E-profiles University of Exeter

eProfiles

- Listing by Discipline
- - Listing by Researcher
  - A-C
  - D-F
  - G-I
  - J-L
  - M-O
  - P-S
  - T-V
  - W-Z

Austen Hamilton

Department: History
Discipline: History

Project Summary

I am researching speculative house builders as entrepreneurs in Georgian London. The intention is to construct career profiles of such developers drawing on a variety of sources, mostly those in the London Metropolitan Archives and the Chancery and Exchequer court records held at the National Archives.

The research focusses on the period between Nicholas Barbon (1637-1698), considered the first modern property developer, and Thomas Cubitt (1788-1855), founder of the first integrated building firm, and questions the apparent absence of major entrepreneurs in the industry in the intervening period. It looks particularly at how speculative builders financed their operations and seeks to identify the factors that made them successful or otherwise.

Supervisory Team

Professor Henry French

Professor Jonathan Barry