An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Amy Wilcockson (Daiches-Manning Memorial Fellow, 2026).
Examining the ‘Edinburgh University Coterie’: Networks of Cultural Influence in the 1790s and 1800s.
This talk will summarise the early stages of my ongoing IASH project, which explores a remarkable circle of University of Edinburgh classmates who achieved precocious cultural influence in the 1790s and 1800s and became leading figures in politics, law and literature. Often working collaboratively in a homosocial environment, these men reconfigured eighteenth-century thought and society, bringing Scottish ideas, ideals and stories to the heart of British culture. The group includes The Edinburgh Review founders Sydney Smith (1771-1845), Francis Horner (1778-1817), Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), and Henry Brougham (1778-1868), author and judge Henry Cockburn (1779-1854), and the poets Walter Scott (1771-1832) and Thomas Campbell (1777-1844). Using records, writings and little-studied correspondence, this talk discusses their collective roots and the impact they had on wider culture in Scotland and Britain.
Meeting ID: 384 971 962 716 1
Passcode: nV6Rg79e