16
February 2027

Dining with James and Jane: Eating at Home with the Georgians

Welcome to The Arts Society Norwich
Tuesday, February 16, 2027 - 19:00
JIC Centre
Colney Lane NR4 7UH
Online Event

The Norfolk clergyman, James Woodforde kept a diary between 1758 and 1802 in which he daily recorded almost every dinner he ate, whether at home, with friends, at an inn or in the houses of the local gentry. Jane Austen, moving in similar social circles a generation later, recorded food and manners in her letters and novels that illuminate Woodforde’s careful recording of his every meal. This lecture brings together these two with images of paintings, prints, cookery books and the objects of daily life to illustrate the often hidden domestic lives of our Georgian ancestors.

Peter Ross
Peter Ross has a BA in the History of Art, an MA in London History, and a PhD in the cultural history of the early eighteenth-century criminal, Jack Sheppard. Until 2023, he was the Principal Librarian at the City of London’s Guildhall Library. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Peter has appeared on television and radio as a consultant on crime in eighteenth-century London, the history of English food, and Shakespeare’s First Folio. Peter’s The Curious Cookbook, Viper Soup, Badger Ham, Stewed Sparrows, and a Hundred more Historic Recipes was published in 2012 by the British Library and subsequently published in the US, China and Taiwan. Peter is currently engaged in writing a book - Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London to be published by Bodleian Library in May 2026.