Elite Women and the Agricultural Landscape, 1700–1830

Briony McDonagh is a historical and cultural geographer at the University of Hull, UK. She has published widely on the British rural landscape, on women’s histories and historical geographies, and on the geographies of protest, property and the commons. She is Chair of the Historical Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and co-PI of the University of Hull’s Gender, Place and Memory research cluster.

Elite Women and the Agricultural Landscape has won several prizes including: The Joan Thirsk Memorial Prize for the best book in British or Irish rural history and The Women's History Network Book Prize for the best first book in women's or gender history.‘McDonagh’s rich and exciting new monograph makes a welcome contribution to the field of women’s and gender history, whilst also greatly enriching our understanding of landscape, agriculture and property in Georgian England [..] McDonagh’s exploration of women’s involvement in the process brings a new perspective to well-trodden ground. By recovering so many examples of propertied women, and by investigating the ways in which gender informed women’s perceptions and practices of landownership, McDonagh also shows for the first time that Georgian women played a significant, yet hitherto unrecognised role in making the English landscape.’ — Dr Rachel Delman, University of Oxford, Reviews In History, 2288 (2018)‘The book is composed of seven tightly written chapters with an appendix providing the key information on the female landowners, estate managers, builders and improvers featured in the text. This is a most useful reference with details of their route to landownership, marital status when managing the property, approximate years managing the estate, the names of husbands and children, and finally their own maiden name.’— Professor Liz Griffiths, University of Exeter, Agricultural History Review, 66.1 (2018)‘While the contribution made by women in business, the arts and philanthropy during this formative period has been acknowledged, the role of women in shaping the British landscape has largely been ignored, not only by contemporaries, but by modern historians and archivists too. As a historical geographer and feminist, McDonagh sets out to correct this omission and challenge the view, expressed by John Beckett, that "eighteenth-century landowning was a man’s world".’— Professor Liz Griffiths, University of Exeter, Agricultural History Review, 66.1 (2018)

• 1. Introduction 2. Women, Land and Property 3. Managing the Estate 4. Improving the Estate 5. County Houses, Gardens and Estate Villages 6. Representing Women and Property 7. Beyond the (Park) Pale