The objective of this article is to place the debate about women's investment behaviour — in particular their attitude to risk — in a historical context. We examine a number of case studies of investments made by English women between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries and compare the results with the findings of recent surveys of women's attitudes to investment. Modern research consistently finds evidence of a gender effect, with women taking less investment risk than men. However, this research is primarily US-focused, restricted to pensions planning and based on questionnaire surveys. Using surveys of women's wills, share registers, and correspondence archives, we also find a gender effect, but one which is significantly reduced once education, knowledge and access, marital status and wealth are taken into account. We argue that such case studies are a valuable way forward for assessing the extent to which women were risk seekers or risk avoiders.
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