Kit-Cat Club [ Association / Associational culture / Politics & Society ]
… through journals such as The Spectator (1711-12, 1714), profoundly shaped the course of British sociability and national identity. The dates of the Kit-Cat’s foundation and dissolution are uncertain, as no official records of its meetings or … many major events between 1704-15. If the political stability of England in this period was due to ‘a sense of common identity in those who wielded economic, social and political power’, 14 then the Kit-Cat Club was the crucible of that common identity. Walpole thus learned at the Kit-Cat how to wield power through patronage, the press and partying. 14 . J.H. …
Friendship | Merchants | Patronage | Whigs
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