"An (Im)perfect Paradise": Materiality, space and the embodiment of empire at Shugborough Hall.

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This research project will closely analyse the collections, buildings and gardens of the Shugborough estate in order toanswer broader questions about the formation of landed estates, the interaction between local and global ideas and theimportance of material culture to imperial identity in eighteenth-century England. This project will challenge therepresentation of country estates as fixed conduits of 'English' identity by placing Shugborough in an internationalcontext. By considering the role of George Ansons' activities in the Carolinas and in the Atlantic economy moregenerally, this PhD aims to gain a deeper understanding as to how the Ansons were able to finance the development ofthe Shugborough estate. In so doing, it will also consider how the Ansons' global connections influenced the aestheticsof Shugborough, and how the space functioned in its provincial locality as an expression of imperialism and an agent ofempire in its own right. The time scale of this project will focus on the development of the Shugborough estate underThomas and George Anson in the mid-eighteenth century, although an end date for the project has not yet been decided;this is largely because the project will be led by the collections and estate papers themselves, and until they have beenexamined, it would be difficult to fit the project within a more specific time frame.