My review of Childhood and War in Eighteenth-Century Britain (2025) by Jennine Hurl-Eamon has recently been published by the journal English Historical Review.
The book provides an important new perspective on eighteenth-century warfare and contains considerable original research, though I wasn’t always persuaded by its analysis.
Excerpt: “Although more than a third of England’s eighteenth-century population was under the age of 15, the wartime experiences of youngsters during this notably belligerent era have received only sporadic historical attention. Jennine Hurl-Eamon’s welcome volume aims to address this oversight by bringing military history into dialogue with the history of childhood.
The book’s scope is both broader and narrower than its title suggests. Rather than covering the eighteenth century proper, Hurl-Eamon focuses on the period from the Seven Years War to the Battle of Waterloo (1756–1815). She is primarily concerned with the British Army, on the grounds that more has been written about youthful seafarers. Yet, much like the Georgian soldiers she studies, Hurl-Eamon ventures well beyond British shores, tracing children’s interactions with the military across diverse European and colonial contexts. Her research encompasses both boys and girls, and includes youngsters caught up in the fighting as well as children whose knowledge of war was strictly second-hand. The author exploits a wide array of sources, making extensive use of soldiers’ memoirs and contemporary prints. The analysis is further enriched by the productive sampling of local archives and courts-martial records.”
Visit English Historical Review for the full review (may be paywalled) or read the accepted manuscript version for free here.
1812 and all that 