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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2014
T. S. Ashton has described the Industrial Revolution in England as a time when the “chimney stacks rose to dwarf the ancient spires.” He has also described it as a time when the voluntary association replaced state initiative in governmental affairs. These two phenomena of modern society – the urban industrial complex and the growth of public opinion – are usually paired. Perhaps it is natural to think of the growth of public opinion as something made possible by the growth of cities.
Yet it is known that the Industrial Revolution profoundly affected not only the cities but the countryside as well; that the new technology prompted (among other things) an enthusiasm for agricultural improvement. This is evident in the formation of numerous societies in the last quarter of the eighteenth century which were devoted to purely agricultural pursuits. With the decline of rural prosperity after 1815, however, there arose societies of a different sort which had as their object not the improvement of farming through better techniques but the improvement of agriculture through political action. Both kinds of society revealed the stirrings of public opinion in the countryside.
This essay is concerned with the second type of society, which rose and spread among what are loosely termed the tenant farmers of England. These societies were numerous enough and sufficiently of one mind to take on the character of a movement. The movement was to fail, as agrarian movements are notorious for doing.
1. The letter was dated 20 Oct. 1819; quoted in Mitchison, Rosalind, “The Old Board of Agriculture, 1793-1822,” E.H.R., LXXIV (1959), 64Google Scholar.
2. Robson, R., The Attorney in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1959), passimCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3. Gentleman's Magazine, XCIV (1824), 464–65Google Scholar. Other sources of this biographical sketch are Evans and Ruffy's Farmers' Journal and Agricultural Advertiser (hereafter noted as Farmers' Jour.), Annual Statement, 1824; and Bristol Journal, 23 Feb. 1824.
4. Gentleman's Magazine, XCIV (1824), 465.Google Scholar
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6. The fine-wooled Merino had only recently been introduced to English agriculture. George III, Lord Somerville, and others were assiduous in their efforts to establish them in England. Brief sketches of the Merino experiment are in Lipson, E., A Short History of Wool and its Manufacture (London, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially ch. iii, “Merino and Crossbred Wool”; and Trow-Smith, Robert, A History of the British Livestock Industry, 1700-1900 (London, 1959), pp. 151 ffGoogle Scholar. and passim.
7. Farmers' Jour., Annual Statement, 1824.
8. “On the Trade in Wool and Woollens including an Exposition of the Commercial Situation of the British Empire,” Pamphleteer, III, No. 6 (1814), 325Google Scholar.
9. Ibid., III, No. 6 (1814), 326, note.
10. Ibid., III, No. 6 (1814), 322.
11. For example, Trow-Smith, , British Livestock Industry, p. 153Google Scholar.
12. Pamphleteer, III, No. 6 (1814), 322.Google Scholar
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15. Ibid., 12 Feb. 1816, p. 53.
16. Ibid., 22 Jan. 1816, p. 27.
17. Ibid., 29 Jan. 1816, p. 32.
18. Ibid., 6 Feb. 1815, p. 43; 13 Feb. 1815, pp. 50-1; 20 Feb. 1815, pp. 61-2. Although some details of Webb Hall's program changed throughout the movement, a high protective duty as its basis remained unaltered.
19. Ibid., 5 Feb. 1816, p. 51.
20. Ibid.
21. Other products mentioned specifically were: corn, meal, flour, rye, oats, pease, beans, barley, beer or bigg, flax, hemp, hides, tallow, seeds, butter, and cheese. The resolutions are in Farmers' Jour. 25 Mar. 1816, p. 107.Google Scholar
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24. The following is a table of wool prices for the years with which this essay is concerned. The prices are given in pence per pound:
The merino price scale is taken from the House of Lords' Report on British Wool Trade, 1828 (Evidence of George Webb Hall, Jr.), quoted in Bischoff, James, A Comprehensive History of the Woollen and Worsted Manufactures (London, 1842), II, 126Google Scholar. Southdown and Kent Long wool prices are from Gayer, A. D., et al., The Growth and Fluctuation of the British Economy 1790-1850 (Oxford, 1953), I, 155, 199Google Scholar.
Bischoff maintains that it was the Merino men who were the leaders in the 1816 agitation for a protective duty on wool. See his interesting comment in History of the Woollen and Worsted Manufactures, II, 401–02Google Scholar.
25. Heaton, H., The Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries (Oxford, 1920), pp. 325–26Google Scholar.
26. First Report of the Select Committee on Seeds and Wools, Parliamentary Papers (1816), I.Google Scholar
27. Farmers' Jour., 5 Aug. 1816, p. 261Google Scholar, and 12 Aug. 1816, pp. 269-70.
28. Ibid., 14 Oct. 1816, p. 344. Ellman later explained that since there was no permanent association of this type in Sussex, he had been invited to join the Gloucester and Somerset Association. Farmers' Journ., 27 Jan. 1817, p. 26.Google Scholar
29. Ibid., 4 Nov. 1816, p. 367.
30. Ibid., 5 May 1817, p. 138.
31. Barnes, Donald G., A History of the English Corn Laws (New York, 1930), p. 162Google Scholar.
32. Quoted in Smart, , Economic Annals, I, 654.Google Scholar
33. Farmers' Jour., 28 Dec. 1818, p. 411.Google Scholar
34. Ibid., 7 Dec., 1818, p. 389.
35. The Origin and Proceedings of the Agricultural Associations in Great Britain (London, n.d.); Farmers' Jour., 18 Jan. 1819, p. 20.Google Scholar
36. Times, 24 Feb. 1819.
37. Farmers' Jour., 12 Apr. 1819, p. 115.Google Scholar
38. Ibid., 26 July 1819, p. 234. The Journal followed “Alpha's” suggestion, and thereafter issues of special interest to the movement were sent to the farmers' market inns. Farmers' Jour., 11 Oct. 1819, p. 325Google Scholar; and 1 Nov. 1819, p. 349.
39. Ibid., 25 Jan. 1819, p. 29.
40. Some attendance figures were recorded in the Farmers' Journal; for example, the smallest attendance (seventeen) was at Henley on Thames, Oxford, reported in the 19 April 1819 issue; the largest was a meeting at Ilsey, Berks (Farmers' Jour., 24 May 1819), where sixty were present. Of other attendance figures given, most seem to fall between twenty-five and thirty-five.
41. These counties were: Gloucestershire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Cornwall, Northamptonshire, and Devonshire; see The Origin and Proceedings of the Agricultural Associations in Great Britain.
42. Farmers' Jour., 6 Dec. 1819, p. 389Google Scholar. One hundred associations were claimed in Oct. 1820, see Farmers' Jour., 30 Oct. 1820.
43. Although Halevy takes notice of Webb Hall, his observation that county meetings were important in the movement is incorrect. See Halévy, E., A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century (2nd ed.; rev., New York, 1949), II, 110Google Scholar.
44. Cambridge Chronicle, 12 Mar. 1819.
45. Ibid., 27 Mar. 1819.
46. Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, XXXIX, No. 4, 274Google Scholar.
47. Farmers' Jour., 3 May 1819, p. 138.Google Scholar
48. Report on the State of Agriculture, Parliamentary Papers (1821), IX, 56.Google Scholar
49. Ibid., IX, 110.
50. Ibid., IX, 33 ff.
51. Ibid., IX, 135 ff.
52. Ibid., IX, 278.
53. Report on the State of Agriculture, Parliamentary Papers (1820), II, 23.Google Scholar
54. Second Report on the State of Agriculture, Parliamentary Papers (1836), VIII, 19Google Scholar. Although the evidence was given in 1836, Brickwell testified that he had the farm for thirty-eight years.
55. William Marshall had this to say about extensive yeomen (of £2000 annual income), which might be said of tenants, or owner-occupiers of that size: “This class of occupier has many advantages over the lower order of husbandmen. They travel much about the country, especially those whose principal object is livestock. They are led to distant markets, and perhaps to the metropolis, and mix in various companies, consisting not merely of men of their own rank of life.” Quoted in Martin, E. W., The Secret People (London, 1954), p. 117Google Scholar.
56. Farmers' Jour., 25 Jan. 1819, p. 29.Google Scholar
57. C. C. Western, Charles Dundas, John Fane, Sir Charles Monck, William Dickinson.
58. Farmers' Jour., 8 Mar. 1819, p. 76Google Scholar. Liverpool was of the same opinion; he thought the farmers were exaggerating. In a letter to Wellington dated 12 Sept. 1819, he reported his observations of a recent tour. Although Lancashire was distressed, “the condition of almost every other part of the country is satisfactory; poor-rates are falling, crimes are diminishing, and the agricultural counties are in a state of progressive prosperity ….” Duke of Wellington, Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, ed. Duke of Wellington (London, 1867), I, 76Google Scholar.
59. Bischoff maintains that ministers wanted to reimpose the malt tax (discontinued since the war) for revenue, but could only get assent from the landed interest by also laying a protective tax on wool. Bischoff, , History of the Woollen and Worsted Manufactures, I, 451.Google Scholar
60. Farmers' Jour., 8 May 1820, p. 146Google Scholar. Another opportunity for the protectionists to discuss their strategy was at the spring Merino show held in mid-May. In attendance were Webb Hall, Holme Sumner, John Fane, and C. C. Western. Farmers' Jour., 15 May 1820, p. 155Google Scholar. Western was a noted Merino grower and frequently chaired the Merino show meetings.
61. Ibid., 24 July 1820, p. 233.
62. 2 Hansard, I, 637.
63. Ibid., I, 642.
64. Ibid., I, 681.
65. Also, Webb Hall's influence had been increased in 1820 when he succeeded Arthur Young as secretary to the Board of Agriculture. He was toasted at the Smithfield Club in December as a man “whose services were eminent, and …. [whose] perseverance at once highly useful and exemplary” Farmers' Jour., 25 Dec. 1820, p. 410.Google Scholar
66. Smart, , Economic Annals, II, 3.Google Scholar
67. Farmers' Jour., 12 Mar. 1821, p. 85Google Scholar. Not all of the petitions, of course, had come from the agricultural associations, but a good many had. The Central Association claimed that in the 1820 session alone, they had forwarded to Parliament 280 petitions signed by 100,000 petitioners, who occupied not less than four million acres. Farmers' Jour., 24 July 1820, p. 233.Google Scholar
68. For Webb Hall's testimony, see Report on the State of Agriculture, Parliamentary Papers (1821), IX, 163 ff.Google Scholar
69. Sraffa, P. (ed.), The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo (Cambridge, 1952), VIII, 369–70Google Scholar.
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71. The report, less the evidence, is also found in 2 Hansard, V, App., lxix-cii.
72. Farmers' Jour., 25 June 1821, p. 204.Google Scholar
73. Farmers' Magazine, Nov., 1821.
74. See especially pp. 165, 168-89, 174.
75. The proponents of free trade could be quite as casual; see Brown, L., The Board of Trade and the Free-Trade Movement 1830-42 (Oxford, 1958)Google Scholar.
76. The Journal summarized the views of the combatants thus: “It is said of Mr. Attwood, that he is all cash, and of Mr. Webb Hall that he is all corn.” Farmers' Jour., 21 Feb. 1820, p. 61.Google Scholar
77. Farmers' Jour., 8 May 1820, p. 146.Google Scholar
78. See the letter to his wife which amply reveals the spirit of the man in Wakefield, C. M., The Life of Thomas Attwood (1885), p. 75Google Scholar.
79. Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, XL, No. 22, 15 Dec. 1821, p. 1416.Google Scholar
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81. Halévy, , History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century, II, 114–15Google Scholar.
82. Farmers' Jour., 26 June 1820, p. 205.Google Scholar
83. Report on the State of Agriculture, Parliamentary Papers (1821), IX, 35.Google Scholar
84. See, for example, the reports of the South Bucks Agricultural Association. Farmers' Jour., 27 Aug. 1821, p. 279Google Scholar; the Worcestershire Agricultural Association. Farmers Jour., 17 Sept. 1821, p. 303Google Scholar; and the Stow-on-the-Wold (Gloucestershire) Agricultural Association. Farmers Jour., 6 Dec. 1821, p. 406.Google Scholar
85. Farmers' Jour., 1 Apr. 1822, p. 98.Google Scholar
86. Lethbridge was himself in economic difficulties. He was forced to vacate his estate, Sandhill Park, for a less expensive home in the summer of 1822. Farmers' Jour., 8 July 1822, p. 210Google Scholar, from the Taunton Courier.
87. 2 Hansard, VII, 403-04.
88. Farmers' Jour., 29 Apr. 1822, p. 131.Google Scholar
89. One of the contributors with the initials “J.F., Esq.” might have been John Fane; another, “Lord C.” could have been Lord Chandos—both had voted with Lethbridge on his resolution in May 1822. The third contributor is given as “J. J. L.…………Esq”. Farmers' Jour., 4 Aug. 1823, p. 241.Google Scholar
