A Heroes' History of the Georgians

Gaudy, grandiose and vainglorious – but rather good at getting things done. Despite mad monarchs, makeup for men and coiffures for kids, the Georgians had ambitions as high as their periwigs. This caught them up in several revolutions: the American Revolution (1783) sorted the Georgians out, Nelson’s Trafalgar (1805) and Wellington’s Waterloo (1815) sorted out Napoleon’s French Revolution, and the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions sorted everyone else out with railways, canals, machinery, factories and farming. Building on all that, the Age of Enlightenment brought advances in science, politics and philosophy and gave us vaccines and votes, chronometers and comets, Cook’s explorations and Wilberforce’s abolition of slavery. With the final flourish of Adam’s Palladian mansions and Constable’s country scene paintings, Gillray’s cartoons and Handel’s concertos, Johnson’s dictionary and Wordsworth’s daffodils, the Georgians simply steamed ahead!