Einladung zu einem Vortrag in englischer Sprache
During the eighteenth century many thousands of young Germans went to
live and work in England. London was growing rapidly into the world’s biggest
and probably most cosmopolitan metropolis, attracting the ambitious and
most enterprising. Most German immigrants were male, young and
unmarried. The decision to settle in England was often combined with the
decision to marry and start a family. But what of their English-born children?
How could a German identity survive in the new land?
In this lecture Graham Jefcoate will examine the evidence we have for the
experience of the thousands of Anglo-German children and young people that
grew up in 18th and early 19th century England. What role did institutions play,
especially the churches and schools? How could awareness of German roots
and knowledge of the German language be maintained?
Graham Jefcoate’s comprehensive study of German book culture in 18th
century London was published in February 2015. In the lecture he will draw
on the evidence for German lives he describes in the book and also many
other sources. The picture that emerges is perhaps surprising, overturning
some of the assumptions we have about how our own society and the Anglo-
German relationship have developed.
Graham Jefcoate was born in Edmonton, Middlesex, England in 1951. He
read English Literature at Downing College Cambridge and University
College London where he received his Postgraduate Diploma in Library and
Archive Studies. Before he worked for the British Library from 1988 to 2001
he spent 7 years in Germany (1981 to 1988) as a joint compiler for the
university libraries in Göttingen and Münster. In 1996 he became a fellow of
the Royal Society of Arts London and among others he held the position of a
Director General of the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. Since 2005 he has been the
director of the University Library of Nijmwegen.