This project examines the range of ideas associated with ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ in four cities across the British Atlantic world (Bristol, Cork, Glasgow, and New York) in the century before the American Revolution. It aims to recapture the meanings encapsulated by the terms ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ both within and shared/disputed between these cities, which all had important commercial, intellectual, and political ties. It focuses on four key aspects of liberty – economic, individual, political, and religious – to highlight the importance of localities in shaping wider discourses of freedom. Local cultures, concerns, memories, politics, people, and spaces all played an important role in developing urban cultures of liberty, which could exert profound influence on other territories within and beyond the British empire, often with breathtaking speed. Using a range of sources and methodologies, from exploring material culture to interrogating linguistic corpora, ‘Localising Liberty’ demonstrates the deep and reciprocal impact of (spatial) contexts and ideas.

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