| Popis: |
The Anson family were established at Shugborough by 1625; they flourished throughout the 18th century, accumulating land, status, wealth and, in the early 19th century, titles. 1842, however, saw a sale of the contents of Shugborough. Examination of mortgage records and agents' accounts shows that for two decades prior this the 1st Earl of Lichfield had been raising numerous mortgages from local sources, on a scale far greater than that indicated by the sale. In 1838 these were replaced by a single .ortgage of £300,000 from a London insurance company. Further loans were raised on the 1st Earl's death. Although the total mortgage burden was greatest after 1854, other indicators show that the period around 1840 was a ti.e of great financial stress. The loan burden was attacked only when the estate faced up to another crisis in 1880, when falling income forced the 4th Viscount to begin the process of debt reduction. H.ving qu.ntified the problem, the study tries to weigh the balance of causes, between personal extravagance and more structured behaviour. The for.er precipitated the Shugborough sale, but the mortgages financed a progr ... of land and property acquisition aimed at consolidation and the continuance of the faaily's political control of Lichfield, in the face of parlia .. ntary reform. Traditional ties drew the family into the world of Whig aristocr.cy pride in a long Foxite loyalty, a marriage into the Cokes, a Holkha.-tr.ined agency, the espousal of enclosure, farm consolid.tion, i.provement, and built into the very fabric of sporting excellence. this world; negative Extravagance was qualities of dissipation were the obverse of a more attractive positive inheritance. The cost can be calculated in teras of both sale and mortgages, and of the social disloc.tion within Staffordshire, seen most clearly in the ch.ngeover to London-based finance in 1838. |
