Journal Article


Favouritism, patronage, and the ‘family system’ in England, c.1700-1850

Abstract

This article examines the interrelationships between familial, social, political and professional ideas about favouritism in England. It shows that there was a cross-fertilisation of discourses over the century-and-a-half between c.1700 and 1850, when favouritism was increasingly problematised in the domestic, social and professional spheres. Although several issues were identified as emanating from its practice, it was the very role of the family itself that increasingly made favouritism so deeply objectionable to those who articulated a vision of social and professional mobility and advancement based on merit rather than interpersonal relationships and family structures. Indeed, the link between the body politic and family was reformulated from the age of reform onwards as concerns about favouritism were directed inward to the privatised family and then to the pathologised individual. Overall, therefore, this article demonstrates that the institution of the family was both conceptually and practically fundamental to the meta-structure of social, professional and political life, long beyond the early modern period.



The fulltext files of this resource are currently embargoed.
Embargo end: 2026-08-02

Authors

Begiato, Joanne

Oxford Brookes departments

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Dates

Year of publication: 2024
Date of RADAR deposit: 2023-04-24



“This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in The English Historical Review following peer review. The version of record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae111."


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This RADAR resource is the Accepted Manuscript of Favouritism, Patronage and the ‘Family System’ in England, c.1700–1850

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