This Hampshire Archives Trust webinar explores the rise and fall of the Middleton family of Townhill Park House, a stylish villa created for them in the eighteenth century. Nathanial Middleton retired from the East India Company after making a fortune in India, collecting a vast array of Persian art and having a family with his Indian mistress. His mixed-race wife inherited her fortune from her father’s Jamaican plantation. What followed was a national scandal, a trial that dominated the newspapers, bankruptcies, elopements and mental collapse.

About the speaker:

Dr Cheryl Butler is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Honorary Fellow of the University of Winchester. She serves on the editorial boards of the Southampton Records Series and Hampshire Papers. Her most recent publications include two volumes for the Records Series, a paper on the Journal of John Sturdy for Hampshire Papers and First Impressions: Jane Austen’s Southampton Circle 1780–1820, available from Hobnob Press. The latter book contains much of her research on the Middleton family, who were known to Jane Austen.

Further details and booking on the Hampshire Archives Trust website.