Georgians in an Age of Urbanisation

This chapter focuses on Georgian Britain's sustenance of its multiplying urban population. It pays attention to its expanding long-distance trade, its growing overseas settlements, its dynamic naval power, its assertive military campaigns, and its heightened political reputation. Successful towns depended upon regular communications. They needed reliable outgoing networks for the distribution of goods, services, and urban ‘value-added’ culture. The chapter also describes the townspeople, the urban nightlife, and the physical countryside. It looks at these pro-town views which contained elements of the stereotypical and many lurking dangers among the urban masses. This chapter concludes by exploring how the Georgian towns, embarking upon a period of prolonged urban growth in all three kingdoms, became magnets with an urbane view of their own centrality.