The Aclands of Killerton: Remaking Imperial Britain in the Long Nineteenth Century

The Acland family archives would be the chief source for my proposed project, which is a collaborative doctoral award
between Cambridge University and the National Trust. The key theme of my proposed project is understanding the
Acland family's 'mission' in the long nineteenth century, that is the motivations and beliefs which underpinned their
actions and enterprises as a family and as individuals. I plan to explore this idea through the Aclands' connections to
empire, particularly their antislavery beliefs. My project will contribute most to three broad fields of historiography;
histories of elite families; the Victorian antislavery movement; and spatial histories of the British Empire. I propose an
approach that foregrounds the Acland family house, Killerton, as the site on which the family's global connections
converged and where their different individual missions coalesced. Could the various campaigns undertaken by different
family members, as dictated by social roles and hierarchies, all form part of one overarching mission? Furthermore, the
focus on the home would retrieve from the margins voices and groups often excluded from or with limited capacity in
public life: notably women, children, and household staff. My project would join the 'global turn' in history whilst
maintaining the specificity of local contexts. It would also contribute to an important body of work that seeks to
reunderstand the antislavery movement without lionizing it.