Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century

In January 1740, the governors of the newly founded General Hospital or Infirmary at Georgian Bath commissioned Vincent Mattyssens to carve a sculpture of the Good Samaritan for the tympanum of the building then under construction. Throughout the long eighteenth century, the commitment of the General Infirmary to the ideal of the Good Samaritan was shared by other voluntary hospitals. Bath was the fifth provincial foundation in a movement which between 1720 and 1800 acquired over 30 members in England and a further five north of the border. The historiography of these institutions can be traced back to the empiricism of the Victorian age. One strand was demographic. The commitment to contextualize the General Infirmary calls for a historiographical interpretation of both national society and local Bath society. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.