Transformation of Rural England: Framing and the Landscape 1700-1870 - Article Example

Critical Review of ‘Transformation of Rural England: Framing and the Landscape 1700-1870’ by Tom Williamson 1.0. Transformation of Rural England---Preamble The goal of this paper is to carry out an analysis of the information, arguments and the sources used in the book, Transformation of Rural England: Framing and the Landscape 1700-1870 by Tom Williamson. The paper presents the facts argued in the book and shows how the author agrees with the facts and information by other researchers. Furthermore, the review contextualises arguments presented in the book by countering facts, figures and trends Williamson (2002) cites from others sources. This book, ‘The Transformation of Rural England’ puts forward several concerns and provides the solutions to them in a manner that is satisfactory going passed the bounds for the known traditional disciplines in academic research. The author asserts a challenge to the preconception and stimulates the desires of the audience. For anyone with interest in the changing rural landscape and economy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the book gives a world class reading material. The publication is filled with ideal ideas and facts for people with interest in the subject ---not simply an account of events between 1700 and 1870 but account that disputes and supports previous debates on the nature and existence of the agricultural revolution in rural England. Furthermore, the author focuses on landscape archaeology---a transformation that has been supported by previous case studies to show have trends in history ultimately shaped the rural England. The account was not an easy one to present. Tom produces a book well known for the extent of its vivid comprehension of the scientific basis underlying various alterations, its scholarly character, from chapter two the author introduces “Estate Landscapes in England: Interpretive Archaeologies” to analyse the character of landed estates in England and how these characteristics shaped phases of development in the country. Citing Howard (2003) the author uses this chapter to introduce ideological interpretations of Renaissance architecture. Essential in this case is the excavation and earthwork surveys of a large number of designed landscapes that existed in this period. Moving forward, the paper formulates several challenges and provides many solutions to these issues. The book is both accessible and has a scholastic nature. The author is capable of bringing to life several topics and themes that have rested in unconsummated nature for a long time in the ranks of weighty overprice books and academic journals. Moore-Colyer in the journal, ‘The Agricultural History Review,’ Vol. 50, Part II says that the book forms a major contributor to the study of landscape history. 2.0. The ‘Agricultural Revolution' Historians have for decades, engaged in debates concerning the existence, timing and even the nature of 'agricultural revolution.' This book is probably the first of the kind to present a detailed research on making of the rural English landscape in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Williamson (2002) gives a different angle approaching the argument on landscape archaeology. It does argue that there was several 'agricultural revolution' and not one. For instance, the gardens associated with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century mansions similarly went through a series of formal---an aspect that has not been captured succinctly in other history books. However, in discussing such gardens the book fails to integrate the enclosure of accessible areas and the reclaiming of the track of open and uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation. It therefore means that in chapter three, there is no clear indication on how the gardens argued in chapter two was projected by aristocratic enhancers and large capitalist farmers. Many of the enclosed fields did not have much to do with the enhancement of arable farming. People who owned large parcels of land played a minor role, and the main changes of revolution took roots somewhere else, in England areas not featured with large estates, and were the work of tenant farmers rather than owners of the land. The chapter on ‘Moor and Vale’ in the book which is a discussion on the development of the rural landscape of England between 1700 and 1870 is a synopsis of previously researched works as cited in books such as Johnson (1999). While it can be noted that Williamson (2002) was concerned about The Agrarian History of Wales and England it provides reviews on the landscape of England that was a position of giving a gorgeous landscape historical view on this period of agrarian change. Only 24 pages out of a total of 179 are devoted to the uplands and this point to the books inadequacy in explaining how landscape was primarily structured by economic and agrarian concerns. Nevertheless, it is an enhancement on the single page more so uplands that is given by Cantor in his account of the rural landscape between 1400 and 1700. Williamson says, ‘the history of the landscape is often written from a southern perspective’ (Williamson 2002:115). Even though Williamson’s 2003 paper on understanding fields acknowledges that the uplands were characteristically enclosed piecemeal before the eighteenth century yet, he argues that the significant landscape evidence of piecemeal enclosure only regarding strip areas (Williamson, 2003:18). Williamson (2002:1-2) asserts that the views he has are not new and the manner in which he defines agricultural revolution had already been ‘defined in the terms’ of eighteenth and nineteenth-century researchers in the likes of Arthur Young. The research concluded that ideas of Ernle had a basis on the assumption at the start of the eighteenth century; the English Agriculture has undergone a little change from the medieval times till the agricultural revolutions, which were spearheaded by owners of large estates of land and their most major tenants. When working together with Wade-Martins, Williamson found that investment in green agricultural machinery which were labor intensive but relatively cheaper in materials and instead characterized by techniques and improvements is a feature exhibited by the ‘high farming’ period of the mid-nineteenth century instead of 1750-1850 (Wade-Martins and Williamson, 1997:228). He identifies the second wave of the parliamentary enclosure (1790-1815) as the major time in which there was the reclamation of the wasteland and that the reclamation of that nature was a necessity since the existing accessible land was under pressure of increasing demand at a higher rate in the 1760s. It was a mixture of increment of yields on existent agricultural lands and expansion of farmland that led to the reduction of the tension, and around 1.8 million acres of common land were enclosed before 1836 and a further half million acres after (Wade-Martins and Williamson; 275, Williamson 15). 3.0. The Nineteenth Century Economy of Agriculture In 1846 the laws on Corn were repealed, failing to limit the levels of import and being in a position to prevent the protection of domestic crop prices (Williamson 2002). Despite the increment of grain over the next twenty years, farmers remained prosperous since there was a parallel increase in the domestic demand able to purchase the excessive of imports. The only years that experienced depression was the period between 1848 and 1852. Williamson found out that even by the year 1851, with the increased grain importation, only sixteen per cent of the imported agricultural products were consumed in both England and Wales (Williamson, 2003:4). The capacity of the farmers in England to provide the food needed by the developing industrial population both minimized losses to gross domestic product and enabled industrial growth which would have only been made possible by purchasing imports. Martin Daunton, paper reports that by 1851 England had the highest per capita income in the world, despite its immense growth in population (Barnatt and Williamson 2005). The figures presented by Daunton did not put a distinction between industrial and agricultural income even though the former did outweigh the latter by the mid-nineteenth century. The figure was an indicator of a significant drop in the value of agriculture (Daunton, 2007:3). In addition to this, transport limitations (which limited import levels until around the 1870s) and the laws on corn (until 1846) meant that the increasing industrial population increased the demand for domestic products leading to higher food prices during the major part of the same period. Therefore, even though agriculture was no longer depended upon to provide the majority of the GNP of British landowning (and lesser extent farming), it till offered an occupation that was highly profitable. 4.0. The Agricultural Community According to Williamson (2002) there was a change in agricultural community over the duration of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Conceptualise of this point is premised on the argument that there came period in history where the social and economic ties between tenants and landlords turned, there were weak laws, demand for labor, extended franchise which functioned in connection to transform regarding the manner of operations off landed society and the agricultural community as a whole. What the author argues about is that at the centre of the changes that took place in the countryside society during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was transition to farming itself from the enclosure to increasing farm sizes and the adoption of different methods and type of farming. In addition to this fact Howard (2003) found out that after around 1840 there was an improvement in the channels of transportation; hence farmers could bring in materials from abroad or from further afield. This kind of development changed the dependability of the farmers only on the local materials but went to the extent of bringing in resources and manufacturers such as marl and tile pipes which they used in improving their farms (Stead, 2006; Dockry, 2014). In a more general term, the increasing area under cultivation and the ‘changing geography of agricultural production’ likewise had an effect on the agricultural society as waste and common lands were put under cultivation and the numbers of needed labour and required skills varied with the alteration in the kind of farming type undertaken. The agricultural community changed with the development of the agricultural landscape of British. Alongside the enhancements in the farming methods, there were the alterations in the manner of management of the farms. There was increased level of professionalism of surveyors, stewards and many other land management agencies. The development led to growing interest of the property owners in agriculture to develop their estates (Williamson, 2002:159). Williamson (2002:35) establishes that there were significant agricultural changes experienced in Northamptonshire during this period. There was significant the change of land use and approximately 25%of the landscape of Northamptonshire was enclosed between 1700 and 1870. There was the adoption of crop rotations and application of artificial fertilizers, improvement of drainage, and the general increase in the sizes of the farms. Stewards and their landlords put a good amount of effort throughout the nineteenth century to reorganize their farms and implement the developments thereby increasing the effectiveness of the fields. More developments to the landscape which had been seen in the period before the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were enhanced. Industrialized at this time with the inclusion of planting of some root crops on the wet soils even during the nineteenth century to ameliorate under-drainage and drainage and to begin to be more common from the 1830s (Williamson 2002:113; Mingay, 2004:19). One of the primary goals of land improvement was to increase its production. The increase in output would not only raise the benefits from the farms but would also assist the domestic produce to meet the demands of the constant population growth of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Williamson establishes three ways in which the production of arable products could be raised that is growing the geography of arable farming, increasing production per acre and expanding the area under cultivation. The alteration of the uses of land according to Williamson involved growing crops on lands that suit them more and less on the soils on which they could not do well. The change in land use in this manner led to increasing the quality and amount of crops planted in the same area of land (Williamson, 2002:159). Therefore, the change in the utility of land is of enormous significance to both the tenants and the landlords. However, failing to make right choices of crops to put on the given pieces of land, both the landowners and their tenants would lose in the long run. For instance, if a productive farmland is put aside to pasture, even with high prices of dairy and meat, the profitability of the land may still be down in the long run (Mingay, 2004:91). In addition to the ongoing argument, Williamson adds that primary enclosures by parliament had an effect on grazing and not farm land and did not increase crop production in any way. He, however, writes that the developments in the waste and common lands raised food production by increasing good pasture land (Williamson, 2002:15). 5.0. Conclusion The British rural community in the nineteenth century forms a major area of research for many historical accounts. The attention in the landed community based on enhancement in farming, alterations in the structure of rural society and in rural social relationships that period of substantial economic change. The agricultural community within this context was tied together by the first association between landowners and tenant farmers, and agricultural rents. There was a close relation between Lease standards, the setting, and payment of rents and price changes, the sizes of lands and enhancement of agriculture, setting them as important determinants of the agricultural economy in the nineteenth century. Williamson does not only make significant utility of his original study but also includes a good volume of secondary resources, making the book a superior reference work. Tom is one of the few historians who managed to come up with a complete survey of the agricultural revolution in England. Reference List Barnatt, J., and Williamson, T., 2005, Chatsworth: A Landscape History. Windgather Press, Macclesfield. Brammer, B., 2010. The Holland Fen: social and topographical changes in a Fenland environment, 1750-1945 (Doctoral dissertation, University of Leicester). Daunton, M., 2007. Wealth and Welfare: An Economic and Social History of Britain 1851-1951. Oxford University Press on Demand.Martins, S. and Williamson, T., 1997. Labour and improvement: agricultural change in East Anglia, circa 1750-1870. Labour History Review, 62(3), pp.275-295. Dockry, G.A., 2014. Landed Estates in Northamptonshire: the rural rental economy, 1800-1881. Howard, M., 2003, Recycling the Monastic Fabric: Beyond the Act of Dissolution. In The Archaeology of Reformation 1480–1580, edited by D. Gaimster and R. Gilchrist, pp. 221–234. Maney, Leeds. Johnson, M., 1999, Reconstructing Castles and Refashioning Identities in Renaissance England. In The Familiar Past? Archaeologies of Later Historical Britain, edited by S. Tarlow and S.West, pp. 69–87. Routledge, London. Mingay, G.E., 2004. Enclosure and the Small Farmer in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (London, 1968). Mingay28Enclosure and the Small Farmer in the Age of the Industrial Revolution1968, p.28. Stead, D., 2006. Delegated risk in English agriculture, 1750–1850: The labour market. Labour History Review, 71(2), pp.123-144. Williamson, T., 2002. The transformation of rural England: farming and the landscape, 1700-1870. Exeter University Press. Read More