Yes, Bridgerton does mirror real life with its diverse cast. Here’s the history.

Season 4 follows Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha), a formerly upper-class English woman of Korean heritage forced into servitude by her stepmother. Because my M.A. research surrounded representations of race and gender in 18th-century British domestic literature and portraiture, I love that each season of Bridgerton introduces a new paramour from the racially diverse countries Britain interacted with during that period. After studying Anglo-African figures like Dido Elizabeth Belle (Sir John Lindsay's daughter), Olauduh Equiano (18th-century Arctic explorer), and Ignatius Sancho (18th-century British composer), I appreciate the way Bridgerton reflects the cultures from continental Africa, South and East Asia, and more that circulated in the upper (and lower) British classes.

Unfortunately, many mainstream cultural takes view Bridgerton’s racial diversity as a fallacy. In 2023, The Guardian’s Steve Rose accused the show’s upper-class racial representation of "race-twisting." Yes, there were slavery, racism, and classism in 18th and 19th-century England, but that didn’t prevent humans from those same backgrounds existing in the upper echelons. In fact, some of Bridgerton’s non-white nobility appear inspired by real-life figures.

Diverse real-life parallels

Season 1's deliciously ducal Simon Basset (Rege-Jean Page) parallels Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. As the biracial son of a wealthy Huguenot, Georges Bologne de Saint-Georges, Bologne had private tutors, a literary education, and musical composition lessons (his opera The Anonymous Lover got a major production in Philly last year). He entered the Royal Polytechnic Academy of Weapons and Riding at 13, was considered at 20 "the most handsome and accomplished young man in the Kingdom" (Olivette Otele, African-Europeans), and at 21 was called the best swordsman in 18th-century France. After winning a fencing championship and an appointment to the king’s guard, he was associated with Marie Antoinette and the Duke of Orléans.

Season 2 introduced shrewish, sharpish, sassy South Asian Kate Sharma, who seemingly parallels Elizabeth Sharaf un-Nisa Ducarel, an 18th-century Mughal woman from Bihar, India. Just as Ducarel married into the gentry of the Gloucestershire region, Kate married into the aristocratic Bridgertons. Considering Kate's father worked in the royal palace, he is possibly inspired by David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, the first Anglo-Indian elected to parliament in the 19th century.

Season 3 provided us with the adorably introverted, musically inclined Lord John Stirling, possibly inspired by Anglo-African violinist George Bridgetower (an original member of the Royal Philharmonic Society and patronized by Welsh royalty), composer Ignatius Sancho, or the aforementioned Chevalier de Saint-George, who conducted the Paris Opera and was called the “Black Mozart” (check out Chevalier, the 2022 Hulu biopic).

Sophie and Dido

The current season introduces fiery Sophie Baek, the illegitimate daughter of Lord Penwood, whose social power sounds similar to Kuo Sung-tao, the first Chinese minister to Britain in the 19th century. While Orientalism, Turquerie, and anything dealing with Middle Eastern culture was very popular in 16th to 18th-century England, Sophie's story sounds closer to Anglo-African Dido Elizabeth Belle.

Like Sophie, Dido was the illegitimate daughter of British gentry, and became the family ward. Her father requested his uncle, Lord Mansfield, raise her, and both of them provided for her in their wills. Like Sophie, Dido contributed to household tasks (as dairy manager and poultry administrator), and served as a companion to her titled cousin, Lady Elizabeth. But Bridgerton’s Sophie is left out of her father’s will, and is not treated as well as Dido was.

Just as Bridgerton has numerous racially diverse balls, like the masquerade in the debut episode of season 4, there were Black musicians in the 18th century who performed at
“black balls” for the Black upper class and upper-class servants, including the 200-person Westminster African ball, attended by Anglo-African Jack Beef, the right-hand man of West Indian magistrate John Baker. The first Black cotillion in the US occurred in NY in 1778.

Rejecting racial erasure

Watching Bridgerton is soothing for me as it hasn't fallen yet under the spell of racial erasure. Recently, the BBC hired Yonder Consulting to survey 4,518 UK adults and 100 BBC employees about BBC content. Most of the users viewed racially accurate or color-blind representation as "tokenistic”. They even complained about the casting of biracial English actor Nathaniel Curtis (whose father is Indian) as Sir Isaac Newton in an episode of Dr. Who (Rwandan Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa also faced racist backlash after taking on the title role).

But the true diversity of 18th-century European figures goes on: Francis Williams, who attended Cambridge and the bar. Soubise, a favored servant of the Duchess of Queensberry, who obtained a fencing and equestrian handling education. Ignatius Sancho served as butler to the Duke of Montagu and befriended authors Laurence Sterne, David Garrick and Samuel Johnson. Even Louis XIV's wife, Queen Marie-Theresa, had a Black paramour, Nabo. Black British boxer Bill Richmond (who inspired Bridgerton’s Will Mondrich character) was educated in England, performed for royalty, ran a boxing academy, and ushered at the coronation of George IV in 1821.

Shondaland’s Bridgerton has done an excellent job capturing the racial diversity that existed in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. If you want more, check out Shonda Rhimes’s 2017 TV series, Still Star-Crossed (inspired by Romeo and Juliet), which taps into the diversity of Early Modern England.

Philly’s historic diversity

If you want a Philly angle on the Black upper class in Victorian times, try reading The Elite of Our People. Check out West Germantown’s Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, which frequently celebrates Black Victorians. Or learn about the Montiers, a historic Black Philadelphia family with roots in the 1600s, including 19th-century newlyweds whose marriage portraits are the oldest known painting of an African American couple (now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art).

So while numerous American leaders work to omit or deny the presence and achievements of non-European races throughout history, don’t be that person. Instead, celebrate the history of diversity while enjoying a steamy and sumptuous 19th-century world.