Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

Smash hit historical romance Bridgeton returns to our screens this week.

And one of the series' key characters is the elusive Lady Whistledown,

a savvy wordsmith with a punchant for causing mayhem among the elite of the Regency Ton.

But did any anonymous gossipmongers like Lady Whistledown really exist in the Regency era?

While Emily Briffitt spoke to the public historian Professor Hannah Gregg,

who's the historical consultant to Bridgeton,

to delve into the outrageous world of Georgian scandal sheets and gossip rags

and learn more about who exactly dished the dirt.

Hi, Hannah. Thank you so much for joining me on the History Extra podcast.

Hi, Emily, thanks for having me.

So today we are going to be delving into the world of Regency gossip and scandal.

Now, in Bridgeton, we are introduced to the concept of scandal sheets.

Now, I wanted to ask you, were these a real thing?

Were they a big deal as well?

Well, scandal was definitely a big thing in Regency England. I mean, it has sort of been described

as the age of scandal. And that's partly because there was this very buoyant culture of news

and information, which had been building, you know, for the century before, with the production

of daily newspapers,

information in those newspapers. And then combined with that was this culture, this world of the

ton, who were the celebrities of the day. So, you know, it was a very vibrant cultural moment

where gossip, celebrity news, information was part of the currency of the time. And so you do

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