What did it mean to possess something or someone in eighteenth-century Britain? What was the relationship between owning things and a person's character and reputation, and even their sense of self? And how did people experience the loss of a treasured belonging? Keeping Hold explores how Britons owned watches, bank notes and dogs in this period, and also people, and how these different 'things' shaped understandings of ownership. Kate Smith examines the meaning of possession by exploring how owners experienced and responded to its loss, particularly within urban spaces. She illuminates the complex systems of reclamation that emerged and the skills they demanded. Incorporating a systematic study of 'lost' and 'runaway' notices from London newspapers, Smith demonstrates how owners invested time, effort and money into reclaiming their possessions. Characterising the eighteenth century as a period of loss and losing, Keeping Hold uncovers how understandings of self-worth came to be bound up with possession, with destructive implications.
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Examines the cultural history of ownership in eighteenth-century Britain by exploring how people responded to losing their possessions.
Introduction; Property, possession and the importance of loss; Part I.
Challenging Property and Possession:
1. Legal and philosophical
understandings of property and possession;
2. Cities of loss; Part II.
Seeking Return:
3. Systems of reclamation;
4. Who lost and who looked; Part
III. Learning from Loss:
5. Describing and knowing possessions;
6. Valuing
possessions;
7. Selfhood and the importance of keeping hold; Conclusion.
Legacies of loss.
Kate Smith is an associate professor in eighteenth-century history at the University of Birmingham. Her work explores how people related to the material world in the past. Her other books include Material Goods, Moving Hands: Perceiving Production in England, 17001830 (2014) and The East India Company at Home, 17571857 (co-edited with Margot Finn, 2018).
