First Stages of Research

As of this week I've now truly begun my research, although the work I did this week was mostly getting a feel for the project, shuffling .pdf scans around, and figuring out now to navigate the various sources I'll be utilizing over the course of the project. The first set of documents I'm working on are .pdf scans of an Establishment Book from 1727, the year King George II and Queen Caroline ascended the throne. The Establishment Book is essentially an account book, keeping track of the various salaried officials and servants in Queen Caroline's court before her coronation, and is thus an excellent starting point as a list for the various people, both aristocrats and common servants, who were involved in the Princess' court.
Along with this and several other Establishment Books from the period, I'll also be using John Chamberlayne's Magna Britaniiae Notitia, a series of contemporary compilations of people involved in the government and the court, as well as lists of court officials compiled by Sir John Sainty. My goal will be to collate the information in all of these various sources to form a fairly complete list of the commoners and nobility involved in the courts of Prince/King George II, Princess/Queen Caroline, Prince Frederick, and Princess Augusta.
As I said earlier, the work at these early stages is a bit slow, but I'm confident that as I get used to the sources and forms of notation I'll be able to get quite a bit done! Probably the biggest challenge I've encountered so far (aside from the rather archaic system of dating and the division of the fiscal year, which I'll expand on later) is getting used to the abbreviations and shorthand used in the Establishment Book I've been working with. Most of the shorthand has been easy to understand (Jn. stands for John, Wm. for William, Counts. for Countess, etc.), but there have been a few cases where the names or titles are illegible or unclear. However, I'm confident Professor Bucholz will be able to clear some of these difficulties up for me, and I look forward to getting more deeply involved in my research.

Interesting Historical Tidbit of the Week:
I hope to be able to post some interesting fact, name, job, or bit of trivia I come across in the course of each week's research, and to make up for the absence of any interesting historical information in last week's post, here are TWO(!!!)  interesting historical tidbits I found this week:

• By far the largest office of servants I've come across so far while looking into Princess Carolines' court were her watermen. These men (14 at the latest count) served under Master of the Barges Richard Scott and, one imagines, would likely have worked on the Princess' pleasure barge. As fans of Classical Music may recall, boating on the Thames was a popular recreation among the English royal court of this period, and such an aquatic excursion provided the occasion for the premiere of George Frideric Handel's Water Music, which was commissioned by King George I.  (Link to source) (Image Source)

• While going through Sir John Sainty's list of officials in Princess' Caroline's court, I came across a familiar name lurking amongst the Pages of Honour: Charles Cornwallis. After a brief bit of research on Wikipe...um, I mean using a number of eminent scholarly sources, I discovered that the Cornwallis in question (1st Earl Cornwallis) was the father of Charles Cornwallis (2nd Earl Cornwallis), the famous British General who surrendered to Gen. George Washington and the Comte du Rochambeau at Yorktown, effectively ending the American Revolutionary War.
  

  

  " I may go down in history as the man who lost America, but at least Father got to carry the train of Princess Caroline's dress at state and court functions!"

  
  

  
  

        (Seriously though, I have real non-Wikipedia sources) (Non-Wikipedia source #2)
        (I DID, however, use Wikipedia to look up the duties of a Page of Honour. If the duties listed in this article are incorrect, kindly post in the comments and I will adjust the post accordingly)
(Image Source)

Hello!
I'm Charles Rooney, and I'll be using this blog to keep a record of my research with Professor Robert Bucholz at Loyola University Chicago for this semester (Spring 2014). My project is part of a larger ongoing effort by Dr. Bucholz to compile extensive lists of the members and officials of the various royal courts in Early-Modern England. My work will focus particularly on fleshing out a few smaller sub-courts during the reign of King George I, starting with the courts of Prince George and his wife Princess Caroline, and later their son Prince Frederick and his wife Princess Augusta. My work will mostly consist, at this point, of compiling and collating information from available primary and secondary sources to try to gain a fairly complete roster of officials in the sub-courts including, when possible, the dates when these officials gained, lost, or changed their roles in the court. I'm very much looking forward to getting started on these lists; although it may turn out to be be (as Dr. Bucholz insists) dry and monotonous work, I think it will be fascinating to dig up names of long-forgotten courtiers and to piece together the details of what for many of the courtiers would have been a tremendously important experience. I'll update this blog every week with some information about the ongoing project, and whatever reflections or musings on the project, the topic, or the research experience in general may arise!
'Til next time!