In the autumn of 1784 a series of concerts for Chatterton were held in the assembly rooms on Bristol's Princes Street, snappily named The Ode, Songs, Chorusses, &c. for the Concert in Commemoration of Chatterton … performed at the Assembly-Room, in Princes Street, Bristol. An ode to Chatterton, written by Richard Jenkins, celebrated Chatterton with a great tone of civic pride:
Strike the Lyre, the Trumpet sound,
Wake to Joy each silent string,
Let the vaulted Roof rebound.
While the immortal Bard we sing:
While we proclaim our darling Son,
Our pride, our Glory Chatterton!
In the Ode Chatterton is claimed by Bristol as 'our darling Son, [...] pride, [and] glory'.
Although the concerts were nominally arranged to raise money for the Chatterton monument, finally erected in the early 19th century, there may well have been an alterior, more political tone. The concerts recast Chatterton as a symbol of radicalism and of high Bristolian culture. Robert W Jones suggests that they were, in fact, more a self-congratulory celebration of Whig dominance, than one of Chatterton and literary culture alone.
