“Before enclosure the cottager was a labourer with land, after enclosure he was a labourer without land.”
Enclosure resulted in an enormous loss of the little economic stability that the poor had. With not being able to provide the fundamental needs for their families themselves, they now were completely reliant on the non-guaranteed labour that landowners and tenant farmers offered. The poor became well and truly proletarianised and a class system seemed inevitable. Where there used to be a village community with their traditional methods and community spirit, there was now enclosure, separating the people from their own space as well as one another’s.
Enclosure alone however is not to blame for the segregation of the people from their traditional existence. The increased production of the agricultural revolution, had consequences for the rural class structure. In this section the changes in the relationships between the farm labourers, tenant farmers and landowners will be discussed, particularly with regards to the methods of exclusion and regulation and resulting power the agricultural revolution gave to those with rights to land. The following quote from Mingay clearly expresses the association of land with power.
“Landed property was the foundation of eighteenth century society. The soil itself yielded the nation its sustenance and most of its raw materials, and provided the population with its most extensive means of employment; and the owners of the soil derived from its consequence and right to govern. …The wealth power and social influence produced by ownership of the land enabled the landowning classes to control all local government beyond the bounds of the larger towns and to secure dominating representation in Parliament itself.”
The tenants that tilled the land and those that owned it were the benefactors of the Agricultural Revolution and those that worked for them were increasingly in their control. This was a change from the traditional paternal style community that much of England had been familiar with, before the seeds of the revolution had been sown and capitalisation sought. Hobswarm and Rude 1969vii state three main factors in the transformation of rural relationships between the landed and landless:
- Separation of farmer and labourer
- Labour contract
- Wage payment
Rich and poor were separated, their relationship twisted from farmer and labourer to employer and proletarian, due to the commercialisation of agriculture. Previously there had been an integral working relationship between the two. Often the servant was offered a place at the farmer’s home and the two worked together and ate at the same table, not just the house servants, but the field labourers also. Their lives were intertwined and their relationship was much more than mere employer and employee. The servant was part of the farmhouse system, vital to the household. They shared much of each one other’s space.
It is known that the old custom of live in servants often had yearly contracts. There were annual fairs that often coincided with May Day, where the farmers were able to pick and choose those workers that they desired for the next year, as has been described in much 18th century literature e.g. George Elliot. These included both arable and pastoral workers i.e. from harvester to dairymaid. These hiring fairs symbolised the relationships between the classes as apparent but with a much greater mutual respect. The farmers valued those that were renowned workers and would often aim to attend as early as possible to secure the best for the preceding year. It was a period of festivity where the workers and farmers would socialise together, something that infrequently occurred after the Agricultural Revolution, due in part to increasing aspirations for the social status of the gentry that many farmers desired. The decline of these fairs characterised the decline of the social, paternal style, relationship between the farmer and his labourers.
The increased output and productivity brought about by the Agricultural revolution, coupled with the succession of a long inflation of farm prices, a wild boom in the war years and a drastic deflation afterwards decimated the mutual space that farmer and worker had traditionally shared, Hobswarm and Rude 1969. An important factor in these changes was the first occurrence of a permanent surplus of labour in the countryside due to increasing growth in population, inability of those in agricultural areas to migrate (due in greater part to the poor laws) and returnees from the Napoleonic Wars (1815). With this increased labour supply the farmer no longer had to rely on live in servants, for guaranteed labour, as he new he would always be able to find workers from the surplus who were in desperate need and in complete reliance on work from the farms. It therefore became much more efficient to hire labourers who lived in cottages in the rural community, away from the proximity of the farmhouse. Women were particularly displaced from agricultural labour, as it was the general consensus that the men should take the limited labour available, particularly with the increasing innovations and mechanisation on the farm. Women were therefore expected to supplement incomes in other ways e.g. domestic artisans, although this area was increasingly declining due to industrialisation. A gender divide was formulated within the countryside and traits of this can still be seen in today’s society.
The farmer, no longer had to pay for the servants keep in kind e.g. sharing his food and ale, board and lodgings found it much more profitable to pay hired workers, when demand was greatest. As William Cobbett explained:
“Why do not farmers now feed and lodge their workpeople, as they did formerly? Because they cannot keep them upon so little as they give them in wages. This is the real cause of the change.”
Farmers began to pay the rural poor, not from his supplies from his but through monetary wages. The increasing prices at the market for agricultural produce, particularly from the industrialising urban areas, meant that it was advantageous for the farmer to sell all the produce at the market and pay his labourers in cash. With the increased labour surplus, the wage levels were pushed right down to a pittance. This wage payment was detrimental to the rural poor as it inflicted upon them the encumbrance of inflation; they had to buy their own supplies and were subject to fluctuations in price. W. Marshal showed the feelings of the farmers of the time:
“They always ate too much of their masters food; it would do them good to live more frugally on their own.”
Many of the rural poor could now not even afford a subsistence existence.
The agricultural revolution brought with it a concentration in many areas of cereal crops, e.g. Norfolk, Suffolk. This arable farming created a seasonal pattern of employment and gave farmers reason not to give yearly contracts to their workers. By the 19th century, most contracts were daily, hourly or dependant on amount that got done. They amounted to little more than very casualised labour. It was beneficial for the farmer to introduce these kinds of contracts as in busy periods, for example the harvest, when there was much work to be done he could employ as many as he needed, and when there was a lull he could employ as little as he required, Fox. Contracts could then be governed by the weather, e.g. when it rained the farmer could send them home and consequently would save money as detailed by Hasbach. The desperate situation of the rural poor allowed this extreme dominance to occur.
The above reasons for the nature and geographical change of the rural society have been primarily economic. There is also a major social factor. The tenant farmers were benefiting hugely from the new rural situation. It was putting vast amounts of money in their pockets and they began to give themselves elevated social status and control. They began to aspire to belonging to the gentry, due to this newfound wealth. This meant the distancing of themselves from the rural poor as much as possible. They no longer wanted to share the same space as they had done in previous times. If they were seen to socialise with the lower classes then they wouldn’t be able to boast the social status that they so craved. The rural poor would also be unlikely to want to share the space with the upper classes, those who at the time they perceived as the raison d'être for their pauperisation.
An institutional factor was that of the poor law. This was where local rates supported low wages below subsidence levels and came to pass particularly in the 1790s after the disastrous harvests. It was another reason for the classes to be segregated and became a way of life, particularly for the labouring village community. The rural rich paid it to the rural poor. The rich resented it and the poor were bound and regulated by it. E.g. relief was restricted only to those members of the parish who had been there a given length of time, normally one year. It facilitated the undermining of the social fabric that had previously existed in the countryside.
The first part of this essay has been to highlight the changes in relations between rural society that occurred due to the commercialisation of agriculture and its associated effects. It not only shows how the characteristics of the relations have changed and created a class system, but how geographically these changes affected the spatial relations of the rural population. The space of the rural community was no longer shared, but there was segregation between the powerful and the subordinate. In the next part of this essay the way in which the powerful expressed their dominance through the landscape will be reviewed, mainly utilising the influential work of Stephen Daniels.
The Agricultural Revolution benefited the landed classes greatly. Much profit was made from the increased rents demanded from the tenant farmers as well as many having their own farms, which benefited from the increased production and outputs due to the commercialisation of agriculture. The landed were becoming richer and those now without access reduced to extreme poverty. The landowning classes expressed their increased wealth and separation from the poor notably by redesigning their landscapes to express the power they had over the surrounding area. The idea of improvement was born in the Georgian period. Improvement is defined by Ramond Williams as:
“Progressively restructuring landscape for social, economic as well as aesthetic ends and by extension, restructuring the conduct of those who lived in, worked in and looked upon it”
The landowners spent a good deal of money refashioning their country mansions, as these were the focus of their authority, particularly with regards to their buildings gardens and parks, e.g. Williamson and Bellamy (1987). The political, social, economic and cultural debates are said to be reflected and fixed into these ‘improved’ landscapes. Barell (1972)
A controlling principle in improvement of the parkland was the planting of woodland, its design and management. This planting emphasized the impression of power in the land. Daniels and Seymour (1990) suggest how differential styles of planting the woodland gave certain impressions, often expressing the size and unity of an estate. Some were planted in such a fashion and order to give a notion of military influence over the surrounding countryside e.g. John Harris, Dunham Massey. A landscape designer, Thomas Whately, suggested insertions of ridings to convey an idea of the park and mansion being a seat and would give a feeling of governing and power across the countryside. Woodland was also used for commercial purposes, generating income from the sale for fuel (stripped from the poor) as well as providing wood for shipbuilding purposes for the war at hand. This gave the gentry a feeling of authority as they were showing their patriotism. New plantations were also named after admirals of the war. Much woodland was appropriated. The feeling of supremacy over the rural poor came from their segregation of this land. The poor were not allowed to take any of the wood for their own use. It was made a capital offence if caught, Daniels1988. Oaks were well known at the time to symbolise dominance. Prince (1988) demonstrates in his analysis of the Mr. And Mrs. Andrews painting by Thomas Gainsborough, that the oak tree behind the couple signifies their power over the surrounding countryside. The oak was also used in comparison to those who planted conifers. Conifers were associated with the neuveau-riche, their greed and calculation, not the well-established gentry, Daniels 1988xvi.
Animals were also a sign of power and were allowed to roam in the parkland. They were well managed, just as the woodland was. They were associated with the upper class sport hunting e.g. deer. These were again often appropriated from the common grounds. The stealing of these animals, by the desperate poor, was again a capital offence, if caught. Later sheep and cattle were kept on the grounds. Wealthy landowners conducted cross breeding of these animals. These supreme cross breeds represented a superior status, particularly compared to the tenant farmers, who did not have the wealth as the landowners did to accomplish these experiments. ‘Hobby farming’ spread across the gentry forming a network and many clubs and associations were born and many agricultural shows transpired. These new breeds were depicted in much 18th and 19th century literature and art.
Capability Brown was one of the major redesigners in this era. He recommended planting trees to conceal arable fields with trees and removing tilled land and replacing it with parkland. This was so the gentry could distance themselves from all those associated with it namely the lesser gentry and poor labourers. This movement away from agriculture aggravated the situation between the rural rich and poor, due to the segregation and potential labour losses. It created further social tensions in the countryside. A factor also known to exacerbate the situation was in some examples the concealment or separation of the village, where the rural poor resided, from the main estate. Daniels tells of one case where the entire village was moved and reconstructed as not to spoil the aesthetics of the view.
In many cases, particularly in the art of the period, the rural poor were misrepresented as being ‘rustic’ but ‘cheery’ e.g. Constable, Lewis and specifically the painting entitled ‘Thames at Twickenham’. But generally farming was not perceived to generally be an object of display (again showing separation and segregation between classes).
Many idealist views were depicted, but of course there have been little or no pictures that show the real pauperisation of the lower classes of that period, Prince (1988) xvii.
This essay has tried to show some of the changes in the nature and geography of rural class relationships. Agrarian improvements and resulting commercialisation and capitalisation of agriculture, was a major factor in the definition of a class system and the spatial and social partition of these classes. Understanding the meanings behind these changes and expressions of them is imperative to geographical study. Daniels and Seymour (1990) state that ‘using past ideas of improvement highlights that landscape design is integral to historical-geographical development, not an embellishment of it.’ Landscape design and improvement has represented the changing situation of the countryside in the period of the 18th and 19th centuries and the relationships of power and the formulation of a class system that materialised at this time.
Goodall, B., Dictionary of Human Geography, 1987, Penguin, London.
Thompson, E.P., (1988) The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin.
J.A. Yelling (1978), (1990) Agriculture 1500-1730, in Dodgshon, R.A. and Butlin, R.A. (eds) An historical geography of England and Wales, second edition, Academic Press.
Wordie, J.R., (1983) The chronology of English Enclosure, 1500-1914, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 36, pp483-505.
Harris, A. (1976) Changes in the early railway age:1800-1850, in Darby H.C. (ed), A new Historical Geography of England after 1600, Cambridge University Press, p173
Walton, J.R., (1990) Agriculture and Rural Society 1730-1914, in Dodgshon, R.A. and Butlin, R.A. (eds) An historical geography of England and Wales, second edition, Academic Press.
J.L. and B. Hammond, The Village Labourer, 1948, Guild books
Hobswarm, E.J., and Rude, G. (1969) Captain Swing, Lawrence and Wishart, pp38-55
Rector of Whatfield (Suffolk), R.C. the poor law 1834, Rural Questions 38, Suffolk.
Polit. Reg., 20th October 1825.
Marshall, W., Minutes…on Agriculture in the Southern Counties (1799 edn,), I, pp 185.
Fox, W. Report on the Wages and earnings of Agricultural Labourers in the United Kingdom.
Hasbach, W., A history of the English Agricultural labourer, London: p406-411.
Williams, R., Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, London, 1976: pp132-3
Williamson, T., and Bellamy, L., Property and Landscape: A Social History of Landownership and the English Countryside, London, 1987, pp 116-56.
Barrell, J., The Idea of Landscape and the sense of place 1730-1840
Daniels, S. and Seymour, S. (1990), Landscape design and the idea of Improvement 1730-1900, in Dodgshon, R.A. and Butlin, R.A. (eds) An historical geography of England and Wales, second edition, Academic Press: pp 487-520.
Daniels, S. The political Iconography of Woodland in later Georgian England in Cosgrove, D. and Daniels, S. (eds) The Iconography of Landscape, Cambridge, 1988: pp43-5
Prince, H., (1988) Art and Agrarian Change, 1710-1815, in Cosgrove, D. and Daniels, S. (eds) The Iconography of Landscape, Cambridge, 1988.
Other Texts
Mingay, G.E., (1977) The Agricultural Revolution, Adam & Charles Black, London
Darby, H.C. (ed), A New Historical Geography of England after 1600: Ch 1-3, (1976), Cambridge University Press.
Hill, C (1967) Reformation to Industrial Revolution, Penguin
Short, B (ed) (1992) The English Rural Community: Image and Analysis, Cambridge University Press.
Holderness, B.A. (1976) Pre-Industrial England: Economy and Society 1500-1750, J.M. Dent & sons ltd, London.
Horn, P. (1987), Life and Labour in Rural England 1760-1850, Macmillan, London