Join the Heritage Partnerships Team to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the opening of Bath’s Assembly Rooms. This conference is co-organised by Hillary Burlock (QMUL), Elaine Chalus (Liverpool), Robin Eagles (History of Parliament), and Dr Oliver Cox (Oxford).
30 September 2021 will mark the 250th anniversary of the opening of Bath’s glorious Assembly Rooms, one of the most important dance-related institutions in Georgian Britain. In 1771, the managers of Bath’s Assembly Rooms celebrated the opening of these new rooms (designed by John Wood the Younger) with a ridotto, an event featuring music, dancing, and sweet confections. The conference, organised by Hillary Burlock (Queen Mary University of London), Professor Elaine Chalus (University of Liverpool), Dr. Oliver Cox (University of Oxford), Dr. Robin Eagles (History of Parliament) and the National Trust intends to celebrate this milestone event.
The conference will likely have a hybrid format. 29 September will be hosted virtually. Covid permitting, 30 September 2021 will be held in the Assembly Rooms itself, featuring performances of eighteenth-century dance and music. If necessary, we intend to switch to a virtual platform for the entire event.
Speakers will share their research on Bath’s history and heritage with the Assembly Rooms as the focus, presenting on music of Linley and Herschel; dance, dancing masters, and Masters of the Ceremonies; the architecture of John Wood the Younger and Robert Adam; disorderly sedan chairmen; and the accounts of elite and genteel women and politicians who swarmed Bath each year. Covid permitting, the day will also feature demonstrations of late eighteenth-century social dance by the Bath Minuet Company, from country dances to cotillions, breathing life into the ballroom of the Assembly Rooms.
This project has been generously supported by the Bath Heritage Trust, Royal Historical Society, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the Early Dance Circle.
Confirmed Speakers
- Professor Roey Sweet, University of Leicester (keynote)
- Dr. Cathryn Spence, Vancouver Island University (keynote)
- Dr. Oliver Cox, University of Oxford
- Dr. Amy Frost, Bath Preservation Trust
- Dr. Hannah Greig, University of York
- Professor Steve Poole, University of the West of England, Bristol
- Professor Elaine Chalus, University of Liverpool
- Dr. Robin Eagles, History of Parliament
- Jemima Hubberstey, DPhil candidate, University of Oxford
- Dr. Rose McCormack, ECR, graduated from Aberystwyth University
- Associate Professor Gillian Dow, University of Southampton
- Dr. Matthew Spring, Bath Spa University
- Hillary Burlock, PhD candidate, Queen Mary University of London
For more information and to register visit the conference website.
You can download the Call for Papers here.
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