Musicians within the social hierarchies of eighteenth-century England : the case of Thomas Linley junior

• Main Author: Gribble, Rebecca
• Other Authors: Irvine, Thomas
• Published: University of Southampton 2015
• Subjects: 780.92
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.690193

Thomas Linley junior, a musician in the late eighteenth century, created networks to facilitate his upward social movement despite the low status accorded to members of his profession in Britain at the time. Supported by his father, the family’s trajectory was to move into the upper echelons of society, leaving behind the low social status of musicians. The financially unstable, and socially inferior, view of the eighteenth–century musician has persisted throughout music history. By using Thomas Linley Junior as a case study I will show that this view, and expectation of musicians to be financially unstable, is not entirely accurate. Simon McVeigh has made forays into this area of music history already, with his research into the Italian violinist Giardini and his connections. This thesis takes his work a step further, using sociological theories by Pierre Bourdieu and Howard Becker to investigate these networks, their benefits and effects on their constituent connections.