MEET THE TON: THE REAL HISTORY OF FASHIONABLE SOCIETY IN GEORGIAN LONDON
A FOUR-WEEK ONLINE COURSE
Start date: 7pm, Thurs 29 May 2025
Course overview: What was life like in the fast set of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London? The glamorous world of ‘the ton’ was synonymous with celebrity status across this period, but who were these ‘people of fashion’ and was life really one long party?
This four-week course looks beyond the stereotypes of Georgian high society to explore the social, cultural and political realities of celebrity and elite status. We follow the fashion leaders, the gatekeepers, the wannabes and the outsiders as they attended court, parliament and London’s famous social resorts. We will discover that, beneath the glitter and the high life, lay a reconfigured and formidable type of aristocratic society. The immense political and cultural influence wielded by these new grandees withstood the threats of revolution witnessed abroad and underpinned the longer term survival of aristocratic power in Britain.
- Lecture One – Who were the ton? Power, politics and the world of fashion
- Lecture Two – The pursuit of pleasure: Balls, masquerades, theatres & pleasure gardens
- Lecture Three – Drawing rooms and court attendance: The ton’s relationship with Queen Charlotte and George III
- Lecture Four – Leaders of fashion: Celebrities, news, scandal and gossip
Delivery: The course will be delivered by a series of 4 video lectures, and separate group Q&As with the course tutor via a video conferencing platform. Participants will also receive a reading list, course literature and activities. Links and details will be sent to participants shortly before the course begins. Lectures will be released at 7pm each Thursday and will be available to view for a month and half.
Accessibility: All lectures will have closed captions. The live Q&As will be recorded and fully captioned within 48 hours of their first being streamed. If you have any additional access requirements, please get in touch via enquiries@histfest.org
Your tutor: Professor Hannah Greig is an expert in eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century British history and highly experienced consultant to film and television dramas. She is currently an honorary Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London and has previously held posts and fellowships at the University of York; Balliol College, Oxford; The Leverhulme Trust and Yale University. Her book The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Eighteenth-Century London was the first academic study of ‘the ton’, the distinctive elite celebrity culture associated with Georgian London and she has published widely on this eighteenth-century phenomenon in both academic journals and popular magazines. She is currently writing a new book about famous eighteenth-century diamonds and their infamous owners. Alongside her career in academia, Hannah works collaboratively with film and TV dramas. Her credits include the Netflix hit Bridgerton, the Oscar-winning feature film The Favourite and popular BBC and ITV dramas including Sanditon, Poldark, and Death Comes to Pemberley.