publisher of the Chronicle, an 'ardent and energetic reformer'.IY Sarah took over the running of the Chronicle at her husband's death, and was a friend of the Unitarian minister William Turner, the founder in I 793 of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society.'" The Clironicle was another successful title that sustained an unbroken print-run up to the twentieth century. Lastly, The Newcastle Advertiser; or, General Weekly Post was founded in 1788, and later moved to Durham where it was refounded as the Durharn Advertiser (1814). The above represent the most significant weekly newspapers to have come out of the North-East printing presses in the eighteenth century. It was not until the nineteenth century that other towns in the region produced their own papers, with the brief exception of a short-lived paper in Darlington.2T The Tyrie Mercury: or, Northurnberlarid, Durham and Cumberland Gazette was started by the Mitchell family in 1802; the Durharn Chronicle was not printed until 1820 .~ ' Sunderland did not have its own paper until ~831, Alnwick and Morpeth 1854, and Hexham 1864. Thus, in the period up to 1800. the printers of Newcastle were responsible for producing and organising the distribution of newspapers throughout the North East, and for creating some of the primary public discourses about the region.

The Newcastle Courant followed the pattern of all provincial newspapers at the time in its format and content: up until the Stamp Act of 1725, it took the form of a quarto-size pamphlet to avoid paying duty on paper: after the tightening of this legal loophole. it was issued on four sides of two folio sheets of stamped paper. The paper thus changed and developed during the nine decades in question, in accordance with external changes in the print trade, and internal experimentation with the format and content of the newspaper. Indeed, editors over the years tried to anticipate changes in taste among readers. This is particularly striking when one compares the four rival Newcastle papers: the Courant experimented with new headlines and layouts, but by contrast, the Joiirnal preserved a uniform layout throughout its print run. The Chronicle was more self-consciously 'literary'. issued in the form of a periodical with an index to poetry, whereas the Advertiser aimed to be visually compelling, using a typeface which imitated copperplate hand- writing, interspersed text with sub-headings. and included more logos and small illustrative woodcuts as a proportion of its total column inches than any other Newcastle paper.

The Cultural Importance of Newspaprrs in the North East The publisher of the Newcastle Journal, Isaac Thompson. had aspirations as a poet and literary critic. In r731 he published A Collection of Poems, Occasionally Writ on Several Subjects, which was printed in Newcastle by

Tlir Pro\~incinl Press in Niwcastle upon Tgnc 5

the Courant’s publisher, John White. This collection included a poem dedicated to Mr. G[ralzn]M; On his Design of Furnishing the Town yf S[ undcrlanld with the Publick News Papers. The poem celebrates the spread of news-print in the North East, as a vehicle for elevating the cultural and political awareness of its inhabitants. In doing so, Thompson satirised the characterisation of the region as a backwater, by suggesting that newspapers were a life-line for the literate:

We, who need rarely stir abroad. Reyond the Hills to view the Road. Assisted by thy News, can stretch Our sight beyond the Glasses reach, And without trav’lling, can extend, Our vies to Earth’s remotest End. O’er diffrent Climes each Keader ranges, The Poles, the Indies, and the Ganges; And see the Courts of tall the Nations, Their Strength, their Genius, and their Fashions; The Riches, Policy and Trafick. Of Europr, Ash. and of Afric. Great Sphere of Learning, boundless ICnowledge. Beyond the Reach of School or College; By which we’re taught to raise, a t once, Our Thoughts from Coal-Pits, up to Thrones, And lift our Minds from Talk with Mastrrs. Or vulgar Keelmeri and their Costu’s To high Dispute of Pcace and Wars. ’Mongst Powers and Kings and Emperors; Th’ Additions, Explanations, Flaws. Amends of Bills and Acts. and LawsL3

According to Thompson, newspapers elevated the parochial minds of readers in the North East to the higher spheres of politics, the world of learning, the arts, and travel. Isaac Thompson was a significant, though now largely forgotten, figure, in the development of indigenous literary culture in Newcastle. His work had strong local appeal, since it was riddled with in- jokes and references to his own circle of friends. It was also of fairly dubious literary merit. Thompson’s verse, quoted above, suggests that the author and his subscribers considered themselves to be different in their outlook from those whose sole occupation in life was engagement in the single economic activity for which Newcastle was most famous - the coal trade. Thompson implied that he and his peers did not fit the stereotype: their interest in acquiring knowledge about the wider world, mediated through the news- papers, distinguished them from the ‘vulgar’ society in which they found them~elves.’~ In short (although Thompson does not use the word), a certain section of the literate population in the North East had acquired ‘taste’.

Thompson’s poem is a fair characterisation of the content of provincial newspapers in the eighteenth century. The scope of White’s project is

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indicated by its full title in 1720: ‘The Newcastle Weekly Courant: Or, A General VIEW OF THE Most Material Occurrences, BOTH Foreign and Dornestick: But more particularly of Great Britain [black type]; with Useful Observations on TRADE’.’’ John White’s paper was composed of extracts from the London newspapers, the ‘posts’, containing foreign and domestic news, with a small section devoted to items of local news (practically non- existent for the first two decades of the newspaper’s publication) and an ever- growing section for advertisements, which contain much information of local interest. The editor was thus influenced by what he considered would preoccupy his readers in the region: a digest of international news and information about political events in London made up the bulk of news culled from other papers. The act of reading the Newcastle papers was thus in itself construed to be a mark of discernment that gave the reader claim to being informed about current affairs at the local, regional, national and international level.

Londoion Taste We may in part see the local press as an organ for those who were invested in promoting the idea of a ‘national society’ in the North East. The Newcastle Courant, for example, sustained an unbroken print-run throughout the eighteenth century, and during this time developed its own language of advertising. This relied greatly upon references to London, evoked in order to add prestige to the services, goods and events that were on offer in the region. ‘London’ signified excellence, fashion and taste. Let us take some examples. As early as 1711 ‘James Jutin. Master of the free Grammar-School in Newcastle’ advertised in the Newcastle Courant that he would teach ‘Young Gentlemen or others desirous to learn any part of the Mathematicks’ using a method ‘as is practised in London’.’‘ ‘Edward Staveley, from London’ advertised his new public house in Durham, ‘the Nag’s-Head, in the Market-Place’, by promising that ‘there is good Entertainment, and civil Usage for Man and Horse; and that there is just now fixed up in a good Room, as complete a French Billiard Table, as any in London, made at St. James’s by the best Workman’.27 In 1712 ‘Ralph Agutter, Musical-Instrument-Maker of London’ advertised that he had set up shop ‘in the Great-Market in Newcastle upon Tine’, and that he ‘makes and mends Instruments, as fine as any Man in EL~rope’.28 John Booth advertised his series of experimental public lectures to the ‘Gentlemen and Ladies of Newcastle’ in I 741 with the announcement that he would use the same apparatus as the Royal Society in London, as mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions for 1738.’” Similarly, when the Edinburgh Comedians performed a ballad opera entitled ‘The Jovial Crew or, the Merry Beggars’ at the New Theatre at the Bigg Market in Newcastle in 1761, they advertised that the opera would be seen ‘As it was performed upwards of Forty Nights successively at the Theatre Royal in Covent-Garden’.30 In the following year the New Theatre promised a concert of music and ‘a

TIie Provincirrl Press in Newcastle lipon T:yie 7

MASQIJE‘, adding that the programme had ‘never [been] performed out of London’. This patriotic production ‘call’d ALFRED THE GREAT, The FATHER of his COUNTRY’, was followed by a ‘COMEDY of THREE ACTS (never performed here) call’d, THE WINTER’S TALE’. Special attention was drawn to the fact that this production was ‘an Alteration from SHAKESPEAR by Mr GARRICK’, thus contributing to the nation-wide revival of the Bard’s plays.

Advertisements from the earliest issues of the Courant are a reminder of the early flourishing of the book trade in the North East, and of the market for polite literature among readers there. Among the books sold ‘by J. Button on the Bridge’ in Newcastle throughout 1712 were ‘THE TATLERS in 4 Volumes’ and ‘A Very neat Pocket Edition of the Spectator. in two Volumes in T ~ s . ’ , which was printed and sold by H. Lawrence ‘from the Queen’s Printing-House in London’ at his house in Piperwellgate, Gateshead. I2

Printers such as Lawrence served apprenticeships in London and returned to the North East to set up their businesses. but maintained their close links with former colleagues in the London trade. Advertisements in the Newcastle Courant for the London Magazine: Or, Gentleinan’s Monthly Intelligmcer notified readers that the serial was printed by ‘F. Jefferies in Ludgate-street; John White, Printer in Newcastle upon T!grze, and the Booksellers in Town and Country’.3 The highly developed network of booksellers in the North East facilitated the rapid distribution of fashionable literature emanating from London to the region, suggesting both high demand and ease of purchase. The new novel by Eliza Haywood in 1741, The Unfortunate Princes; Or The LiIe and Surprising Adventures of the Princess of tjavco, for example, was printed for J. Hodges at the Looking-glass on London Bridge, and was sold across the North of England and Scotland: by Mess. Fleming, Bryson, Alcenhead and Harrison, Booksellers, in Newcastle: Mr Bell at Stockton; Mrs Waghorn and Mr Aitley at Durham: Mess. Myres. Richardson and Carney, at Penrith, Mr Austin at Ripon; Mr Graham at Alnwick; Mr Taylor at Berwick upon Tweed: and by the booksellers at Edinburgh. That this network was advertised in the Courant is also suggestive of the paper’s wide distribution. 34 James Fleming in Newcastle took out a special advertisement to announce that he had the fourth edition of Fielding’s Patiwfn in stock. s as well as the widest variety of other works, such as French and Latin dictionaries, bibles and sermons, Tlic Turkish Spy. Harleian Miscellanies in 8 volumes, Tatlers and Spectators, Gucirdians, E’rmalc Spectators. Arabian Nights (6 volumes), Pope’s and Swift’s Works, and Hume’s Essays on Morality.’” Any literate person in the North East could follow not only literary fashion, but also the wider projects of antiquarian interest, philosophy, history and the new sciences.

Books were just one aspect of material culture associated with the construction of taste. An increasing number of advertisements in the Newcmtlr Courant were devoted to publicising the sale of luxury manufac- tured goods, foodstuffs and particularly clothes, in a language which emphasised the diversity of choice and quality of the items on sale. Again, a connection with London was often made explicit in the marketing of such

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items. ‘MR. George Roe, who was at the Shop under the 7 Stars in Flesh- market, Newcastle, during the Fair’ advertised in 1732 that he had ‘come to the Castle-garth, within the Blackgate, up Dr. Ellis’s Stairs, formerly Mrs. Warwick’s with more Goods from London’. These included ‘All sorts of Three Quarter wide Mantua Silks [...I Dovecapes, Shaggarins, Turky Silks: all Sorts of Hollands, Muslins and Cambricks; all sorts of Thread Sattins, mock Tabies, Buerders [...I and a great Variety of other Goods, too Tedious to mention’.37 As an expanding port with good links by road and sea to London, Newcastle had ever-increasing access to such commodities during the eighteenth century. John Gibson announced in 1752 that he had ‘opened his WARE-HOUSE at the Shop [...I in the Flesh-market, Newcastle: with a large Assortment of fine TEAS’. He sold ‘the finest Suchong [...I [as] drunk by the Mandarines’, and also ‘a fine Assortment of Indian FANS’ of which there was ‘a very great Choice’.38 ‘INDIA CHINA, Blue and Green edg’d CREAM COLOUR’D WARE &c.’ was sold by ‘J. JAMESON, in the middle of the Groat- Market’, who begged ‘to inform the Ladies in this town and neighbourhood, That he has this week received from London, a very elegant Assortment of fashionable Blue and Colour’d TEA CHINA, amongst which are compleat sets of beautiful Nankin, Jars and Beakers ditto, Punch Bowls, &c.’. Staffordshire ware and Wedgwood tea services were among the list of items sold by Jameson to ladies in N e w ~ a s t l e . ~ ~ As the above examples illustrate, a wide variety of merchandise was transported to the North East from all over Britain, whose origins were domestic or foreign. Rarity, exoticism and fashion, in addition to association with London, were key elements in constructing consumer taste in the provinces.

Another strong link in the process of creating a ‘national culture’ was the increasing interest over time in reporting of fashions and habits of royalty, particularly at the marriage and accession of George 111. There was especial interest in London. relayed to the provinces through the reprinting of articles from the London Gazette. of the style and demeanour of the new queen.“” To celebrate the royal wedding in 1761, the fountain at Sandhill in Newcastle ran with wine, entertainments were provided at the Mansion-house, there was a concert of music at Mr Parker’s Long-room, and a free assembly held at the expense of the corporation in the Assembly Rooms. In reporting the joy of loyal subjects on such occasions, the Courant cemented the investment of the people of the North East in national affairs and helped to create a sense of synchronised unity across Britain. The space given to reporting international events in provincial papers - the wars with France, overseas campaigns, and the importation of luxury items as the bounty of colonial trade - implied that all Britons were stakeholders in the conquests of the Empire, particularly during and after the Seven Years War. The Newcastle Courant reported how news of the conquest of Havana was celebrated throughout the region in October 1762: ‘the greatest Joy was expressed by all Ranks of People [...I [in] most Places within the Circuit of this Paper, but they cannot be inserted for Want of ROO^'.^' During the reigns of George I1 and George 111,

The Provincial Press i n Newcastle upon Tyne 9

commemorative public occasions became increasingly regarded as a form of patriotic ritual. Celebrations of the anniversary of the king’s coronation or the royal family’s birthdays thus punctuated the social calender and cemented the allegiance of the provincial pop~lation.~’

Local Cultzire, Nat ional Cul ture

Thus far, we have considered the importance of London as an influential centre of cultural production, and the process of creating a ‘national culture’ in the text of provincial newspapers, but different regions had their own forms of cultural production which strengthened or. in some cases, resisted the trend towards creating a ‘national culture’. National and regional loyalties formed a complex web in the development of culture in Britain during the eighteenth century. Peter Borsay suggests a pluralist approach to mapping the cultural development of the cultural life in English provincial towns, rather than assuming a yriori a ‘dominance model’ in which London led, and provincial towns followed, The content of Newcastle newspapers of the time illustrates the cross-currents of cultural influence to and from the capital, as well as the broader network of communication within Britain between provincial centres. the capital, and overseas. A prime example of the two-way communication process was that Newcastle papers were taken in London coffee-houses as a cheap alternative to the London posts, and as a means for people who did business with, or who were from, the North East to keep in touch with news from the region. Thus the Newcastle Advertiser announced:

This Paper is circulated (BY EXPRESS) [...I and may be regularly seen every Week at Peele’s Coffee-House. Fleet-Street; at the Chapter Coffee-House, St. Paul’s Church-Yard: at the London Coffee-House. on Ludgate-EIill, at the Edinburgh Coffee-House. near the Royal-Exchange: at Garraway’s Coffee- House. Change-Alley. LONDON: at the Coffee-Houses in York. Edinburgh, &c. at Mr WM TAYLER’s Office. No. 5, Warwick-Court: Newgate-Street, London.44

Similarly, the Courant advertised ‘All Letters and Advertisements for the Printers of this Paper are taken in at the London Coffee-House, Ludgate-hill, where the Paper is regularly and separately filed; also Letters and Advertisements are taken in at W. Cliarriley ’s, Bookseller, at the Bridge- End, Newcastle upon T ~ n e ’ . ~ ~ There is growing evidence that the influence of the Newcastle press extended across social and geographical boundaries. The duke of Northumberland’s chaplain and private secretary, John Brand, recorded in a letter to his friend, the engraver Ralph Beilby, how he had witnessed a copy of the Courant being ‘served up among the dried sweetmeats in the dessert’ at Sion House, so that the guests could read the latest news about the Newcastle elections.4h The Newcastle papers were a useful source of information for the London press, while other provincial papers, such as the Derby Mercury, hoped to gain a competitive advantage over their local

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rivals by subscribing directly to the Courant, a strategy which was particularly advantageous in I 745 at the outbreak of the Jacobite rebellion in the North.47

Throughout the eighteenth century the Courant’s printer, John White, encouraged his readers’ literary endeavours with advertisements such as the following: ‘This is to give Notice to all Gentlemen and Lovers of Learning, who are willing to Publish any Book in the Northern parts, that 7ohn White, Printer (Living in the Close) in Newcastle upon Tine, is furnish’d with a great variety of Letters and Presses and will be ready to Print the same upon reasonable Terms.’48 The Courcrrzt thus functioned as a communication link between authors and the reading public in the North East. The historian Henry Bourne, for example, used the Courant to seek out private documents relating to churches, chapels, chantries, monasteries, hospitals and alms- houses for his study of ‘Memoirs and Antiquities of the Town of Newcastle upon T ~ n e ’ . ~ ~ John White also experimented with various literary inclusions in the Courant, and took to publishing short verses by readers in the paper. The subject-matter of these short verses extended to celebrations of the local landscape of the North East, and the fashionable genre of the pastoral ode. A verse ‘On viewing MARSDON ROCKS’. for example, signed ‘G.O., N. Shields, Aug. 5 , r771’, commemorated the ‘solemn, though yet pleasing’ sight of coastal rocks between South Shields and Sunderland, described in an accompanying note as ‘curious, romantic, and entertaining a scene of nature, as any to be met with of the kind in all the British isle^'.^" The Courant thus provided a platform for its readers to have their own literary efforts published, an endeavour which created a culture around items of local significance, magnified and given a national context (the issues were read in London coffee-houses, and the poetry, as the above example indicates, alerted the reader to the wider national significance of the North East). The Courant also encouraged the civilising influence of polite conversation. Short literary and historical anecdotes were printed at the end of issues in the I 770s, presumably to furnish the reader with witty conversation Local print culture thus challenged the notion that tasteful items had to be imported from London, rather than produced locally, and yet it was hard to escape comparison with the capital. A good example of this was the fashion for wallpaper, which became a ‘genteel’ mark of tasteful interior design in the eighteenth century. In 1781 an advertisement for a ‘Paper Manufactory’ at the Side in Newcastle, owned by James Davenport, boasted a selection of ‘new and elegant Assortment of Patterns, which are finished in the following fancy grounds, viz. Olymphian, Apple, and Olive Greens, French Greys, Nankeens, Chocolate, Drabs, Crimsons, Blues, Stones, and in the richest colours, and strong paper’. The proprietor claimed that he ‘brought [that is, manufactured] Papers to as great perfection as in London’. 5a Newcastle wallpapers may have been as excellent as those in London, but they could only be recommended with reference to the standard of metropolitan chic, not as a local product of superior quality.

The Provincial Prrss in Newcastle upon T y i e I I

In addition to promoting taste in material culture, the Newcastle press encouraged the success of theatrical performances, concerts, assemblies and balls throughout the North-East region by means of notices and advertise- ments. In 1751, for example, a ‘great Number of Persons of Distinction’ was reported to have attended a grand entertainment given at the Assembly Room, Newcastle, by ‘William Rigge, Esq.; High Sheriff for the County of Nor th~mber l and’ .~~ In the same year, what was described as a ‘numerous and polite Audience’ attended Charles Avison’s concert of vocal and instrumental music at the same venue, and raised the sum of€36 15s. for the infirmary. 54 Avison himself looked to Europe for inspiration for his concerts.’j He adapted the works of Rameau, ‘principal Composer to the Opera of Paris’, thus ensuring a musical ‘first’ for the region: as he stated in an open letter to the Courant, ‘I shall [...I have the Pleasure of introducing to a Northern Audience, the compositions of this celebrated Master, which as yet are but little known in England’.’‘ Indeed, the Revd William Turner wrote in the Monthly Magazine for r 8 o r that Newcastle had at one time been ‘a haven for music lovers’, and that ‘considerable attention was paid to the cultivation of this elegant art’ in the town.57 This observation seems to be confirmed by the Newcastle Coiirtrnt and Newcastle Advertisu, which ran the following advertisements throughout August T 791:

NEWCASTLE GRAND M‘IJSIC FESTIVAL,

O n THURSDAY Morning the 251h of AUGUST, WT1,L BE PERFORMED

In the CHURCH of St NICHOLAS. A Grand Selection of

SACRED MUSIC, As Performed in WI:STMINS’rER ABBEY. .’*

The advertisement promised an ambitious programme of church music: a total of fifty-four songs, choruses and duets, spread over three days, starting each day at eleven in the morning. Thursday’s programme was something of a prelude to the main event, a performance of Handel’s Messiah the following day. The finale was a performance of Handel’s coronation anthem, Zadolz thr

The festivities continued in Newcastle, pausing only briefly to observe the sabbath, with two ‘Grand Miscellaneous Concerts‘ at the theatre on the following Monday and Tuesday, performed by singers and musicians imported especially for the occasion. including the celebrated German soprano, Madam Mars.'" Indeed, it appears that no expense or trouble was spared in planning for this musical extravaganza: ‘Trombones, Bass Trumpets, &c. &c. and a complete set of CHORUS SINGERS’ had been specially arranged, and a set of double drums transported (no doubt with considerable logistical difficulty) approximately three hundred miles from Westminster Abbey to Newcastle.

The timing of the musical extravaganza in the summer of I 79r coincided with the high point of the social calendar. As in other ‘provincial capitals’

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such as Norwich, assize week in Newcastle was during August, when visiting dignitaries were entertained by the local gentry and nobility to a range of civic functions, assemblies, dinners and balls.“ The summer months were also marked by the horse-racing calendar, which attracted socially mixed crowds across the region. The ‘Grand Musical Concert’ of the 1791 season was thus part of a longer tradition of summer festivities, but it aimed to outshine all previous events by its ambition, scope and duration. Advertisements for the event appeared in the local press from July onwards in order to heighten public anticipation. Details of how the Grand Musical Concert of 1791 was organised, given in the local press, illustrate how Newcastle’s infrastructure, as well as the initiative of local impresarios, made it possible for such an event to take place. St Nicholas’s Church, surmounted by its fifteenth-century lantern spire, provided a fitting location for the festival of sacred music. A critical mass of professional and mercantile groups, gentry and nobility in Newcastle and the neighbouring counties provided an eager audience for a concert of this kind, even though subscription tickets for the whole programme cost the considerable sum of ‘One Guinea and a Half.” Ladies and gentlemen who wished to attend the Grand Musical Concert obtained their tickets by signing the Subscription Books at the ‘Subscription Coffee-Rooms, Bella’s Coffee-House, the Shake- speare Tavern, Mr Fisher’s Circulating Library, S . Hodgson’s Union street: and Hall and Elliot’s Printing-Office, Pilgrim-~treet’.~~

In spite of the fact that this was to be a celebration of church music in a place of worship, the social dimension and political significance of this cultural event, at which all of Newcastle’s ‘Ouality’ was to be assembled, is clear. The dimension of display, and significance of St Nicholas’s as a public space for the upper ranks of local society to observe their peers, are suggested by the particular emphasis which was placed at the time on the particular effort which female concert-goers made to appear their most dazzling. One Mr Smyth, hairdresser to the famous actress Mrs S i d d o n ~ , ~ ~ came from London especially to render his services to the ladies of Newcastle. In the event, the Newcastle Courant was lost for superlatives in describing the dazzling sight of the audience at the Grand Musical Festival:

Newcastle, August 27, 1791. This town has this week been favoured with the most numerous and genteel selection of company, ever remembered to have graced any of its public meetings. The Assemblies have been brilliant and crowded, and no wonder, when the attractive charms of the various performances at the Musical Festival, drew from the neighbouring counties, all those whom taste and fashion could prevail upon.65

The way in which the Grand Musical Concert in Newcastle was reported in the local papers is illustrative of the manner in which the Newcastle press generated a public discourse which asserted the cultural vitality and importance of the North East on a national scale by drawing a specific

TIic Proviwial Press in Newcastle upon Tynr 13

parallel with the capital. The Newcastle Advertiser publicly announced before the event: ‘Our Musical Festival promises to be more complete than any ever given out of London.’ Audiences were enticed with the promise that the music was to be heard ‘As Performed in WESTMINSTER ABBEY’, which drew a specific parallel with the highly successful concerts of Handel’s music in the capital during the 1780s.‘~ The staging of an event in Newcastle to which international performers were invited may be interpreted as a mark of provincial confidence and civic pride in Newcastle during the 1790s. The manner of reporting the Grand Musical Festival in the local papers strongly implies, however, that the cultural life of the region was still judged by contemporaries, not upon its own terms, but in relation to London.

Coricl usion How might the findings presented here lead to a more highly attenuated picture of the cultural development of eighteenth-century Britain? Clearly, more research is needed into the tensions between local and national identity, and further questions will have to be asked. What, for example, was the precise social profile of Dror Wahrman’s ‘national society’, those who promoted the proposed outward radial spread of culture from London to the provinces? To what extent did these ‘nationalisers’ encounter resistance in the localities, or were their schemes altered and accommodated according to local priorities.? The case study of Newcastle upon Tyne presented here has illustrated how the pattern is more complex than a straightforward model of emulation would imply, and that local variations upon a national theme are evident in all aspects of cultural production, marketing and consumption in this period. Too often historians resort to the cultural emulation theory to explain the spread of ‘polite’ culture’ and the eighteenth-century urban renaissance, a hypothesis which in itself can seem too ‘rosy’ a picture, with little emphasis upon regional ~a r i a t ion . ‘~ While there can be little doubt that eighteenth-century urban growth was presenting new social opportunities and cultural forms, the idea of ‘polite society’ is also fraught with difficulties in its elision of complex phenomena arising from economic, social, politicial and, indeed, geographical difference.

We observed at the outset how the influential approach of ‘macro’ histories of Britain has tended to problematise ‘peripheral’ histories post-Act of Union. in a manner that has diverted attention from regional difference within England. One important recent contribution to the subject of English cultural identity at this time has given the impression that foreign travellers (mainly to London) were able to identify ‘Englishness’.6x In a fascinating synthesis of outsiders’ views of England, Prof. Langford mentions almost en passant that tourists from abroad during the eighteenth century noted the contrast between provincial and metropolitan manners. He observes that visitors to another ‘remote’ county, Devon, noted that ‘the talk was of local people’, and that there was ‘a kind of barbarity. a certain brutality and

14 HELEN BERRY

ignoran~e’.‘~ By bringing such evocative observations to the fore, it will be possible to develop new comparative histories of ‘English peripheries’, which is not to trivialise the political struggle of the so-called ‘Celtic fringe’, but rather to test the multiple facets of identity without u priori essentialism about any of the nations accommodated within the Union.

Finally, what may be concluded from the example of North-East England, the subject of this particular inquiry.? This paper has illustrated how the newsprint which emanated from one English provincial centre, Newcastle upon Tyne, created a distinctive and influential regional platform for the exchange of ideas about cultural value in the eighteenth century. The development of an idea of ‘taste’ across the nation, while Britain as a political entity was in its infancy, depended in part upon the production and consumption of newspriot wherein the act of reading the papers could in itself be construed to be a mark of individual discernment, a factor which was to change in the nineteenth century with the expansion of literacy among the working classes and diversification of newspaper styles. Like many other provincial newspapers, the Newcastle papers were part compilation from the London press, part literary journal, composed of extracts from the capital’s newspapers and periodicals. However, as has been shown, there was a growing amount of space for reporting local news, especially the successful public occasions which marked the summer ‘season’ in the North East, and for printing the literary endeavours of the paper’s provincial readers. The cultural significance of the language used in reporting local events, such as balls, assemblies and concerts, was that it positioned such events in relation to comparable activities in London. Moreover, the practice of what may be called ‘prestige appropriation’ by association with the capital, as we have seen, was continued by advertisers who marketed imported goods from London by malting reference explicitly to their origin. Even in cases where certain goods and services originated in Newcastle (wallpaper manufacture, or the sltills of a local dancing master), comparison or connection with London was frequently made. Cultural consumption was indeed more complex than a straightforward pattern of emulation: London was often, but not always, the ultimate point of reference for eighteenth-century provincial journalists, since newspapers extended the horizons of readers far beyond the metropolis to European cultural centres and beyond. The tropes of metropolitan sophistication and the exoticism of more distant realms were played upon and exploited in new and distinctive ways from the perspective of writers who satirised their own provincialism, and implicitly criticised those who generated stereotypical perceptions of the North East as a land of universally ‘vulgar’ taste. The Newcastle press thus functioned as the organ of a social and political elite who reinforced their dominance through the process of buying into (literally and metaphorically) the creation of a British national culture that looked mainly to London as the sine qua nor[ of taste.

Tlw Proviiicial Press ii? Newcastle upon Tyne r5

The opinions of those who were excluded from, or resisted, this process, are thus largely missing from this particular public transcript, and we must endeavour to search for them elsewhere.

* Research for this paper was undertaken as part of an ongoing project in the School of Humanities at the University of Northumbria. entitled 'Nationalising Taste. The Relationship between National Identity and Cultural Value in Eighteenth-Century Britain'. The author would like to thank the project's directors at the time, Thomas Paullmer, Jeremy Gregory and Allan Ingram for their helpful comments, and Joan Hugman, for stimulating discussions of the subject.

NOTES

1 . Linda Colley. Britons. Forging t lw Ntttion. 17o7-r837 (New IIaven and London 1991). See also John Brewer. The Plensures of' flic /inriginntion. English Cultirrc in the liighteentli Centiir!g (London 1997).

2 . Or. conversely. studies of British unification have focused on Anglo-Scottish relations. whilst assuming a priori a homogenised 'English' national identity: see. for example. Colin Kidd, Stil~vc~rting Scotland's Past. Scottish W l i i g Historims rind the Croatiorr n / An~g~o-British ldriititg. r689-rX30 (Cambridge rqyj ) .

3. Hannah Barker. Newspapers. Politics and Pirblic Opiriiori in Late Biglitrzntlr-Ccntnr~/ England (Oxford 1998). yassini: see also James Raven's case study of mercantile groups and the Leeds provincial press in Judging New Wmltli: Z ' ~ J ~ J I ~ W Publishing arid & S ~ J ~ I I S ~ . S to C o r i ~ i n ~ ~ c p in Engltrnd, 17.50-1800 (Oxford 1992). p.TI2-37: Jonathan Barry, 'The Press and the Politics oi' Culture in Bristoi. 1660-177 j'. in Cnltirro. Politics r i n d Societg in Hritnin. rhho-r8oo. ed. J. Black and I. Gregory (Manchester 1991). p.49-81.

4. Renedict Anderson. Zinagind C'c)iriiiiuriitic,s. Rrflvctions on the Origiii and Spread o / Mrtionrtlistn, 2nd edn (New Yorlc and 1,ondon I ~ ) Y I ) .

5. Brewer. Pleasures qf the Imngirirrliori. p.504. 6. Joyce Ellis. 'A Dynamic Society: Social Relations in Newcastle upon 'ryne. 1660-1 760'.

in The Transfortnation qf English Proviiiciril Touws. ed. P. Clark (London i 984). p.194. 7. Rosemary Sweet. T/fi' Writing Of Urhciri 1Iistorirs (Oxford 1997). p.rho: Peter Rorsay. T h

English Urhan Renaissance: Culture and So&g irr t lw Proviiiikd Torvii. 1660-1770 (Oxford r9X9), and 'The London Connection: Cultural Diffusion and The Eighteenth-Century Provincial Town'. The London ]otirnal 19. no.1 (1994). p.2r-34.

8. Dror Wahrman. 'National Society. Communal Culture: An Argument about the Recent Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Rritain'. Socinl Historg 17, no.1 (January 1 9 ~ 2 ) . p.43-

y. Eig~iteei i~~i-C(,~i t i i r~ Aesthetics r m r i t l w Recoiistrucfiori (I/ Art. ed. Paul Mettick Jnr (Cambridge 1993). P.5-h. 10. Attributed to James Barry: quoted in Kaymond Williams. Keywords. A Voccibirlarg q/

Cultlire arid Society. 2nd edn (Glasgow i y y 31, p.313. 11. For an analysis of the social function of taste 'classifier' of individuals, see Pierre

Kourdieu. Distinction. A Social Criticlire of tlic Jtidgmiriit 01 Triste. transl. Richard Nice (London 1984). pmsirii .

12. Joseph Addison, Spectator. no.409 (19 June 1712). T 3 . 1)onald Read. 'North of England Ncwspapers (c. 1700-c.1900) and their Value to

Historians'. Lfwts I-'hihop/iical arid Litrrarg Society Procedifigs 7 (1956-1959). p.200: Frank Manders. 'The History of the Newspaper Press in Northeast England', i n Tlw 'Foiirth Estcite' tit Work iii ~~'ortlfuiiiberlantl rind Durhnrn, ed. Peter Isaac (Richmond, Surrey 1999). p. I .

14. Read. 'North of England Newspapers'. p.201: C. Y. Ferdinand. Hcrijn~niri Collins r i n d the Proi~iwid Niwspapcr Trade in the Eighrwruh C m t i i r g (Oxford 1997). p.11.

I j. Manders. 'History of the Newspaper Press', p.1: Dictionary of the Priiiters cutd Booksellers Who Wew [it Work in England. Scotlnnrl rid Irclnrid, r557-1775. ed. H. R. Homer, H. C. Aldis et nl. (Illtley 1 9 7 7 ) . p.60. 308.

16 H E L E N BERRY

16. Maurice Milne. The Newspapers of' Northurtiberlanrl nnd Durliam (Newcastle 1971). p.34-

17. Peter Isaac. 'The Earliest Proprietors of the Newcastle Chronicle'. in Newspapers in the

18. John Feather. The Provincial Book Trade iri Eiglitr~enth-Centirr~~ Et1gland (Cambridge 1y85),

19. Isaac, 'Earliest Proprietors', p. 156. 20. Isaac. 'Earliest Proprietors'. p.160-61. For the Chronicle's Connection with Turner, see

also Stephen Harbottle, The Reverend William Tiirner. Dissent and Rr:/orrn in Georgian Newcastle upon Tyrie (Newcastle upon Tyne 19971, p.36, 56. 61. 21. The Darlingtori Pamphlet, or County of' Durliciin Iritelligericrr. published by J. Sadler.

appeared between May and November 1772. See John R. Page, Darlington Newspapers. Darlington Public Library Local History Publications. no. 3 (1972).

35, Manders, 'History of the Newspaper Press', p.1.

Northeast, ed. Isaac, p.153.

p.21-22.

22. Manders, 'History of the Newspaper Press'. p.2-4; Milne, Nmispapers. p.50. 23. Isaac Thompson. A Collection oj' Poems. Occasiorinlly Writ 011 Several Subjects (Newcastle

1731). 24. Neivccistle Courant, no.337 (9 October 1731). advertised that Thompson's collection of

poems would be published the following week. price 3s. to subscribers: 'N.B. There are only 500 Copies printed oft: near 400 of which are already subscribed for.'

rj. Newcastle Courant. no.16, vo1.r (8 October 1720). 26. Newcastle Courant. tio.29 (3-6 October 1711). 27. Newcastle Courant. no.j3o (21 August 1731). 28. Newcastle Courant, no.157 (28-30 July 1712). 29. Nmcastle Courant. no.2486 (1-8 August 1741). 30. Newcastle Courrint. no.4437 (3 October 1761). 31. Newcastlo Courarit, 110.4482 (14 August. 1762). 32. Newcastle Courant. no..304 (2-5 July 1712). 33. Newcastle Courant. no.388 (-30 September 1732). 34. Newcastle Courant. no.2485 (25 July-1 August 1741). 3.5. Newcastle Courant. 110.2487 (8-1 5 August 1741). 36. Newcastle Courant. no.jo59 (8 August 1752). 37. Newcastle Courant. 110.381 (1.2 August I 732). 38. Newcastle Courant. no.3060 (I j August I 752). 39. Newcastle Courant. no.5470 (4 August 1781). 40. It was remarked upon with some satisfaction, for example, when 'Her Majesty was

41. Newcastle Courmt. no.4410 (9 October 1762). 42. See Bob Harris and Christopher A. Whatley, 'To Solemnize His Majesty's Birthday': New

43. Borsay, 'London Connection'. p.31. 44. Newcastle Advertiser 2, no.1 j0 (27 August 1791). 45. Newcastle Courant, no.4951(10 August 1771). Hannah Barker comments upon the two-

way traffic in newspapers between the capital and provincial towns. the importation of papers to London forming a 'small but by no means insignificant proportion of the total number of newspapers sent by post' (Newspapers. Politics arid Puhlic Opiiiion, p.128).

46. Letter from John 13rand to Ralph Beilby. Northuinberland House, 5 April 1784 (repr. Ncivcastle Magazine, 1824. p.2).

47. Bob Harris, 'England's Provincial Newspapers and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-1746'. History 80. no.258. p.5-21.

48. Neawstle Courant, no.2 ( 4 August ~711) . 49. Newcastle Courant. 110.334 (18 September 1731). Henry Bourne's History q/ Newcastle

50. Newcnstle Courant, no.4951 ( ro August 1771). 51. Newcastle Coirrant. no.4951 (10 August 1771). 52. Newcastle Courant. 110.5470 (4 August 1781). 53. Nemicmtle Courant, no.3007 (3-10 August 1751). 54. Newcastle Courant. no.3or1 ( 3 1 August-7 September I 751). 55. The concertos and overtures of Charles Avison (b. Newcastle. 1709) received more

public performances in London during the eighteenth century than any other English composer after Purcell; see William Weber. The Riw of' Musical Classics in Eigliteentk-Century

Dressed Entirely in the English Taste' (Nowcastle Courant. no.4428. 19 September 1761).

Perspectives on Loyalism in George 11's Britain'. History 83, n o . 2 7 ~ . p. 397-419.

upon Tyne was eventually published posthumously by the author's children in 1736.

Tliv l'rovincid Press it? Nvwcastlr iipon Tynv 17

Englaiid. A Study i n Canon. Ritunl, nnrl I d ~ ~ I o g y (Oxford 1992). p.187. Avison's Essag on Musical Expwssiori ( I 752) also brought him considerable fame in London. although the composer preferred to live in Newcastle. The second edition ( I 753) contained an epistolary 'dialogue' between the author and 'his Friend in London'.

j6 . Newcastle Courant. no.3014 (21-28 September I75T). 57. Letter to the Monthly Mngaziiic. from 'V.F.' [William Turner]. dated Newcastle. I 2 March

j X . Nmmstle Courant. no.5991 (6 August 1791). 59. For the promotion of Handel's music by the Church in thc cighteenth century. sce

Jeremy Gregory, 'Anglicanism and the Arts: Religion, Culture and Politics in the Eighteenth Century', in Black and Gregory. Citllirrc,. Politics mid Society. p.roo-ioi.

60. 'MAKA (born Schmeling). Gertrud Blisabeth (b. Cassel. 2.3 Feb. 1749: d. Reval, 20 Jan. 18.3.3)' (Grove's Dictionnry of'lllusir r i r d Miisicians. ed. Eric Rlom. 5th edn. London 1954. p.557- 5 8 ) .

61. Stanley Sadie, 'Concert Life in Eighteenth-Century England'. Proceedings of the Royal

62. Joyce Ellis comments that Newcastle was of sufficient size and wealth in the eighteenth

6.3. Neiwnstle Courant. no.5991 ( 6 August 1791). 64. Sarah Siddons (17js-rX31) was arguably the most celebrated actress on the Lundon

stage in the cighteenth century: it was said that in London 'people breakfdsted near the theatre. so as to be first in the queue for tickets to see her, some coming from as far away as Newcastle' (Augustan Literatuw, 1660-I 789. Eva Simmons. London 1994. p.2 58).

1Xor.

Musical Associrction 85 ( I 958). p.T9.

century to generate a market for 'leisure and luxury' ( 'A Dynamic Society'. p.196).

65. Newrnstle Courant. no.5994 (27 August 1 7 9 ~ ) . 66. See Weber. R i w of tlir i'dusirtd Clnssics. ch.8. 'The 1784 Handel Commemoration as

Political Ritual'. p.22 3-42. 6 7. Jonathan Barry, 'Bourgeois Collectivism? [Jrban Association and the Middling Sorl'. in

The Middling Sort of' People. Cnlture. Sociptg rind I'olitirs in England. rj5o-r800, ed. J. Barry and C. Brooks (London 7994). p.87.

68. Paul Langford. Englishness I d m t i f i d : Mnrfners and Cl~nrnctrr. 1650-18.5o (Oxford 2 0 0 0 ) .

P.293. 69. Langford. k'nglishness k k n t i j c d , p.29 3 .