To Make a Figure in the World: Identity and Material Literacy in the 1770s Coach Consumption of British Ambassador, Lord Grantham

Using archival research on the correspondence of diplomat Thomas Robinson, 2nd Baron Grantham, this article examines how Grantham used his material knowledge of carriage design to negotiate the often-conflicting pushes and pulls on elite office-holding men's identities and material cultures. Grantham's anxieties and frustrations surrounding ‘making a figure’ showcase the importance of material culture and material literacy in the construction and negotiation of a professional (specifically diplomatic), social and gendered identity in the late-eighteenth century and suggests an alternative vision of the ‘anxious masculinity’ paradigm.