ABSTRACT
By 1760 at least seventy towns outside London in which evidence of the material prosperity Britain had then attained was plain for every visitor to see, and not least in the way their successful citizens were housed. By the 1750s most English towns of any size, and some quite small ones, had their own horticultural or florists societies, mounting twice-yearly shows and offering prizes; later these spread to Scotland where, for example, the Paisley Florist Society was established in 1782. The evidence of a booming newspaper, periodical and pamphlet press suggests in itself that the literate Briton of the eighteenth century had become an incurable reader. Under Queen Anne and George I public music rooms and private music clubs, open to subscribers, sprang up in many places. By 1700 the club and the coffee-house were already pervasive features of the renascent London society of the post-Puritan era.
