Cambridge University Press
9780521842228 - The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837 - Edited by Brendan Simms and Torsten Riotte
Frontmatter/Prelims

The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837

For more than 120 years (1714–1837) Great Britain was linked to the German Electorate, later Kingdom, of Hanover through Personal Union. This made Britain a continental European state in many respects, and diluted her sense of insular apartness. The geopolitical focus of Britain was now as much on Germany, on the Elbe and the Weser, as it was on the Channel or overseas. At the same time, the Hanoverian connection was a major and highly controversial factor in British high politics and popular political debate. This volume is the first to explore the subject systematically by employing a team of experts drawn from the UK, USA and Germany. They integrate the burgeoning specialist literature on aspects of the Personal Union into the broader history of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. Never before has the impact of the Hanoverian connection on British politics, monarchy and the public sphere been so thoroughly investigated.

BRENDAN SIMMS is Reader in the History of International Relations at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Peterhouse. His previous publications include The impact of Napoleon: Prussian high politics, foreign policy and the crisis of the executive, 1797–1806 (1997) and The struggle for mastery in Germany, 1779–1850 (1998).

TORSTEN RIOTTE is a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute London. His PhD thesis on Hanover in British policy, 1792–1815, has been published in German translation (2005). He has produced a number of articles on the topic and is currently preparing a study of George III and the Old Reich, 1760–1815.

The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837

Edited by

Brendan Simms

and

Torsten Riotte

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 2007

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First published 2007

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ISBN-13 978-0-521-84222-8 hardback

ISBN-10 0-521-84222-0 hardback

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Contents

Genealogical tables

Tables

Notes on contributors

MIJNDERT BERTRAM is an independent author. The former Director of the Boman Museum in Celle completed his PhD thesis on the Hanoverian Diet in 1986. Since then he has published widely on Hanoverian history including a biography of George II (2004) and a history of the kingdom of Hanover, 1814–66.

THOMAS BISKUP is currently a Fellow of the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. His main fields of interest are political communication in eighteenth-century Germany and transnational networks of scholarship. His publications include ‘The transformation of ceremonial in eighteenth-century Germany: ducal weddings in Brunswick’, in Karin Friedrich (ed.), Festive culture in Germany and Europe (2000) and ‘The hidden queen. Elisabeth Christine of Prussia and Hohenzollern Queenship in the eighteenth century’, in Clarissa Campbell Orr (ed.), Queenship in Europe (2004).

JEREMY BLACK is Professor of History at the University of Exeter and author of British foreign policy in the age of Walpole (1985). His most recent publications on Hanoverian Britain include Parliament and foreign policy in the 18th century (2004) and Continental commitment. Britain, Hanover and interventionism, 1714–1793 (2005). He is currently completing a biography of George III.

CLARISSA CAMPBELL ORR is a Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge Campus. She has edited and contributed to Queenship in Britain 1660–1837: royal patronage, dynastic politics, and court culture (2002), and Queenship in Europe 1660–1815: the role of the consort (2004).

NICHOLAS B. HARDING received his doctorate from Columbia University with a thesis on ‘Dynastic union in British and Hanoverian ideology’. His most recent publication is a major study on Hanover and the British Empire, 1700–1837 (2006).

RICHARD HARDING is Professor of Organisational History at the University of Westminster. He is author of Amphibious warfare in the eighteenth century: the British expedition to the West Indies, 1740–1742 (1991); The evolution of the sailing navy (1995); and Seapower and naval warfare (1991). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Chairman of the Society for Nautical Research.

BOB HARRIS is Professor of History at the University of Dundee. His A patriot press: national politics and the London press of the 1740s (1993) is one of the most influential books on the public sphere in Hanoverian Britain. He has also published amongst others Politics and the rise of the press: Britain and France 1620–1800 (1996) and Politics and the nation: Britain in the mid-eighteenth century (2002).

TORSTEN RIOTTE is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute, London. His PhD on ‘Hanover in British policies, 1792–1815’ has been published in German translation (2003). He is currently working on a monograph on ‘George III and the Holy Roman Empire’.

HAMISH SCOTT is Professor of International History at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of British foreign policy in the age of the American Revolution (1990); The emergence of the eastern powers 1756–1775 (2001); and The birth of a great power system 1740–1815 (Harlow, 2006). He is currently writing a study of aristocracy in Europe c. 1400–1750.

BRENDAN SIMMS is Reader in the History of International Relations at the Centre for International Studies, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Peterhouse. His publications include the article ‘ “An odd question enough”. Charles James Fox, the crown and British policy during the Hanoverian crisis of 1806’ (1995), and The impact of Napoleon: Prussian high politics, foreign policy and the crisis of the executive, 1797–1806 (1997). He is currently writing a study of British foreign policy in the eighteenth century.

ANDREW C. THOMPSON is a College Lecturer in History at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He is the author of several articles on British and European history and a revised version of his PhD thesis recently appeared as Britain, Hanover and the protestant interest (2006). He is currently writing a biography of George II for Yale University Press.

CHRISTOPHER D. THOMPSON is currently completing his PhD at Christ’s College Cambridge on ‘Politics and state-building in Vormärz Hanover: the role of King Ernst August, c. 1837–51’. His research interests are conservatism in nineteenth-century Britain and Germany and the role of history in identity formation.

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