The Profligate Son: Or, A True Story of Family Conflict, Fashionable Vice, and Financial Ruin in Regency Britain
The dangers of a profligate son is a persistent theme in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature, and it was also a very real fear among the upper echelon of British families. At a minimum, such a son would bring shame and dishonor upon his family. He could also cause financial ruin. Phillips has written an absorbing case study of such a son and of the devastating effects of his behavior upon himself and his family. Using a recently discovered family archive, Phillips chronicles the short, unhappy life of William Jackson. He was the son of a prosperous official of the East India Company, who seems to have been an upright citizen and a loving father. When William began to act up as a teen, drinking and whoring, his father hoped he was just “high spirited.” But the son’s impulsiveness and criminal activities escalated, resulting in imprisonment and eventual transportation to a penal colony in Australia. Phillips eloquently fills out the bare bones of the known facts of the story. --Jay Freeman