Estate and empire: Sir George Cornewall's management of Moccas, Herefordshire and La Taste, Grenada, 1771–1819

Increased attention is now being paid to the relationships between cultural and material forces in the process of colonization. This paper examines the relationships developed between Britain and its colonies in the Caribbean through the landed estate, a key working and scenic landscape of late Georgian society, and the georgic discourses surrounding it. A general survey is made of colonial connections and the various media in which landed estates were represented. We argue that many connections can be found between estates in Britain and the Caribbean colonies, through material exchanges and in discourses over landscape, labour and finance. Caribbean property was accommodated by the adoption of conventional modes of representing and managing British landed estates, a process important in the assimilation of the islands as British colonies and in the integration of those with colonial interests into British élite society. But this accommodation was disrupted at certain times and places by debates over slavery in particular. In our case study of the activities of one landowner, Sir George Cornewall, we examine and compare the representation and management of La Taste, his sugar plantation in Grenada, and his Moccas estate, in Herefordshire, and we evaluate his position in British élite society.