GIS Sociabilités Workshop - 'Of the travellers’ sociability in The National Archives’ collections'
GIS SOCIABILITÉS WORKSHOP
Of the travellers’ sociability in The National Archives’ collections
19-20 March 2026, TNA (Kew)
The aim of this workshop is to study the sociability practices of travellers during the long eighteenth century and their perceptions of these practices in a foreign context by drawing on any types of written testimonies or material culture relating to travel.
During their travels undertaken for a wide variety of reasons, travellers regardless of their gender, age, class, origin had to interact with the Other and the unknown. The documents held in The National Archives’ collections that may be used for this seminar will provide an opportunity to question the ways in which travellers perceived foreign societies, and how they reacted to the practices of sociability of the Other, whether or not they accepted to comply with them.
This workshop is part of the activities of the “Sociability and Travel” strand of the GIS Sociabilités. It is jointly organised by two research centres - ILCEA4 (Grenoble Alpes University), Pléiade (Sorbonne Paris Nord University) - and The National Archives (Kew).
Contacts: marion.amblard@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr, sabrina.juillet-garzon@sorbonne-paris-nord.fr, jess.nelson@nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Programme (download the flyer in pdf)
Thursday 19 March
1.15 p.m - Opening: Marion AMBLARD (ILCEA4/ PLEIADE, Univ. Grenoble Alpes), Sabrina Juillet-
Garzon (PLEIADE/ILCEA4, Univ. Sorbonne Paris Nord) & Jessica NELSON (The National Archives).
Session 1: Forgotten and invisible travellers
1.30 - Clémentine GARCENOT, Emigration, Female Networking and Representation of the Other in the memoirs of the marquise de la Tourdu Pin.
1.50 - Véronique Léonard-Roques (UNIV. BRETAGNE OCCIDENTALE), Exploring Oriental Sociability : Suzanne Voilquin’s Experience of Travel in Egypt (1834-1835).
2.10 - Véronique Molinari (UNIV. GRENOBLE ALPES), “Uncontrollable and Indecent” : Dealing with the Emigation of Single Females on CLEC Ships (1849-1850).
2.30 - Lucas Haasis (GERMAN MARITIME MUSEUM, BREMERHAVEN), Bound Together at Sea: Convict Sociability and Life Aboard HMS Calcutta, 1803.
2.50 - Discussion.
3.10 - Coffee break.
Session 2: Sociability and Empire
3.30 - Philippa Hellawell (THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES), “Two Black Gentlemen” in Georgian London: Metropolitan sociability and the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa
3.50 - Séverine Angers (THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES), A Star and Key Traveller: The Experience of a Franco-Polish Lieutenant in the Indian Ocean in the 1770s.
4.10 - Thomas Archambaud (UNIV. OF GLASGOW), In Reactionary Company: East India Company Travellers and the Global Networks of the Counter-Revolution in Europe.
4.30 - Luan Léonard Cakolli (CARL VON OSSIETZKY UNIV. OF OLDENBURG), Brothers Across Oceans: Masonic Sociability and European Mobility in the East Indies at the End of the 18th Century.
4.50 - Discussion
Friday 20 March
10.30 - Keynote: Richard ANSELL (BIRKBECK UNIV. OF LONDON): Sociability and Service on the Road in 18th-century Europe.
11.15 - Discussion.
11.30 - Visit of the display on travellers’ sociability at TNA.
12.30 - Lunch.
Session 3: Franco-British practices of sociability from the travellers’ perspectives
1.30 - Kimberley Page-Jones (UNIV. BRETAGNE OCCIDENTALE), British Women Writing the French Revolution and Its Aftermaths (1790-1815).
1.50 - Audrey Siraud (COLUMBIA UNIV.), A Flight to Britishness: Travellers’ Sociability and the Making of the Cercle de l’Union, a Gentlemen’s Club à la française (c. 1790-1850).
2.10 - Mélanie Cournil (SORBONNE UNIV.), British Scientific Travel and Sociability in Post-Napoleonic France: The 1814 Journey of Dawson Turner.
2.30 - Discussion.
3.10 - Coffee break.
Session 4 : British travellers’ sociability in Italy
3.30 - Ruth Selman (THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES), Early Impressions of British Diplomats appointed to Venice in the 18th
Century.
3.50 - Clare Hornsby (THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME), In the Footsteps of Sir William Hamilton: Edmond Pery in the Eighteenth Century Rome.
4.10 - Melissa Calaresu (GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, UNIV. OF CAMBRIDGE), ‘A kind of protection’: The Neapolitan Sociability of Thomas Jones (1744-1803).
4.30 - Discussion.
