Recent scholarship on investment patterns during the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain has uncovered the role of women as investors. By the late 19th century, rising real wealth and the promise of higher returns coupled with lower risk led both men and women from a widening social spectrum, including the less affluent, to own stocks and shares. Among these women was Marian Evans, known to her reading public as George Eliot, among a select but growing number of middle-class investors investing in colonial stocks during 1860-80. This is evident from Eliot’s diaries for 1879-80, which lists dividends from stocks in Australia, South Africa, India and Canada (Henry, N (2001). George Eliot and the Colonies. Victorian Literature and Culture, 29(2), 413-433).
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