Reporting by Letter: The 2nd Earl of Hardwicke and his Parliamentary Correspondents

For much of the 18th century, letter writing remained an important means of communicating news about proceedings at Westminster. Members of leading parliamentary families such as the Hardwickes were prolific letter writers and their correspondence has long been valued as a source for the period before the regular reporting of debates became established in the newspaper press. This article focuses on reporting by letter in the correspondence of the 2nd earl of Hardwicke and his circle. It reconstructs Hardwicke's network of informants and considers how the nature of their connection with the earl affected the way they conceived of their role as reporters. With reference to the epistolary conventions of the time, it asks how the circumstances in which letters were composed and read may have shaped the style and content of the reports. Finally, the article examines the impact made on the epistolary tradition by the emergence of newspaper reporting in the later 18th century and assesses the extent to which this development led letter writers to adjust their methods and goals.