The Growth of Public Literacy in Eighteenth-Century England. Steven Cowan Institute of Education, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 1 This thesis may be made available to the general public for borrowing, photocopying or consultation without the prior consent of the author I hereby declare that except where explicit attribution is made the work presented is entirely my own. Steven Cowan Very special thanks to Professor Gary McCulloch and to Professor Richard Aldrich 2 Abstract This thesis investigates the extent to which the acquisition of literacy during the eighteenth century arose independently of and thus separately from formal schooling. It further examines what counted as 'literacy' during the eighteenth century and how it was connected to orate forms of communication and expression. The thesis uses a wide variety of sources in order to demonstrate that there is scope for extending the historiography of literacy and communicative practice during the eighteenth century. It is argued that recent developments in digitized data-bases have opened up new opportunities for further research. The thesis argues that literacy was spread more broadly both geographically and socially in eighteenth century England than is often recognized. The thesis begins by setting public literacy in its broader social and historical contexts. The term 'public' is used because throughout the thesis literacy is viewed as a social act of communication and as a set of social practices. This view is rooted in two distinct critical traditions. One derives from the American historians Bailyn and Cremin who argued that understanding education required relocating learning into wider social setting. The other derives from the new literacies movement which seeks to understand literacies as complex social phenomena rather than as simple acquired basic skills. There is a focus throughout upon the social and cultural settings that gave rise to a distinctively educated public during the eighteenth century which, by the close of the century, had started to spread into and across all social classes. The three empirically based chapters develop this theme and show how certain public and social contexts offered opportunities for both individuals and groups to engage in a range of literacy practices. Through a study of the way that communications were structured in coffee houses the thesis reveals the profoundly educative impact that these institutions had particularly in the earlier decades but also, continuously across the century. Following this, and through a study of interlinking biographies of self-taught men who made their mark upon the society, it is shown that many commoners managed to acquire degrees of learning other than through formal instruction. Finally, there is a focus upon the emergence of an independent and authentic set of literacy practices among common readers during the later part of the century, a movement that helped to shape future of broad working class organizations in the following century and one which at times was perceived by the state to be tantamount to treasonable practice. 3 Contents. 1. Introduction 11-47 2. A historiographical review of historical literacy 48-85 3. New sources for the study of eighteenth-century literacy 86-128 4. Habitual reading. Educational experience in the coffee house 129-165 5. Doubting Thomases: the emergence of self-taught commoners in the public sphere 166-229 6. Public literacy as sedition in the 1790s 230 -267 7. Conclusion 268-273 8. Bibliography 274-299 4 Abbreviations ECCO Eighteenth Century Catalogue Online HO Home Office LCS London Corresponding Society SCI Society for Constitutional Information TS Treasury Solicitors 5 A note about the ECCO data base. This database has been produced by Gale Cengage Learning. It was the most ambitious single digitisation project ever undertaken and resulted in an online library of over 136,000 titles and editions (over 155,000 volumes), published between 1701 and 1800, and printed in English-speaking countries, or countries under British colonial rule. The majority of works in ECCO are in the English language but there are also works printed in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish and Welsh. A strength of this collection is the way it presents variant editions through decades of re-publishing of works such as dictionaries. Full-Text Searching of more than 26 million pages takes the user directly to Primary Source material in facsimile copy of its original. Therefore the researcher is able to access elements of the form of the published work as well as the content. ECCO is supported by catalogue records from the English Short-Title Catalogue. Since ECCO's original release, the ESTC has uncovered a wealth of valuable new material and new holdings of previously unavailable titles. Rapid developments in scanning technology enabled Gale to digitise works too fragile to be handled at the time of ECCO's original production. ECCO Part 2: New Editions, consists of material filmed from 2003 onwards. ECCO Parts I and II combined now contain over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes). The titles in ECCO Part II cover the same subject areas as the original collection, with an emphasis on titles within Literature, Social Science and Religion. This second edition includes nearly further 50,000 titles and 7 million pages from the library holdings of the British Library, Bodleian, Cambridge, National Library of Scotland and the Ransom Center which is located at the University of Texas. The Ransome Centre specializes in eighteenth- century journals, whereas the Bodleian possesses the largest collection of printed ephemera from the period. The advent of such comprehensive data-bases has transformed the possibilities for broader, culturally informed research into literacy practices during this period. 6 List of Figures Page The items marked (A) are in the possession of the author Fig. 1. Book of St. John, in English, probably from a pocket Wyclyffe New Testament. University of Glasgow, special collections. M.S. Hunter 191 (T.8.21). 16 Fig. 2. From The Leeds Intelligencer, March 3rd, 1794. (A) 19 Fig. 3. Detail from back page of The Leeds Intelligencer as above. (A) 21 Fig. 4. Builder's Dictionary. Library of Congress, Special collections. S. 4187 (38) 38 Fig. 5. Page from Huntingdon Assizes case 1791. (A) 90 Fig. 6. First page from Wesleyan printed edition of Imitation of Christ by Thomas a' Kempis. (A) 92 Fig. 7. Letter from Thomas cadell to R. Bell, bookseller in Edinburgh. List of Caddell books dispatched on the Leith Packet to Edinburgh by Cadell December 1788. (A) 94 Fig. 8. Letter from Mrs. Hay, Aberdeen, to J. Mitchie, Craven St. London. (A) 95 Fig. 9. Page from a mechanic's lecture note-book. Estimated 1740s. (A) 97 Fig. 10. Table categorizing documentary sources. From J. Scott. A Matter of Record. p. 14 101 Fig. 11. Page from The Ladies Diary, J. Tipper. Pub. in 1706, by J. Wilde for The Company of Stationers. Accessed from Eighteenth Century Catalogue Online. (ECCO) 104 Fig. 12. Ann Jordan's sampler, 1794, aged 12. (A) 108 Fig. 13. Sample from linotype of Caslon serifed typeface. 110 Fig. 14. Sampler by Hannah Grant, 1795. (A) 111 7 Fig. 15. Both likely to have been read by Hannah Grant whilst at York School. (ECCO) 112 Fig. 16. Front page of The Gentleman's Magazine for May 1793. (A) 119 Fig. 17. Table taken from Stephens, (1989) showing percentage totals of signers across three unequal time periods. 124 Fig. 18. coffee house token. Turks Head. Exeter. 1663. www.exeter.gov.uk/timetrail 131 Fig. 19. The Rotunda by Canaletto 1751. National Gallery, London. 134 Fig. 20. Garraways. Illustrated London News. Sept 8 1866. 136 Fig. 21. Royal Exchange, Cornhill. John Roque's London Map. 1746. 137 Fig. 22. Thos Rowlandson. The Author and his Publisher. 1784. 143 Fig. 23. Spectator. November 14. 1711. (A) 149 Fig. 24. Letter directed to Carlton Coffee House. 1764. (A) 151 Fig. 25. The Morning Herald. May 19 1788. (A) 157 Fig. 26. Hogarth. Detail from Beer Street. 1751. 159 Fig. 27. Hogarth. Detail from Beer Street. 1751. 160 Fig. 28. Learning manuals by Thomas Baker 1708 and Thomas Tryon 1701. (ECCO) 172 Fig. 29. Contents page from Thomas Baker's Reflections upon Learning. (ECCO) 173 Fig. 30. The London Magazine, January, 1748. (ECCO) 176 8 Fig. 31. The Selling of Joseph by Thomas Sewall. 1700. (ECCO) 178 Fig. 32. Sample pages from The Starry Messenger by Henry Coley 1739 ed. (ECCO) 179 Fig. 33. Title and 1st. Page of Thomas Pellow's, History of Long Captivity. (ECCO) 182 Fig. 34. Two Famous Giants. Thomas Boreman. 1741. (ECCO) 189 Fig. 35. 1741. Boreman. Curiosities of the Tower. (ECCO) 190 Fig. 36. Title & 1St pages of The Famous History of the Seven Champions. 1735. (ECCO) 192 Fig. 37. Bowles and Carver. Cuts from Street Criers - Broadsheet. 193 Fig. 38. Bowles and Carver. St. George and the Seven Champions. 194 Fig. 39. Bowles and Carver. Illustrated cuts — moral types. 195 Fig. 40. Chevvy Chase. Ballad Sheet. (ECCO) 198 Fig. 41. Death and the Lady. Ballad Sheet. London. (ECCO) 200 Fig. 42. Death and the Lady. Ballad Sheet. London. (ECCO) 201 Fig. 43. Pages from William Bryant's calligraphy exercise book. 1805. (A) 207 Fig. 44. Thomas Spence Pamphlet. 1775. Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. 212 Fig. 45. Spence tokens. Holborn. DH Mddx. Nos. 694/706. (A) 214 Fig. 46. Spence token. DH Mddx. No. 702. (A) 215 Fig. 47. Spence token. Uncatalogued. (A) 216 9 Fig. 48, James Horne-Tooke, DH Mddx. No. 1044. Thomas Hardy, DH Mddx. No. 1045. (A) 216 Fig. 49. Society for Constitutional Information. William Jones. The Principles of Government in a Dialogue between a Scholar and a Peasant.