The ‘Natural Leaders’ and their World

Jonathan Jeffrey Wright is Lecturer in British History at Maynooth University.

• AbbreviationsIntroduction1. Will Tennent’s band of ‘bastards and rebels’: the Tennent family in its contextsIntroductionI. ‘Blest Tenant … faithful servant of the Lord’II. ‘A moderate in times of popular excitement’?III. ‘A totally new man’IV. ‘A dismal home’V. ‘An entire change of inhabitantsConclusion2. The ‘natural leaders’, part one: politics and personalitiesIntroductionI. Setting the sceneII. Aristocrats, ‘alarmed whigs’ and ‘young men’III. ‘Such Orangemen as good William would have approved’IV. ‘The progress of public opinion’V. Turning pointsVI. ‘A scene for history to scorn’Conclusion3. The ‘natural leaders’, part two: Belfast, Europe and the worldIntroductionI. ‘Buonaparte-Protestants’II. ‘The contagious blaze of freedom’III. ‘A new world’IV. ‘The Destruction of the Naturals’Conclusion4. ‘The manhood of the mind’: classicism, romanticism and the politics of cultureIntroductionI. The politics of cultureII. The Athens of the North?III. ‘Athens fam’d Institution’IV. ‘The seat of the muses themselves’?V. Robert Hyndman’s toeConclusion5. ‘Thank-offerings to the God of providence’: philanthropy, evangelicalism and social changeIntroductionI. ‘Money in its pockets and roast beef for dinner’II. ‘Admirably conduced charitable institutions’III. ‘Prayers and preachments from morning to night’IV. The ‘pernicious visionary’ and the ‘gigantic genius’V. ‘We should as it were compel them’ConclusionCONCLUSIONAppendicesBibliographyIndex

'Informed by the most recent historiographical trends and research, Wright’s book demonstrates the numerous new avenues available to historians of Ulster. Smartly organized and engagingly written, it is an important work.'