This study examines the life of William Vaughan, a merchant in London during the revolutionary era, and the product of a new form of liberal education developed in England's Dissenting Academies. By taking full advantage of the innovative principles of liberal education developed by men like Joseph Priestley, Vaughan, as a professional, was able to wield social and political influence on behalf of a new merchant class previously excluded from the halls of power. Vaughan's success as governor of the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation and promoter of the English shipping industry, as well as his service as a member of numerous civic and philanthropic organizations, demonstrated a commitment to gradual improvements in the material and moral circumstances of the British Empire that had relatively little to do with the partisan political categories typically associated with the revolutionary era. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The early Georgian period illustrates how the familial dynamic at court affected women’s opportunity to exert political influence. The court represented an important venue that allowed women to declare a political affiliation and to participate in political issues that suited their interests. Appearances often at variance with reality allowed women to manipulate and test their political abilities in order to have the capability to exercise any possible power. Moreover, some women developed political alliances and relationships that supported their own interests. The family structure of the royal household affected how much influence women had. The perception of holding power permitted certain women to behave politically. This thesis will demonstrate that the distinction between appearances and reality becomes vital in assessing women at the early Georgian court by examining some women’s experiences at court during the reigns of the first two Georges. In some cases, the perceived power of a courtier had a real basis, and in other instances, it gave them an opportunity to assess the extent of their political power. Women’s political participation has been underestimated during the early Georgian period, while well-documented post-1760.

Furniture history is often considered a niche subject removed from the main discipline of art history, and one that has little to do with the output of painters, sculptors and architects. This thesis, however, connects the key intellectual, artistic and architectural debates surfacing in 'the arts' between 1740 and 1840 with the design of British furniture. Despite the expanding corpus of scholarly monographs and articles dealing with individual cabinet-makers, furniture making in geographic areas and periods of time, little attention has been paid to exploring Gothic furniture made between 1740 and 1840. Indeed, no body of research on 'mainstream' Gothic furniture made at this time has been published. No sustained attempt has been made to trace its stylistic evolution, establish stylistic phases, or to place this development within the context of contemporary architectural practice and historiography — except for the study of A.W.N. Pugin's 'Reformed Gothic'. Neither have furniture historians been willing to explore the aesthetic's connection with the intellectual and sentimental position of 'the Gothic' in the period. This thesis addresses these shortcomings and is the first to bridge the historiographic, cultural and architectural concerns of the time with the stylistic, constructional and material characteristics of Gothic furniture. It argues that it, like architecture, was charged with social and political meanings that included national identity in the eighteenth century — around a century before Charles Barry and A.W.N. Pugin designed the Palace of Westminster and prominently associated the Gothic legacy with Britishness.

The thesis challenges popular generalisations about the trades, occupations and locations to which pauper apprentices were consigned, shining the spotlight away from the familiar narrative of factory children, onto the fate of their destitute peers in port towns. A comparative investigation of Liverpool, Bristol and Southampton, it adopts a deliberately broad definition of the term pauper apprenticeship in its multi-sourced approach, using 1710 Poor Law and charity apprenticeship records and previously unexamined New Poor Law and charity correspondence to provide new insight into the chronology, mechanisms and experience of pauper apprenticeship. Not all port children were shipped out. Significantly more children than has hitherto been acknowledged were placed in traditional occupations, the dominant form of apprenticeship for port children. The survival and entrenchment of this type of work is striking, as are the locations in which children were placed; nearly half of those bound to traditional trades remained within the vicinity of the port. The thesis also sheds new light on a largely overlooked aspect of pauper apprenticeship, the binding of boys into the Merchant service. Furthermore, the availability of sea apprenticeships as well as traditional placements caused some children to be shipped in to the ports for apprenticeships. Of those who were still shipped out to the factories, the evidence shows that far from dying out, as previously thought, the practice of batch apprenticeship persisted under the New Poor Law. The most significant finding of the thesis is the survival and endurance of pauper apprenticeship as an institution involving both Poor Law and charity children. Poor children were still being apprenticed late into the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Pauper apprenticeship is shown to have been a robust, resilient and resurgent institution. The evidence from port towns offers significant revision to the existing historiography of pauper apprenticeship.

King Charles III of Spain implemented a series of Enlightenment reforms throughout his domain following the 1763 defeat of the Seven Years War Among the royal officials sent to enact these reforms in the Caribbean, the Crown dispatched Field Marshal Alejandro O’Reilly to the colony of Puerto Rico Historians have attributed to his 1765 inspection, or visita, and subsequent report, or memoria, the foundations for a turning point in the island’s history Despite the historical consensus that has lauded O’Reilly’s recommendations, this inspector-general does not merit the credit that historians consistently have given him Agrarian and economic patterns such as population growth, smuggling, and the hato economy persisted decades after his visita into the nineteenth century Other events helped drive immigration and investment into Puerto Rico more than O’Reilly’s memoria Ultimately, O’Reilly did not trigger enduring change in the colony’s history, and Puerto Rican historiography awaits the corresponding revision / Includes bibliography / Thesis (MA)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis focuses on the legacy of Jonathan Edwards on the Particular Baptists by way of apprehending theories held by their congregations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In particular, special attention is directed to the Edwardsean legacy as manifested in the theology of Andrew Fuller. The thesis positions itself between Edwards and Fuller in the transatlantic, early modern period and attempts by the two theologians to express a coherent understanding of traditional dogma within the context of the Enlightenment. The scope of the research traces Fuller’s theological indebtedness by way of historical reconstruction, textual expositions, and theological and philosophical implications of the following works: Freedom of the Will, Religious Affections, Humble Attempt, and Justification by Faith Alone et al. It identifies unique Edwardsean ideas as the basis for investigating whether such concepts permeate Fuller’s intellectual and spiritual life. In that process, the study establishes whether Fuller read and interpreted Edwards correctly or otherwise. This dissertation, therefore, endeavors to determine the extent of Edwards’s impact upon Fuller over and above such other influential factors, which could also have been considered influential in his works. An attempt to determine the parameters of such factors is the basis for the ensuing discussion.