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Things We Forgot to Remember

Documentaries

Factual: History

Series examining overlooked but noteworthy historical events, with Michael Portillo

Michael Portillo presents a series revisiting the great moments of history to discover that they often conceal other events of equal but forgotten importance

Things We Forgot to Remember: Series 8

Things We Forgot to Remember: Series 8: Episode 3: The Georgian Facade

Episode 3

Episode 3: The Georgian Facade

Series 8

The Georgian Facade

BBC Radio 4 - Things We Forgot to Remember, Series 8, The Georgian Facade

Michael Portillo discovers the Georgian period was not as elegant as we tend to believe.

Georgian England is remembered for its elegant architecture and regency refinement, but behind the facade Michael Portillo finds an age full of riots and political strife. 3/4.

We remember Georgian England with its elegant architecture and regency refinement; the world of Jane Austen novels, the Brighton pavilion, smart red coated soldiers, of wealth and taste. It is a time of harmony, elegance and proportion epitomised by its dominant architectural style, Palladianism, as seen in the city of Bath. 

But we forget that all this was a genuine Georgian façade. The Georgian England that we are so comfortable remembering broiled with political sedition and discontent ruthlessly suppressed through political purges, espionage networks and military might. 

The Georgian regime was established in 1714; supporting an imposed Hanoverian monarch (58th in line to the throne) through partisan Whig political power. Highly ideological, it faced and suppressed extensive opposition. Even Jane Austen's Bath, which came to epitomise Georgian elegance, was the site of a mass riot against the Hanoverian regime. 

So we have inherited a sense of the inevitability of Georgian England and it has placed its roots firmly in our sense of collective history but we have forgotten its suspect foundations and the vast amount of work that went into the construction of this apparently inevitable turn in British history.

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Michael Portillo revisits great moments of history that conceal other important events

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Things We Forgot to Remember

Series 8

Episode 3: The Georgian Facade

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