Poor Bickerton

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A01=Stephen Haddelsey
A23=Jerry White
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Author_Stephen Haddelsey
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bridgerton
Category1=Non-Fiction
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Category=HBTB
Category=JBFC
Category=JBSA
Category=JFFA
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COP=United Kingdom
coroner thomas higgs
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early victorian england
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eq_society-politics
georgian england
georgian society
high society
inns of court
john bickerton
Language_English
mansions of misery
oxford university
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Price_€20 to €50
professor jerry white
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social classes
social history
softlaunch
zeppelin nights

Product details

  • ISBN 9781803994253
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 24 Oct 2024
  • Publisher: The History Press Ltd
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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‘An adroit, intelligent and painstaking social history … Poor Bickerton offers us a luxurious tapestry from which everyone interested in English social history in the late-Georgian period can learn something new and surprising.’ – Professor Jerry White, author of London in the Eighteenth Century: A Great and Monstrous Thing

On 8 October 1833, Coroner Thomas Higgs opened an inquest into the death of John Bickerton, an elderly eccentric who, despite rumours of his wealth and high connections, had died in abject squalor, ‘from the want of the common necessaries of life’.

Over the coming hours, Higgs and his jury would unpick the details of Bickerton’s strange, sad story: a story that began with comparative wealth, included education at Oxford and the Inns of Court, and brought him to the attention of two sitting prime ministers, but which descended into madness, imprisonment, mockery and starvation.

Using Bickerton’s life as a thread around which to weave his narrative, historian Stephen Haddelsey explores the lives of the down-and-outs and rejects of Georgian and Regency England, including debtors, criminals and the insane. For anyone fascinated by this era of balls and intrigue, of Lord Byron and mad King George, here a world altogether grittier than that to be found in the novels of Jane Austen is revealed in all its lurid detail.

STEPHEN HADDELSEY is the author of many books on Antarctic exploration history, including Ice Captain, Born Adventurer and Icy Graves, as well as other topics. He lives in Nottinghamshire.