Essex in the Age of Enlightenment brings together eleven studies in historical biography by John Bensusan-Butt. In a direct and engaging style, they explore the lives of musicians, artists, a highly original architect, a skilled doctor, a forthright lawyer who was painted by Thomas Gainsborough, a benevolent cleric, a suicidal poet and others who lived in or near Colchester in Essex. These essays examine patronage and the arts in Georgian provincial towns, public service and philanthropy as well as urban culture, polite society and its politics and personalities. John Bensusan-Butt (1911-1997) was a knowledgeable local historian whose research career spanned some forty years. Shani D'Cruze is Honorary Reader at Keele University. She is the author of A Pleasing Prospect: Social Change and Urban Culture in Eighteenth-Century Colchester (Hertford, 2008) and is also a historian of gender, crime and violence.
- ISBN10 1445210541
- ISBN13 9781445210544
- Publish Date 12 October 2009 (first published 10 July 2009)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Lulu.com
- Format Paperback
- Pages 263
- Language English