The wealth of the English landed gentry, 1870-1935

This article explores changing levels of unsettled personal wealth amongst the landed gentry of Devon, Hertfordshire and Lincolnshire during the period of the Agricultural Depression of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The main quantitative sources employed for this research are the National Probate Calendars. Despite problems with agricultural incomes and land values, overall levels of gentry wealth were sustained. This was a result of the diversification of wealth away from land and into other safer investments of a non-agricultural character. A final section shows how one Devon gentry family converted land into liquid investments at the end of the First World War