Whose parliament? Political oratory and print culture in the later 18th century

Abstract

A recurrent feature of the long history of the British Parliament has been its resistance to the media which facilitate public access to its proceedings. Throughout the 18th century the reporting of parliamentary debates was technically a breach of privilege and it was not until the 1770s that the publication of proceedings in newspapers became an established fact of political life. The emergence of this extra-parliamentary public sphere had important implications for parliamentary discourse itself. With opinion increasingly being made and exchanged outside Westminster, parliament itself came under pressure to adapt to changing circumstances and readerships.

Focusing on the House of Commons, this article examines how a parliamentary culture of gentlemanly orality began to negotiate a relationship with an increasingly dominant culture of print. With particular reference to the early 1780s it considers the extent to which the publication of debates complicated oratorical performance, requiring speakers to conceive of their productions as engaging with a new kind of public and inducing them to refashion themselves rhetorically in recognition of shifting conceptions of political sincerity, accountability and trust.