How was the Nature and Geography of Rural Class Relations Changed by the 'Agricultural Revolution' in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century England?

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How was the Nature and Geography of Rural Class Relations Changed by the ‘Agricultural Revolution’ in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century England?

The Agricultural Revolution is defined as ‘the agrarian changes which transformed Britain’s countryside in the 18th and 19th centuries, leading to an increase in agricultural output and productivity.’  This phenomenon was formulated by a number of factors that will be briefly discussed.  Important to this essay is how the changes brought about by this revolution, including the movement to capitalism, influenced the entire structure of society at that time, with lasting effects which can still be seen today.  The agricultural revolution was arguably one of the methods of the creation of the English working class.  The agricultural revolution has previously been studied extensively using traditional methods of ‘cross-section’ and ‘vertical theme’ analysis, e.g. H.C. Darby.  These methods are useful for description of changes caused by the revolution, however for a more intricate understanding of the dynamics and meanings of the class and power changes that occurred at this period, we must turn to the works of the post-structuralist historical geographers e.g. S. Daniels.

The first part of this essay is concerned with how factors of the Agricultural Revolution directly affected the nature of rural class relations and the second part focuses on how the landscapes of that period reflected the new social relations that were formed, particularly of how the powerful chose to highlight their dominance and how this accentuation further distanced the classes.

The agricultural revolution was characterised by an improvement in three main areas: agricultural techniques (e.g. crop rotations, selective breeding, improved implements, liming etc.): institutional arrangements (e.g. law modification to facilitate change to a nationwide feeling of a ‘spirit of improvement’) and structural elements (e.g. dissolution of open fields, enclosure of commons and wastes, farm consolidation, extension of arable land).i  These enhancements all helped to contribute to a changing rural way of life due to the commercialisation of agriculture.  The ways in which the long-established social relations between all members of the rural society were transformed by these processes is described in the first part of this essay, particularly relationships between the powerful and subordinate.  

Arguably the single most important factor in the agricultural revolution and social relations was the reformulation and reorganization of space, known as enclosure.  Enclosure is defined as ‘the process by which common rights over an area of land were extinguished and scattered properties consolidated.’i In most cases the rural poor were therefore left with no land and the landowners acquired more.  Much enclosure has been recorded to have occurred as early as the 14th and 15th centuries, Yelling 1978, 1990.   Wordie 1983 estimated that 75% of the country had been enclosed by 1760.  Harris (1976) reports that there was much open arable field and open common pasture and waste waiting to be enclosed in 1800 and tell how the parliamentary enclosure acts of 1801, 1836 and 1845 enclosed 1.8 million acres of arable and 1.3 million acres of common pasture and waste.  These figures were probably underestimates and excluded non-parliamentary enclosure.

Walton 1990 states that Parliamentary enclosure rounded up the long running process of the reallocation and reorganization of land, but did not initiate it.  There are two different types of enclosure, with differing effects.  Enclosure of existing open field systems, mainly effecting areas in mid and Eastern England and enclosure of commons and wastes, which effected many areas spread across the entire English countryside.  The benefits of enclosure were not distributed equitably, in fact landowners benefited whilst the poor suffered.  As Hobswarm and Rude state:

“Enclosure dissipated the haze which surrounded rural poverty and left it nakedly visible as propertyless labour.”

The Hammond’s disclose that three groups of rural society were adversely affected by enclosure: the small farmer, the cottager and the squatter.  Enclosure snatched away many of the rural poors’ ability to be self-sufficient.  Before enclosure, many had access to the common land on which they relied upon for subsistence farming.   The cottager, who had previously used his share of the common land for rearing a few animals and collecting firewood, was unable to do so, leaving him without any methods of subsistence.   It ultimately led to a lack of freedom and rights for the rural poor, particularly the cottager.  As the Hammonds describe it:

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“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 ...

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