Author Archive

International Politics by Proxy: The Marriage of Princess Louisa, 1743

Portrait of a woman in a white dress with panniers and white wig.

By Marie Pellissier, Omohundro Institute Apprentice, William & Mary Welcome back to our Georgian Goodies blog series, where we highlight interesting, timely, or just plain nifty documents from the Georgian Papers Programme! Princess Louisa (or Louise) of Great Britain was the youngest daughter of George II and Caroline of Ansbach.[1] Born in 1724, she married Prince… Read More »

Was George III Really A Tyrant?

George III's coronation portrait by Allan Ramsay

By Marie Pellissier, Omohundro Institute Apprentice, William & Mary Welcome back to our Georgian Goodies blog series, where we highlight interesting, timely, or just plain nifty documents from the Georgian Papers Programme! Was George III really a tyrant? The answer to that question certainly depends on who you ask. The writers of the Declaration of Independence,… Read More »

The Dog Blog: Pups in the Georgian Papers

By Marie Pellissier, Omohundro Institute Apprentice, William & Mary Welcome back to our Georgian Goodies blog series, where we highlight interesting, timely, or just plain nifty documents from the Georgian Papers Programme! English royals have always loved their dogs. Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis seem to be everywhere, from the 2012 Olympics to the silver screen. But… Read More »

William Knox's Counterrevolution

Map

Peter Walker is a lecturer in History at the University of Wyoming who studies early modern Britain, the British Empire, and the Atlantic World. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2016 and his MPhil from the University of Oxford in 2010. He held an Omohundro Institute Fellowship for research at Windsor Castle in… Read More »

George IV, Prince of Wales, and the Habits of the Masquerade

The Prince of Wales' costume bills.

Meg Kobza is a third-year PhD candidate at Newcastle University, where she is working on the social history of the eighteenth-century British masquerade. Her research will shift the paradigm of scholarship on the masquerade away from literary analysis, which depicts the masquerade as a purely carnivalesque and debaucherous entertainment that flouted social distinctions. She argues… Read More »

The Curious World of Benjamin Franklin: Hans Sloane, the British Museum, and an Asbestos Purse

Benjamin Franklin, c. 1746, in a painting by Robert Freke.

Emily Sneff is a graduate student in early American history at William & Mary and a Digital Apprentice at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. There is an object in the British Museum that was bought from Benjamin Franklin. A small asbestos “purse.” With only these details, the modern mind imagines the… Read More »

Fit for a King: Furnishing Hampton Court Palace for George II and His Family

By Marie Pellissier, Omohundro Institute Apprentice, William & Mary Welcome back to our Georgian Goodies blog series, where we highlight interesting, timely, or just plain nifty documents from the Georgian Papers Programme! On June 24, 1737, King George II signed a warrant authorizing the purchase of furniture for the royal apartments at Hampton Court Palace.… Read More »

The Sandy Ground of Prince Edward: Profligacy and Royal Credit in the Empire of George III

By Peter Olsen-Harbich Peter Olsen-Harbich spent the September of 2018 in the Royal Archives at Windsor as an Omohundro Institute–Georgian Papers Programme fellow and as the recipient of a William & Mary Dean’s Research Fund fellowship. The latter was jointly funded by the Omohundro Institute and the William & Mary Dean of the Faculty of… Read More »

Uncovering Royal Perspectives on Slavery, Empire, and the Rights of Colonial Subjects

King George III surrounded by nymphs representing Wisdom, Justice, Liberty, Science, Navigation and Commerce

By Brooke Newman Dr. Newman is Associate Professor of History and Associate Director of the Humanities Research Center at Virginia Commonwealth University. She was awarded an Omohundro Institute Georgian Papers Programme Fellowship in 2017. In 2017 I spent a month in the Royal Archives tracing how the Georgian monarchs responded to contemporary debates over the… Read More »