Joseph Wright of Derby painted portraits of provincial businesswomen, Sarah Clayton of Liverpool (1769), and Ellen Morewood of Alfreton (1782), Derbyshire. Although both women were actively engaged in the management of the estates and collieries they owned, and invested in local transport infrastructures, the portraits are markedly different in appearance. To understand why, this illustrated presentation explores their lives, business ventures and legal troubles in a masculine world.

Dr Peter Collinge is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has published widely on social and economic issues of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

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