In this episode I am joined by Helen Williams, a specialist in eighteenth-century book history to find out about the Newcastle-born printer, newspaper editor and radical Sarah Hodgson.

Dr Helen Williams is Associate Professor of English Literature at Northumbria University. In collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Stationers, she holds a British Academy Innovation Fellowship entitled 'Communicating Women's Work in the Historical Archive' (2022-2023), exploring the history of eighteenth-century women in the book trades.

This episode features Dr Sue Allan, an expert on Cumbria’s folk tradition, talking about one of the most significant dialect poets of Georgian Northern England, Robert Anderson from Carlisle.

A calico printer by trade, the 'Cumberland Bard' Robert Anderson has long been considered the standard bearer of Cumberland's contribution to bardic verse. Anderson was a close friend of the local stroller Charlotte Lowes. Other influential figures of the 'Cumbrian Enlightenment' in this episode include the 'Muse of Cumberland' Susanna Blamire and the 'Cumberland Minstrel' John Stagg, best known today for publishing "The Vampyre" in 1810, the first entire poem in the British tradition on the subject.

Dr Sue Allan was awarded her PhD from Lancaster University in 2017 for her study of Cumbrian folk song and she published a biography of Robert Anderson in 2020.

A major influence on the radical Thomas Spence, James Murray was a preacher who used the pulpit and print to promote new ideas. As well as publishing works on religious subjects, Murray was also a grammarian whose book The Rudiments of the English Tongue was published in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in about 1771.

In this episode Rachel Hammersley joins me in Newcastle’s Lit and Phil to discuss Murray’s influence in the region at a critical moment in its political and cultural development.

Rachel Hammersley is Professor of Intellectual History at Newcastle University (UK).

Richard Pears and I discuss William Newton, arguably northern England's first home-grown architect who was responsible for Newcastle’s Assembly Rooms and Charlotte Square the town’s first fashionable garden square.

Richard’s work examines the emergence of the professional provincial architect and his remarkable local archive work has allowed him to supplant the standard ‘urban renaissance’ understanding of eighteenth-century studies with his own powerful argument for a northern ‘rural renaissance’.

Dr Richard Pears is the Faculty Librarian for Arts and Humanities at Durham University.

William Shield was born in the village of Swalwell near Gateshead in County Durham. Through the help of his friend, the poet and actor John Cunningham, he became the leader of the Durham Theatre Company band in the 1760s providing him with the opportunity to develop his compositional abilities. After moving to London, he pursued a successful career performing and writing stage works at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden where he earned the respect of Haydn. Shield was made Master of the King’s Musick in 1817.

Amélie Addison’s research has uncovered previously unexplored details of William Shield’s social background, his early career in the North, and his compositional influences, offering a new perspective on how these works reflect contemporary perceptions of national identity and culture.

Dr Amélie Addison received her PhD from the University of Leeds’ School of Music in 2023.

In All Saints Pavement Church in York City Centre, there is a marble plaque high on the wall, dedicated to one of the most famous provincial theatre managers of the eighteenth century: Tate Wilkinson. It is a material memorial to a brilliant actor whose fame has dimmed to obscurity. Who has heard of him today?

In this episode, I talk with Professor Emerita Gillian Russell about Wilkinson, York and the ephemerality of 18th theatre and performance.

Gillian Russell is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and formerly Professor of Eighteenth-Century English Literature at the University of York where she was Head of the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies (CECS). In 2021 Gillian was awarded the prestigious Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for her latest book The Ephemeral Eighteenth Century.

In this episode, Barbara Crosbie and I talk about why modern English's first female grammarian, Anne Fisher, was such a trailblazer, and the work Barbara has done to revive interest in this significant northern figure.

The 18th century Newcastle entrepreneur, Anne Slack, who published under her maiden name Fisher, has been described as the first female grammarian of modern English. However, she has disappeared into the archives and Barbara Crosbie wants to bring her back.

Barbara Crosbie is Associate Professor of Early Modern British History at Durham University.

Professor Jon Mee from the University of York joins me in this episode to talk about the cantankerous northern antiquarian Joseph Ritson, the man who is responsible for making Robin Hood a champion of the poor. Ritson was from Stockton-on-Tees and his research into northern verse and song make him an example of early English ethnographer. A vegetarian and radical who adopted the French Revolutionary Calendar, this prickly individual acts as a springboard for Jon to plunge into the world of 1790s English radicalism.

Jon Mee is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies in the English Department at the University of York.

Be warned – you may risk arrest if you listen to this podcast!

In this first episode of Biographicon, Professor Alastair Bonnett and I explore the mind of Thomas Spence – a thinker so dangerous he was made illegal. As Alastair argues Spence was “the poorest and most determined militant in English history” and Spenceanism is the only political ideology outlawed by the British parliament. We take you on a psychogeographic tour of Spence's birthplace, Newcastle upon Tyne, in which Alastair presents his role within the Northumbrian Enlightenment.

Alastair Bonnett is Professor of Social Geography in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne.

"By separating into one biographicon this peculiar class of lives, a philanthropic emulation would be excited, a debt of social gratitude would be discharged, a trophy to patriotism would be erected, and an instructive knowledge of the present state of nations and the gradual concatenation of intercourse would be diffused. Literature should rear altars to the missionaries of human civilization."

- [William Taylor of Norwich] The Monthly Review: or Literary Journal, 74 (1814).



Welcome to Biographicon. In this trailer, I introduce myself and the cast of characters that will appear in the upcoming Biographicon podcasts, which will feature a host of people who went from 18th century fame to 21st century obscurity. Hopefully this will return them to their rightful place in memory.

But what is a biographicon anyway?