We have now moved our social media efforts to @long18sem.bsky.social. This account will remain open for archival purposes. As always, please visit our website for an up to date schedule of our seminar.

RT @BrendanJTam: CFP - Please share!. @long18thsem is hosting its annual Lightning Talks session, aimed towards hearing presentations about….

RT @ZaraKesterton: #CfP Hello, if anyone is still here on X! I’m thrilled to be organising a conference with @lucyjanehavard on Plants and….

We’re kicking off our program for term 2 on Wed 22 Jan at 5:30-7pm at the IHR and online with Margaret Hunt (Uppsala) discussing her paper ‘Seventeenth-century Swedish sailors and their personal letters: evidence from the Prize Papers’.@ihr_history .

A particular late eighteenth century challenge to arbitration was focused on the arbitrary nature of the process, with arbitrators being viewed as delivering summary justice.

In the late 19th century, the ‘Englishness’ of the Rule of Law and the letter of the law became a particular focus. Rule of law was sometimes contrasted with arbitration, with critiques of the two differing in nature.

In the 17th century, arbitration featured throughout English society, from local to national levels. Honour and reputation were vital considerations for both arbitrators and the parties with arbitration featuring in the discourse of manliness, violence and fuelling.

Arbitration held a place in national discourse and national consciousness. That it was voluntary, and thus tied into communities of obligation and reputation.

Repeated claims of the Englishness of arbitration can be found over a period of three centuries, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Francis Boorman starting tonight’s seminar by providing an introduction to arbitration in eighteenth century England and its links to popular culture and the ‘Englishness of arbitration’.

RT @BSECS: TODAY'S THE DAY!.Registration for #BSECS2025 closes at MIDNIGHT. Come and join us at Pembroke College, Oxford, 8-10 January 202….

Don’t miss out on our last seminar of term next Wednesday 4/12 from 17:30 in person and online as @boorman_francis (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies) will discuss the “Englishness” of legal arbitration in Britain during the long 18thc.@ihr_history .

Register to join us next Wednesday, from 17:30 Online-via Zoom & C3.14 at the Institute of Education to hear Chris Jones (Foundling Museum) discuss the digitisation and transcription project of the Foundling Hospital Archive. #twitterstorians #18c .

Penelope Corfield introducing speakers Shinji Nohara and Elena Yi-Jia Zeng for tonight’s seminar on Adam Smith, David Hume in Context: Moral Philosophy and Enlightened Monarchy #18thc

ICYMI .Don’t forget to register for our next seminar (Wednesday 6th November 17:30-19:30) for a stimulating seminar featuring Shinji Nohara (Glasgow/Tokyo); Craig Smith (Glasgow) and Elena Yi-Jia Zeng (Princeton) @ihr_history.

Genesis of the 1770 Entail Improvement act was the Duke of Buccleuch’s private bill, drafted by Adam Smith, to loosen the entail on his land. The act, inspired by Dalrymple’s advocacy, left the scaffolding of the tailzie in tact.

The Tailzie debate reignited in 1764 post the Seven Years War, with the bill produced suggesting Tailzie reform, not complete abolition as suggested by Kames. Key to the debate was the interpretation of the state of entail in England.

The background of this Act was an ongoing debate surrounding entail reform in the mid 18th century. Sir John Dalrymple invoked Montesquieu in defending feudalism against Lord Kames’ attempts of entail reform in 1759, framing Tailzie as central to the British economy.

1770 Improvement Act - shaped by a distinctive vision for Scottish development and imperialism. It was pro feudalism, instead of a piecemeal reform which the existing historiography frames it as.

The focus of the paper is the reinterpretation of the 1770 Entail Improvement Act and what it reveals about labour and the political economy of the period.