Gentlemanly Masculinity

Abstract

The Gentleman’s Magazine’s title was redolent of a traditional, superior masculine standing, evoking implied readers who were male rather than female, adult, and of high social status, Naomi Tadmor’s ‘lineage families’ — the gentry, perhaps even loftier.1 Their self-confidence was apparent in its contents, their ordered, hierarchical society represented in regular factual information of institutional promotions in the Church of England, army, navy, royal court and diplomatic service. The month’s news chronicled the official engagements of the court, sessions of Parliament, meetings of directors of the Bank of England, of the South Sea Company and of the aldermen of the City of London and proceedings in the civil and criminal courts. Individual lives were inserted into this picture in lists of births, marriages and deaths, often featuring again the leading families from the news and promotions columns.