Consumption and the Country House"This study explores the consumption practices of the landed aristocracy of Georgian England. Focussing on three families and drawing on detailed analysis of account books, receipted bills, household inventories, diaries and correspondence, Consumption and the Country House charts the spending patterns of this elite group during the so-called consumer revolution of the eighteenth century. Generally examined through the lens of middling families, homes and motivations, this book explores the ways in which the aristocracy were engaged in this wider transformation of English society. Analysis centres on the goods that the aristocracy purchased, both luxurious and mundane; the extent to which they pursued fashionable modes and goods; the role that family and friends played in shaping notions of taste; the influence of gender on taste and refinement; the geographical reach of provisioning and the networks that lay behind this consumer activity, and the way this all contributed to the construction of the country house. The country house thus emerges as much more than a repository of luxury and splendour; it lay at the heart of complex networks of exchange, sociability, demand, and supply. Exploring these processes and relationships serves to reanimate the country house, making it an active site of consumption rather than simply an expression of power and taste, and drawing it into the mainstream of consumption histories. At the same time, the landed aristocracy are shown to be rounded consumers, driven by values of thrift and restraint as much as extravagant desires, and valuing the old as well as the new, not least as markers of their pedigree and heritance"--Publisher description. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Anatomy of Elite Spending Fashion Luxury and Splendour | 23 |
Constructing the Country House Habitus Performance and Assemblages of Goods | 53 |
Practicalities Utility and the Everydayness of Consumption | 83 |
Gentlemens Things The Masculine World of Goods and Consumption as Selffashioning | 109 |
Gentlewomens Things Women and Country House Consumption | 140 |
Consumption and the Household Family Friends and Servants | 169 |
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Common terms and phrases
Account book amongst appears Arbury Hall aristocratic Audley End bedchambers Berg bills British Burnett Canons Ashby Chapter Closed Doors coach comfort consumer Consumption and Gender Cornforth cost Craven Culture and Consumption D(CA decorative Early Georgian Interiors Edward Leigh eighteenth century elite Elizabeth Dryden England English Country House entries everyday example fashionable fifth Lord Leigh French and Rothery furnished furniture Gentleman’s Daughter Georgian Girouard Gomme Gothic Grand Tour household identity important inherited Inventory John Turner Lady landowners Leigh family Leighs and Newdigates Letter London Luxury and Pleasure mahogany Mary Leigh Mary’s masculine material culture owners Oxford paintings Parlour polite purchases range reflected relationship retailers Richard Twining role SCLA seen servants silverware Sir John Sir Roger Newdigate social Sophia spaces spending status Stobart Stoneleigh Abbey supplied suppliers taste Thomas tion tradesmen Vickery Warwickshire wealth whilst Whittle and Griffiths William William Gomm women