The Digital Encyclopedia of British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century

Dr. Alexander Hamilton's (1712-56) Annapolis, Maryland “Tuesday Club” (1745-56) reflected the Scottish-born physician’s life-long, transatlantic pursuit of sociability and identity. After moving to Annapolis in 1739, Hamilton struggled with isolation and poor health. He especially missed Edinburgh’s Whin-Bush Club, which he considered the most civil and successful of all tavern clubs. During a five-month journey through northeastern America in 1744, Hamilton attended various taverns in the hopes of finding a model for his own version of the Whin-Bush Club in Annapolis. Upon returning to Annapolis, Hamilton founded the Tuesday Club, itself a direct reflection of the Whin-Bush Club. Over the next eleven years, the Tuesday Club became a respected and well-attended outlet for sociability, satire, and camaraderie among educated colonists. Hamilton’s death in 1756 marked the Club’s end, illustrating the Scottish physician’s profound impact on British America’s sociable scene.

While Laurence Sterne was not one of the most prolific novelists of the eighteenth century, he was certainly the one who understood best the mechanisms of celebrity, and who used his appetite for sociability to further his reputation.