Georgian Era
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Georgian Era’
Edmund Burke warned that the French Revolution could have a devastating effect on British and European culture.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) regarded the fates of England and France as closely intertwined, and consequently the catastrophic events of the French Revolution in 1789 made him afraid for England. If France falls into tyranny and moral decline, he warned, it will be that much harder for England to resist going the same way.
After a hundred and forty-two slaves were tossed overboard in an insurance scam, Granville Sharp wouldn’t let the matter rest.
The scandal of the slave-ship ‘Zong’ was one of the turning points in the campaign to end slavery throughout the British Empire. As so often, the quest for justice was led by self-taught jurist Granville Sharp, who turned to the Press after a sensational court case had failed to deliver any kind of justice at all.
Royalist soldier Sir Jacob Ashly exemplified a Christian gentleman in the heat of battle.
As secretary to the Chancellor of Oxford University, William King moved among elevated but sometimes tactless company. He remembered one dinner-time conversation in 1715 during which Sir William Wyndham, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, joked about prayer right in front of Lord Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
When a Tahitian sailor was denied his well-earned wages, the rumour got about that Granville Sharp was on the case.
Although William Wilberforce is rightly remembered as the architect of slavery’s downfall in the British Empire, much credit also goes to Granville Sharp (1735-1813). Sharp’s tireless campaigning put such fear into traffickers that the mere rumour of his involvement could set a man at liberty.
In 1890, Sir Henry Parkes reminded Australians that they had a natural kinship and declared them ready to manage their own affairs.
At a banquet in Melbourne on February 6th, 1890, a decade before the founding of the Commonwealth of Australia, Sir Henry Parkes, Premier of New South Wales, rose to reply to the toast ‘A United Australia!’, and spoke warmly of Australia’s ties of kinship and purpose.
Leopold Mozart was eager to win the hearts of the English, and thought he knew just the way to do it.
In 1763-64, Leopold Mozart spent fifteen months in England with his daughter Maria Anna (‘Nannerl’) and son Wolfgang, who turned nine during the visit. Leopold was much taken with King George III and Queen Charlotte, who treated the Mozarts like family, and he told his friend Johann Lorenz von Hagenauer, an Austrian businessman, that he was eager to win the affection of the English people too.