Property and a Woman’s Place in Restoration London

Abstract

Katherine Austen (1628–83), the London widow who is well known as a writer of meditations, was also a pioneer investor and property developer. Her interests in real estate centred in London (particularly in the manor of Highbury and the development of Swan Yard off the Strand) but also stretched from western Pembrokeshire to eastern Essex. She also invested in government loans and held securities of the East India Company. This article outlines Austen’s economic affairs and places her in the context of other female investors and property holders. It also shows how Austen’s property interests occurred in a web of kinship and family connection, how her economic affairs shaped her writings, and how her sense of place and space shaped her identity as both a public and a private person.