Birmingham Eighteenth Century Centre
Birmingham Eighteenth-Century Centre (BECC) is one of the country's leading centres devoted to the multi- and inter-disciplinary study of the eighteenth century, the threshold of the modern world.
The eighteenth century was an age of imperial expansion, industrial acceleration, and brutal slave regimes; of philosophical "enlightenment," the sentimental novel, and the birth of Romanticism; and of a transformation in conceptions of self and society around the world. BECC hosts seminars, workshops, and reading groups, providing a community for scholarship that explores this important era in global history and culture.
Eighteenth Century Resources at Birmingham
Eighteenth Century Resources at Birmingham
Cadbury Research Library
The Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham holds an extensive collection of manuscripts and rare books - including many eighteenth-century sources. Among these are personal and domestic papers, as well as the records of organizations, societies and businesses. Manuscript collections range anywhere from hand-written diaries and journals to musical scores.
Barber Institute of Fine Arts
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, based on campus at the University, hold an exquisite range of sources, from paintings and works on paper to coins, sculpture and decorative arts. Among its paintings eighteenth-century specialists will find several Joshua Reynolds' pieces among others, and within its sculpture collection a bust of Alexander Pope, an equestrian statue of George I and 'A Rhinoceros call Miss Clara' - a bronze dating from approximately 1750.
Elsewhere in Birmingham
BECC Researchers have easy access to the city archives at the Library of Birmingham, the material culture and visual sources at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Archdiocese of Birmingham Archives. Only a short journey away is the extensive Dudley Archives, and the city is well connected through public transport networks to support research trips to London, Nottingham, Manchester and across the UK.
Contact the Eighteenth Century Centre
Contact the Eighteenth Century Centre
Birmingham Eighteenth Century Centre
Ashley Building
The University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
United Kingdom
Email becc@contacts.bham.ac.uk