Publisher's Synopsis
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Newbury fairly fizzed with life: the coach trade and the waterway brought prosperity and entertainment to the town. Feasting, fairs, prizefighting, livestock markets, performing animals, theatre and pageantry were staples of the civic calendar. Newbury's Georgians were a robust breed who also weathered epidemics, food shortages, floods, bankruptcies, quack medicine, dire poverty in some quarters and they had very little say in how they were governed. This is the story of everyday Georgian life in a typical English town: the livelihoods, schooling, food, sport, crime, health, transport, entertainment and poverty, based on personal testimony of townspeople of the time.
