Research
My monograph and digital history project, 'Assembled, Disassembled, Reassembled: Britain’s Assembly Rooms, 1660-1880', traces the inception, zenith, and collapse of British assembly rooms between 1660 and 1880, recovering the history of an institution was formative to creating a British cultural model, and political identity, of civic humanism. Civic humanism centred participatory citizenship in eighteenth-century urban, political, and economic development. As spaces for dance, dalliance, and display, assembly rooms are the architectural eye candy to cinematic depictions of Georgian sociability today. Historically, they dominated social life yet, despite 935 surviving presently, we know surprisingly little about their origins, development, and proliferation. This project combines detailed and diverse primary source research with innovative digital humanities methodologies to quantitatively map Britain’s assembly rooms and trace the trajectories, spread, architectural forms, and cultural functions. It also qualitatively analyses assembly rooms as multidimensional, multipurpose spaces that were significant to the broader democratisation of British leisure culture.
Research grants
Assembled, Disassembled, Reassembled: Britain’s Assembly Rooms, 1660-1880
BRITISH ACADEMY (UK)
October 2024 - September 2027