The eighteenth century was a formative period in the obituary's development. Whereas today we distinguish between a death notice and an obituary, this has not always been the case. This thesis is an examination of obituaries, commemorative biography, letters to the editor and other discussions about the characters of the dead published in London newspapers and periodicals from 1700 to 1795. Its main purpose is to offer an account of the development of the obituary from its original function as a death notice and advertisement to its later use as a body of biography that held particular didactic significance for the middling orders "outside politics."As the private characters of men assumed more significance in mediating political debate in the 1780s and 1790s, more coverage was devoted to women in obituaries. It was in their private roles as mothers and wives, however, that women received the most praise, for it was these characters that affirmed the feeling natures and public reputations of their husbands. The political significance attached to one's private sensibilities led to some published criticism about the intrusive nature of obituaries, underscoring their profound influence in judgements of character.The didactic efficacy of obituaries, in part, was the result of commercial considerations of newspaper and periodical editors who used the non-political miscellany, of which deaths were a part, to attract a readership that ensured their papers' success. Obituaries as death notices published information about death and money as it was the private nature of these subjects that made them relevant and meaningful to all Britons. In the late eighteenth century, obituaries as biographical tributes became more sentimental expressions of family grief and affection; it was the private characters of men as husbands and fathers that served as public tests of their civic virtue. All men, regardless of their status, were held accountable to these standards of private conduct. While this kind of commemorative writing supported the editorial strategies of men such as James Perry and John Nichols who sought to raise the obituary above the political, religious and social animosities that divided their readers, it also provided a means by which contributors could advertise their political and sectarian ambitions, creating inherent tensions in the reading and writing of obituaries.