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This paper will examine the materiality of eighteenth-century assembly rooms, framed around the question: How did the (sometimes ephemeral) material culture of assembly rooms shape the multisensory experiences of subscribers? Through objects (like fans, transparencies, and decorations) and their textual references, a new, haptic and sensory history of these spaces can be illuminated. Analysis of the material dimensions of assembly rooms will uncover tensions between the aspirational and realised experiences, creativity, and identities of users. Using prints, objects, accounts, architectural plans, receipts, and correspondence, this paper will highlight how assembly rooms were charged spaces for nonverbal communication, communication aided by material culture. It will also uncover networks of suppliers of music, food, decorations, and transportation navigating in and around these spaces. Analysis of interactions between patronage networks, subscribers, and tradespeople will reshape understandings of assembly rooms as both communal and segregated spaces.

Hillary Burlock is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Liverpool, working on the development of British assembly rooms. Prior to this, she worked as a Research Associate at Newcastle University, working on the Eighteenth-Century Political Participation and Electoral Culture (ECPPEC) project. Her recently completed thesis explored the intersections between dance and political cultures in late Georgian Britain. She works on eighteenth-century histories of sociability, politics, performance, and dance from 1700 to 1832, and has edited a forthcoming collection on the influence of Bath’s assembly rooms in Britain and beyond.