Performance and ritual were central to the functioning of royal courts in the Georgian era. Every year, the royal court held birthday balls to mark the anniversaries of the monarch’s and his consort’s birthdays. Imagine preparing to attend (and dance at) the birthday ball under the watchful gaze of George III and Queen Charlotte at St James’s Palace. Over the course of this talk, I’ll explore what would be expected of you, the how-tos, and the dos and don’ts, for attending a court ball in late Georgian London. The ballroom at St James’s Palace became a place to see and be seen, where mantuas and minuet steps were scrutinised by members of the Bon Ton. We’ll discover a world where the gowns outshone the ballroom, where pickpocketing was rife, and where fainting and fits of tears were not uncommon!

Dr Hillary Burlock is a Visiting Researcher at Newcastle University. She was awarded her PhD in History at Queen Mary University of London in 2022 where her thesis explored intersections between Georgian political culture and social dance from 1760 to 1832. During her PhD, she held fellowships at the Huntington Library and Royal Archives, and currently holds a fellowship from the Lewis Walpole Library. Hillary Burlock has recently published in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies and London Journal and is currently co-editing a collection of essays on the cultural influence of Bath’s Assembly Rooms with Routledge.