The Pelican History of England #7: The Long Eighteenth Century (1714–1815)

As I get to the end of my project to read all the Pelican Histories of England, I've reached the point where I've read them before—back in 2012/13, I read the ones covering the eighteenth through twentieth centuries in parallel to my Ph.D. exam reading covering the same era. My copy of volume seven, however, I got from the library at the time, so for this reread, I bought my own copy. My new one is a 1990 printing (unlike some other volumes of the series, this one never went into new editions), and it does something I haven't seen in any of my other volumes of the series... it renames it! According to the cover and the spine, this isn't the Pelican History of England, but the Penguin! I don't know why they would rename the series, especially why they would only do this on one of the 1990s editions I have. Was it just a mistake? The interior list of other books in the series still calls it the "Pelican History" after all.

The Penguin History of England: 7. England in the Eighteenth Century
by J. H. Plumb

Originally published: 1950
Previously read: August 2012
Acquired: April 2025
Reread: June 2025

J. H. Plumb takes a similar approach to A. R. Myers in volume four, dividing his era into three sub-eras, in this case by three Prime Ministers: Walpole (1714-42), Chatham a.k.a. "Pitt the Elder" (1742-84), and Pitt a.k.a. "Pitt the Younger" (1784-1815). Unlike Myers, though, who carried out a strictly parallel construction in each of those three sections, Plumb has a bunch of different chapters that covers a lot of topics very quickly, though there is usually one on literature in each section. He's also fond of giving a quick biography of a key figure in a single chapter, such as John Wesley (founder of Methodism), John Wilkes (a reform journalist), and each of the three prime ministers. I think this probably has the most chapters of any Pelican History, with twenty-five in total. (Some of the earlier volumes had just five!) Like some of the earlier volumes, though, Plumb focuses less on giving you a blow-by-blow.

Anyway, like I said, I read this before, and my old review indicates I was not a big fan: "Plumb seemed to assume a level of general knowledge with the era's politics that I simply did not possess, as the whole book was organized around three principal prime ministers who were referred to as though I was already an expert." As another reviewer on LibraryThing says, "this is an introduction to the period for educated people. So names are used as if you should know who they are. I think when it was written that would have been alright, today it isn't, sadly." I'm not sure that Plumb ever explicitly says that Chatham and Pitt the Elder are the same person! But I did find it a bit easier to follow this time, no doubt thanks to having read the preceding six volumes and thus having a grounding in the time and era.

One thing I've been tracking across this project is not just how each writer structures their volumes, but also what kind of thesis they give about their era. Plumb's volume is diminished, I think, by not having one. Across the twenty-five chapters, he tries to cover a lot: politics, empire (the loss of America and the acquisition of India both happen here), religion (like I said, Wesley gets a chapter), the Napoleonic Wars, moves toward full democracy. It's hard to say that one thing dominates the book. I can see why Plumb might take this approach, wanting to give a broad view of a time period, but it does mean that I finished the book having felt I received a lot of glimpses of interesting bits but not a coherent panorama of the entire time. The problem is he does kind of give a thesis at the end, but he's been so all over the place in terms of details up until that point, that it doesn't feel very supported: "To thinking men the horizon was dark and foreboding.... [I]n 1815, at the end of long endurance, there was fear, and envy, and greed, but little hope" (214). Why?

The potted biographies of the prime ministers are particularly interesting and frustrating; Plumb hints at a lot but explains little. Apparently Pitt the Elder was insane? And sick every year of his life, both mentally and physically? But somehow a great prime minister anyway? How does this all add up? Once again, I find myself wanting to do some outside reading; I guess I will be tracking down a full-length biography of him at some point. Similarly, when talking about Pitt the Younger, he calls him an "enigma," "narrowly rational, and frequently mistaken," "atrociously bad in all questions of strategy," and "a drunkard" (208)! So what was he good at?

To the extend that Plumb does have a focus, however, it seems to be trade. He shows how trade both drove England's prosperity during this time, and also failed to transfer all of that prosperity to members of the working classes: "There were more families of middling wealth than ever before, but the vast bulk of the population fell within the contemporary category of 'labouring poor'.... [T]he poorest working men today would have found the lives of their ancestors almost unbearable.... [T]he human animal broke down under the burden..." (150). This is the time where England's economic prosperity takes off, leading us into the Victorian period (but more on that next time). 

Trade policy is the major area of focus he discusses with the three prime ministers. Plus, trade was also the impetus for empire, of course, in both India and Ireland, and the crippling of trade was a key outcome of the American Revolution. Trade so much drove the empire that, in the 1780s, we wouldn't really recognize imperialist rhetoric in India: "They were traders, proud of their race, determined to make money as fast as they could, but they were wholly free from the sense that manifest destiny had called them to rule the native people" (171). By the end of the century, there was a very different attitude: "Distasteful as it was for the Englishman to live in India, the provision of good government was an obligation which he could not avoid. It was his destiny" (178). Plumb himself, though, is a bit of an imperialist, suggesting "the British Raj was more just, and less extortionate, than its native counterpart" (178). Doubt you would see that in a 2020s history book!

Other things of interest: Like I said, he focuses on the slow transition toward wider democratic enfranchisement; I found his discussion of the reformers' own view of history fascinating: "they helped to foster the strange national mythology of the Victorians. They believed... that Saxon England was the golden age of political democracy. This was destroyed by the Normans and a monarchical tyranny imposed. A long struggle ensued. The first triumph was the Magna Carta... but final success was jeopardized by the corruption of George III's government.... Misleading, yet simple..." (136). If you've read the earlier volumes of this series, particularly three and six, you'll know just how wrong this is!

Anyway, I still found this one of the weaker volumes of the series but on the other hand, I got more out of it than I did on my previous pass. Lots of interesting tidbits even if not much of a coherent whole.