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Women and estate management in the early eighteenth century: Barbara Savile at Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire (1700–34)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2021

Sarah Law ,
Susanne Seymour  and
Charles Watkins
Sarah Law*
Affiliation:
Independent Researcher
Susanne Seymour
Affiliation:
School of Geography, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Charles Watkins
Affiliation:
School of Geography, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

There is a rich and increasing body of research pointing to the significant role that elite women played in property management during the eighteenth century. In this article we examine the contribution of an elite widow, Barbara Savile, to the management of her son Sir George Savile’s extensive landholdings in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire from 1700 until her death in 1734. We establish that Barbara Savile had a deep understanding of estate business and was a shrewd judge of character, expertise on which both Sir George and his stewards relied. She scrutinised account books, commissioned surveys for rental reassessment, was instrumental in the negotiation of wood contracts and was closely involved in the practical management of many aspects of tree and woodland management.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , April 2022 , pp. 23 - 39
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1 Amanda L. Capern, Briony McDonagh and Jennifer Aston, eds, Women and the Land, 1500–1900 (Woodbridge, 2019); Briony McDonagh, Elite Women and the Agricultural Landscape, 1700–1830 (Abingdon, 2018).

2 Amy Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England (London, 1993); Amy Erickson, ‘Possession – and the other one-tenth of the law: assessing women’s ownership and economic roles in early modern England’, Women’s History Review, 16:3 (2007), 369–85.

3 Anne Laurence, ‘Lady Betty Hastings, her half-sisters, and the South Sea Bubble: family fortunes and strategies’, Women’s History Review, 15:4 (2006), 533–40.

4 Christine Wiskin, ‘Businesswomen and financial management: three eighteenth-century case studies’, Accounting, Business and Financial History, 16:2 (2006), 143–61 (p. 143).

5 Hannah Worthen, Briony McDonagh and Amanda Capern, ‘Gender, property and succession in the early modern English aristocracy: the case of Martha Janes and her illegitimate children’, Women’s History Review, 30:1 (2021), 49–68 (p. 52).

6 Amanda L. Capern, ‘The landed woman in early modern England’, Parergon, 19:1 (2002), 185–214; McDonagh, Elite Women. See also Sandra Dunster, ‘Women of the Nottinghamshire Elite c. 1720–1820’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, 2003) <http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12083/1/288090.pdf>; Stella Tillyard, Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740–1832 (London, 1995).

7 John Beckett, ‘Elizabeth Montagu: bluestocking turned landlady’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 49:2 (1986), 149–64; Dunster, Women of the Nottinghamshire Elite, ch. 7: ‘Property’; Ruth Larsen, ‘For want of a good fortune: elite single women’s experiences in Yorkshire, 1730–1860’, Women’s History Review, 16:3 (2007), 387–401; Richard Goulding, ‘Henrietta Countess of Oxford’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 27 (1923) <http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/articles/tts/tts1923/oxford/oxford1.htm>.

8 See, for example, John Beckett, The Aristocracy in England, 1660–1914 (Oxford, 1986); Stephen Daniels and Charles Watkins, ‘Picturesque landscaping and estate management: Uvedale Price at Foxley, 1770–1829’, Rural History, 2:2 (1991), 141–69; Tom Williamson, Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Stroud, 1995); M. Hanson, ed., Ducal Estate Management in Georgian Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire: The Diary of William Gould, 1783–1788 (Nottingham, 2006); Sarah Webster, ‘Estate improvement and the professionalization of land agents on the Egremont estates in Sussex and Yorkshire, 1770–1835’, Rural History, 18:1 (2007), 47–69.

9 D. R. Hainsworth, Stewards, Lords and People: The Estate Steward and his World in Later Stuart England (Cambridge, 1992).

10 See, for example, the following important recent collections: Carol Beardmore, Steven King and Geoff Monks, eds, The Land Agent in Britain: Past, Present and Future (Cambridge, 2016); Lowri Ann Rees, Ciarán Reilly and Annie Tindley, eds, The Land Agent, 1720–1920 (Edinburgh, 2018).

11 Stephen Bending, Green Retreats: Women, Gardens and Eighteenth-Century Culture (Cambridge, 2013); Susan Groag Bell, ‘Women create gardens in male landscapes: a revisionist approach to eighteenth-century English garden history’, Feminist Studies, 16:3 (1990), 471–91.

12 Briony McDonagh, ‘Women, enclosure and estate improvement in eighteenth-century Northamptonshire’, Rural History, 20:2 (2009), 143–62 (p. 156).

13 Ibid.; Larsen, ‘For want of a good fortune’.

14 Alternative spelling Jennison.

15 Durham University Probate Database (hereafter DPR) I/1/1676/J2/1; Lawrence Robinson, ‘The Merchant Community of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1660–1750’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Durham, 2019), p. 125 <http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13021/1/l_robinson_thesis.pdf?DDD17+>.

16 A. Saville, ed., Secret Comment: the Diaries of Gertrude Savile, 1721–1757 (Devon, 1997), p. 15.

17 Barbara Savile was John Savile’s second wife. His first wife, Elizabeth Tully, the daughter of Dr Thomas Tully, rector of Middleton in Teesdale, died childless in 1676 and the second marriage followed quickly.

18 J. W. Clay, ‘The Savile family’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 25 (1920), 1–47.

19 Ibid.

20 In 1728, Barbara empowered her sister ‘to act in all my Conserns in the North for me without Limitation’. DPR I/1/1706/J3/1; The Nottinghamshire Archives (hereafter NA) DD/SR/212/3/45, Letter of Attorney (copy) Barbara Savile to Mrs Isabella Newton, 14th September 1728.

21 NA DD/SR/227/130.

22 NA DD/SR/ 212/3/25, 52, Letters George Savile to Barbara Savile, 16th March 1726 and 6th March 1727; NA DD/SR/211/193/2, DD/SR/211/178/1, George Savile’s Personal Account Books, 1703–8 and 1715–22.

23 NA DD/SR/211/227/102, 101, 130, Letters Thomas Smith to George Savile, 4th and 6th April 1724, 23rd July 1726; NA DD/SR/212/3/63, Letter George Savile to Barbara Savile, 16th September 1726; Saville, ed., Secret Comment.

24 NA DD/SR/1/D/6/2, Marriage deed of settlement executed by Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne Cole (‘Westpark, Helmpark in Brancepeth, Durham’), 15th June 1706; NA DD/SR/211/193/1, George Savile’s Personal Account Book, 1703–08.

25 Anne received an annual income of £200 raised from Helme Park and West Park on her late husband Sir Nicholas Cole’s estate. NA DD/SR/212/1&2, Letters exchanged between Anne Cole (Baronne d’Ongnyes) and Barbara Savile, 1726–8.

26 NA DD/SR/212/2/6, Letter George Savile to Barbara Savile, 6th November 1725; NA DD/SR/212/2/9, Letter Barbara Savile to Anne Cole (Baronne d’Ongnyes), 15th March 1728; NA DD/SR/212/2/11, Letter Anne Cole (Baronne d’Ongnyes) to Barbara Savile, 28th February 1731; Saville, ed., Secret Comment, p. 224. In 1737 Gertrude took a house in Farnsfield, Nottinghamshire, rented for her by her brother’s steward.

27 Gertrude Savile’s diaries record vividly the chronic depression that caused her to avoid many social occasions. In October 1721, she noted that at Rufford her ‘only felicities’ were ‘Walking alone or sitting under a tree in my Brother’s park’; Saville, ed., Secret Comment, p. 10.

28 Barbara Savile suggested upcoming wood revenue as a potential source. NA DD/SR/212/3/2, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, May 1716.

29 NA DD/SR/225/26, Abstract of deeds made by Sir George Savile in favour of his sister Gertrude, 1717–23, quoted in Dunster, Women of the Nottinghamshire Elite, p. 251.

30 Saville, ed., Secret Comment, p. 26; NA DD/SR/212/11, Gertrude Savile’s journal, part 4, 1721–2, quoted in Marjorie Penn, ‘Account books of Gertrude Savile, 1736–58’, Thoroton Record Series, 24 (1967), 99–146 (p. 101). George Savile paid his sister Anne an annual income of £100 from Annuity Stock, however, there is a marked absence of reference to Stock in the accounting for Gertrude’s payments during her brother’s lifetime.

31 NA DD/SR/ DD/SR/212/3/40, 25, 52, Letters George Savile to Barbara Savile, 7th December 1725 (quotation), 16th March 1726 and 6th March 1727. In March 1724, Sir George’s mother and two sisters took over the tenancy of Golden Square; the rental had hitherto been paid by Sir George. NA DD/SR/211/192/2, George Savile’s Personal Account Book, 1722–7.

32 NA DD/SR/212/11, Gertrude Savile’s journal 1721–2, quoted in Penn, ‘Account books of Gertrude Savile, 1736–58’, p. 100; Saville, ed., Secret Comment, pp. 5–6.

33 NA DD/SR/212/3/43, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, 20th August 1730; National Archives, Kew PROB 11/658/1, Will of Jonathan Newton, Merchant of Calcutta, East Indies, dated 1727, probate 3rd March 1733.

34 E. M. Jancey, ‘An eighteenth-century steward and his work’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society, 56 (1957), 34–48 (p. 41).

35 NA DD/SR/211/3/46a, Letter William Elmsall to George Savile, 9th July 1734.

36 Edith Milner with Edith Benham, ed., The Records of the Lumleys of Lumley Castle (London, 1904), p. 206.

37 McDonagh, ‘Women, enclosure and estate improvement’, p. 157.

38 NA DD/SR/212/3/2, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, May 1716; NA DD/SR/212/3/18, Letter George Savile to Barbara Savile, 30th June 1725.

39 NA DD/SR/212/3/41, Letter George Savile to Barbara Savile, 27th December 1725.

40 NA DD/SR/212/3/1, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile. More than half a century later, Mary Wollstonecraft would be developing this critique in her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).

41 Saville, ed., Secret Comment, p. 33.

42 NA DD/SR/212/3/1, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile.

43 NA DD/SR/225/36/1, Letter Anne Cole (Baronne d’Ongnyes) to Barbara Savile, August 1733.

44 NA DD/SR/212/3/1, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile.

45 NA DD/SR/212/3, Letter George Savile to Barbara Savile, 7th December 1725. Henry Curwen (b. 1680, d. 1727) of Sella Park and Workington Hall was referred to by Barbara Savile as ‘My Cus: Curwen’ and relied upon by Sir George as well as his mother and older sister for business advice.

46 Anne’s letters in this period repeatedly refer to her perceived want of male support: ‘the misery of our Family is the want of acquaintance with Men, I mean usefull Men, & without them women pass but scurvily throw the World’. NA DD/SR/212/2/4, Letter Anne Cole (Baronne d’Ongnyes) to Barbara Savile, 13th March 1728; NA DD/SR/ 212/1/29, Letter Barbara Savile to Anne Cole (Baronne d’Ongnyes), 10th November 1727.

47 NA DD/SR/212/3/27, Letter George Savile to Barbara Savile, 18th February 1726.

48 Saville, ed., Secret Comment, p. 189. George Savile referred to ‘the unnatural disaffection to our Protestant Government’ spread among the clergy as partly responsible for ‘a great weight upon my Spirit’ when disposing of an advowson. NA DD/SR/211/3/107b, Letter (draft) George Savile to William Elmsall, 29th June 1731.

49 NA DD/SR/212/3/2, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, May 1716.

50 For discussion of potential candidates with reference to Barbara Savile’s wishes, see NA DD/SR/211/224/47; for subsequent appointment, see NA DD/SR/211/227/13.

51 D. F. Bond, ed., The Tatler (Oxford, 1987), vol. 2, p. 444.

52 Dunster, Women of the Nottinghamshire Elite, pp. 153–5; Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England (New Haven, CT and London, 1998), p. 128; NA DD/SR/212/3/1, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, 4th (6th) March 1721; Saville, ed., Secret Comment, p. 132; NA DD/SR/211/440, Barbara Savile’s correspondence re seeking servant references.

53 NA DD/SR/211/227/96, Letter Barbara Savile to Anne Cole, 21st March 1713.

54 NA DD/SR/ 212/3/3, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, 8th March 1721.

55 Saville, ed., Secret Comment, p. 132.

56 NA DD/SR/225/3/1; NA DD/SR/211/2, Letter William Elmsall to George Savile, 8th July 1717.

57 NA DD/SR/211/3/59, Letter William Elmsall to George Savile, 21st December 1733.

58 The maps were completed in 1713, the complaint made fifteen years later. NA DD/SR/218/1/34, Letter Joseph Dickenson to George Savile, 1st July 1728.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 NA DD/SR/211/435, Letter George Burden to George Savile, 26th January 1712.

63 Sarah Law, ‘The Landscape of Rufford, 1700–1743: Reconnecting Archives with People and Place’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, 2016) <http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37356/1/Sarah%20Law%20Thesis%20for%20Submission.pdf>.

64 NA DD/SR/211/227/68, Letter Thomas Smith to Barbara Savile, 26th November 1718.

65 See Susanne Seymour, ‘Landed Estates, the “Spirit of Planting” and Woodland Management in Later Georgian Britain: A Case Study from the Dukeries, Nottinghamshire’, in Charles Watkins, ed., European Woods and Forests: Studies in Cultural History (Oxford, 1998), pp. 115–34 and Charles Watkins, ‘“A Solemn and Gloomy Umbrage”: Changing Interpretations of the Ancient Oaks of Sherwood Forest’, in Watkins, ed., European Woods, pp. 93–113.

66 Law, The Landscape of Rufford, ch. 6.

67 NA DD/SR/212/3/2, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, May 1716. Barbara Savile emphasises the importance of wood revenues.

68 NA DD/SR/211/245, Letter Thomas Smith to Barbara Savile.

69 Brian G. Awty, ‘Denis Hayford’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (23 September 2004) <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/47478>; Brian G. Awty, ‘Charcoal ironmasters of Cheshire and Lancashire, 1600–1785’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 109 (1957), 71–124 (p. 84) <https://www.hslc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/109-6-Awty.pdf>.

70 NA DD/4P/75/76.

71 Brian G. Awtry, ‘Cotton Family’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004 <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/49045>.

72 NA DD/SR/211/227/34, Letter Thomas Smith to George Savile, 15th May 1721; see also NA DD/SR/212/3.

73 In the East Midlands, transition to coke-fuelled ironworks did not occur until 1764. P. Riden, ‘The charcoal iron industry in the East Midlands, 1580–1780’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 111 (1991), 64–84; H. R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry (London, 1957).

74 G. Hammersley, ‘The charcoal iron industry and its fuel, 1540–1750’, The Economic History Review, New Series, 26:4 (1973), 593–613 (p. 606). A cord was a volumetric measure defined in the East Midlands as a stack of wood 4 feet x 4 feet x 8 feet. See NA 157/DD/P/42/68, contract of sale from the Derbyshire woods of John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle; NA DD/2P/28/18-19, Lease for Carburton Forge (1704), contracting a cordwood quota for either Carburton Forge (Nottinghamshire) or Staveley ironworks (Derbyshire).

75 M. W. Flinn, ‘The growth of the English iron industry, 1660–1760’, Economic History Review, New Series, 11:1 (1958), 144–53 (p. 148); ‘The third report of the commissioners appointed to enquire into the state and condition of the woods, forests and land revenues of the crown’ (1788), 29; John Evelyn, Silva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees…, 4th edn (1664, London, 1706, ‘Inlarg’d and Improvd’), p. 267.

76 Bawtry was the traditional shipment place for industrial products of north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire. Goods were loaded directly onto seagoing vessels at Gainsborough and Stockwith on the Trent. P. Riden, ed., George Sitwell’s Letterbook 1662–66, Vol. X (Derbyshire Record Society, 1995), pp. xxi–xxii; D. Holland, Bawtry and the River Idle Trade (1964, Doncaster, 1976); NA DD/FJ/11/1/2/178-9, Letter to Mr Foljambe (Osberton, Nottinghamshire), 29th May 1728, detailing freight costs for wood.

77 Hayford’s interest in Carburton seems to have persisted until 1720 when Lord Harley (Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire) leased Kirkby, Carburton and Clipstone forges to Richard Knight (Bringewood, Herefordshire) and William Westley (Haigh, Yorkshire). In 1727, Carburton was leased to Millington Hayford (Romeley, Derbyshire). Raistrick and Allen, ‘The South Yorkshire ironmasters’; B. L. C. Johnson, ‘The Foley partnerships: the iron industry at the end of the charcoal era’, The Economic History Review, New Series, 4:3 (1952), 322–40; NA DD/P/6/1/16/95; NA DD/2P/28/19; NA DD/P/6/1/17/82; NA DD/4P/80/15; Sheffield Archives SpSt/60495/17. For Thornhill ironstone agreements and dealings with Hayford, see NA DD/SR/30/65,63; NA DD/SR /225/3/1, William Elmsall’s evidence to 1720 Interrogatories; NA DD/SR/211/333, Letter Raph Elmsall to George Savile, 12th March 1743. For Rufford cordwood contract, see NA DD/SR/211/227/65, Letter Thomas Smith to Barbara Savile, 2nd December 1718.

78 NA DD/SR/211/227/68, Transcription of Watt’s reply in Letter Thomas Smith to Barbara Savile, 26th November 1718.

79 Ibid.

80 NA DD/SR/211/227/63, Letter Thomas Smith to George Savile, 10th December 1718.

81 NA DD/P/5/83, Draft lease for Carburton Forge by John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, 1703. Preference was for regularly used sites (the ground beneath was progressively levelled) and light rather than clay soils (cold ground lengthened burn times). D. H. Kelley, Charcoal and Charcoal Burning (Shire, 1986), p. 5.

82 Hammersley, ‘The charcoal iron industry’, p. 606.

83 NA DD/SR/211/227/65, Letter Thomas Smith to Barbara Savile, 2nd December 1718.

84 In The House of Commons, 1690–1715, John Dibble (d. 1728) is included as a member whose ‘principal trade was in timber for the navy’. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks and S. Handley, eds, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690–1715 (Cambridge, 2002), vol. 3, pp. 86–7.

85 NA DD/SR/211/435, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, 3rd March 1711.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 W. Ellis, The Timber-Tree Improved; or, the Best Practical Methods of Improving Different Lands with Proper Timber (London, 1738), p. 1; origin of expression, Lord Coventry’s speech to the Judges of England, 1635, in J. Rushworth, ‘Historical Collections: 1635’, Historical Collections of Private Passages of State: Volume 2, 1629–38 (London, 1721) <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rushworth-papers/vol2/pp287-318>.

89 Hainsworth, Stewards, Lords and People, pp. 226–30.

90 NA DD/SR/A4/30, George Burden’s Estate Accounts, 1711–12; NA DD/SR/211/435, Letter Barbara Savile to George Savile, 3rd March 1711.

91 NA DD/SR/211/227/106, Letter Thomas Smith to George Savile, 7th March 1724.

92 NA DD/SR A4/27, George Burden’s Estate Accounts, 1703; NA 157/DD/2P/28/44; DD/P/5/83, Lease Contracts re forges owned by successive Dukes of Newcastle; NA DD/4P/80/15, Letter Francis Knight of Clipstone Forge to Lord Harley, 28th November 1728; NA DD/SR/229/13/19, Duke of Devonshire’s Licence re wood upon Sherwood Forest, 15th April 1702.

93 On this occasion, thirty-six trees were left distributed so that they would appear as a row from the house. NA DD/SR/211/24/136, Letter George Holt to George Savile, 21st January 1738.

94 Law, The Landscape of Rufford, ch. 4.

95 John James in The Theory and Practice of Gardening (1712, London, 1728), p. 52 describes ‘White Walks’ as ‘no other than those that are all sanded, and kept naked over’, suggesting a naming based on surface type.

96 NA DD/SR/211/227/88, 63, Letters Thomas Smith to George Savile, 23rd March 1715 and 10th December 1718.

97 NA DD/SR/211/227/65, Letter Thomas Smith to Barbara Savile, 2nd December 1718.

98 Ibid.

99 Hainsworth, Stewards, Lords and People, p. 108.

100 McDonagh, Elite Women; Wiskin, ‘Businesswomen and financial management’.

101 Charles Watkins, Trees, Woods and Forests: A Social and Cultural History (London, 2014), p. 176.

102 N. D. G. James, A History of English Forestry (London, 1981).