ENLIGHTENMENT IN BRITAIN

A Joint Meeting with the Bath Literature Festival

Prof. Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute Centre, London University, on 9 March 2001

The speaker, introduced by Victor Suchar, is a distinguished historian of medicine whose interest in cultural history constitutes a second string to his bow, which is often characteristic of men of substantial intellectual stature. Prof. Porter has written extensively on the general history of medicine, on the history of London and on the history of England in the 18th century. He is the author of Enlightment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World recently published by Faber.

This was the fourth joint annual session of the Institution and the Bath Literature Festival and the audience over-flowed the accommodation available by use of a video and audio link.

Prof. Porter argued that other English historians denied the obvious signs of the enlightenment in 18th Century England. Part of the explanation he attributed to the perception of the 18th century as frivolous and shallow, providing as his example the goings-on in Bath. Porter claimed that England produced world class intellectuals to rival or surpass those of France or Germany, and, in his trinity of greats, included Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon and John Locke. But, he continued, the idea of thinking for yourself and not being told what to think by a `higher authority' did not just remain with the few but moved through the society as well as spreading to the provinces spurred by an explosion of print.

People living in the 18th century, Porter said, " were experiencing a world of change" and did not want to be out of fashion or out of date. They hungered for information: for example, a political pamphlet by Tom Paine would typically sell in excess of 200,000 copies, enough, the speaker noted "to make him green with envy".

In his vote of thanks, Victor Suchar, mentioned that the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution was a very appropriate place for this talk as it is a direct product of the enlightenment, and that many of its founding members were involved in the activities described by Prof. Porter.

Betty Suchar