Title of Dissertation: Modernity, Masculinity and the Meltonian – The Material world of fashionable fox-hunting in Leicestershire 1750 to 1840


This paper explores the growth of English fox-hunting with a particular focus on the geographical area surrounding the town of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. Contrary to popular perception, it argues that fox-hunting was a progressive sport rather than the traditional, unchanging pastime often portrayed in subsequent eras. By looking at the shifting design of the hunting landscape, the interior world of the fox-hunter and the dressed body of the Meltonian, a new appraisal of English fox-hunting is formulated which reveals a highly contemporary sport encompassing new ideas of athleticism, fashionability and masculinity. It also challenges the familiar trope of the countryside and the city being seen as two separate spheres by showing the increasingly important relationship between the fashionable male centres of St James’, Piccadilly and the sporting centre of Melton Mowbray.