VOLUME 4 993 PART I The Agricultural Labourcrs' Standard of Living in Lincolnshire, 179o- 184o: Social Protest and Public Order T t RICHARDSON From 'Black-face' to 'White-face' - All Aspect of the 'Agricultural Revolution' in Norfolk SUSANNA WADE MARTINS The Agricultural Pollution of Watercourses: the Precedents set by the Beet-sugar and Milk Industries JOHN SHEAIL British Economic Warfare in the Far East and the Australian Wool Industry KOSMAS TSOKHAS A Fair Field once Full of Folk: Agrarian Change in an Era of Population Dccline, ~348-I 5oo BRUCE M S CAMPBELL Annual List and Brief Review of Articlcs on Agrarian History, 1991 RA!NE MORGAN Conference Rcports Book Reviews THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW VOLUME 4 1 PART I Z993 Contents The Agricultural Labourers' Standard of Living in Lincolnshire, 179o-184o: Social Protest and Public Order T L RICHARDSON From 'Black-Face' to 'White-Face' - An Aspect of the 'Agricultural Revolution' in Norfolk SUSANNA WADE MARTINS 20 The Agricultural Pollution of Watercourses: the Precedents set by the Beet-sugar and Milk Industries JOHN SHEAIL 31 British Economic Warfare in the Far East and the I': iL I!l,i [ Australian Wool Industry KOSMAS TSOKHAS 44 A Fair Field once Full of Folk: Agrarian Change in an Era of Pollution Decline, 13 4 8-I 5OO BRUCE M S CAMPBELL 6o Annual List and Brief Review of Articles on Agrarian History, 199I RAINE MORGAN 7I Conference Reports: 'Recent Work in East Anglian Agrarian History ', 2L i, Autunm Conference 1992 R W HOYLE 82 'Rural Trade and Industry', Winter Conference 1992 E J T COLLINS 84 !/lll~ Book Reviews: ,tl]' II1", The Common Fields of England, by Eric Kerridge DAVID HALL 86 Enclosm'e and the Yeoman: The Agricultural Development of the South Midlands 145o-183o, by Robert C Allen MICHAEL TURNER 86 Four Cheshire Totvnships in the Eighteenth Century: Arley, Appleton, Stockton Heath, and Great Budworth, by Charles ~tc F Foster PETER EDWARDS 88 Britain 174o-195o: An Historical Geography, by Richard I~l ~ t] Lawton and Colin G Pooley JOHN R WALTON 89 lli~]i Feeding the Victorian City: the Food Supply of Manchester, 177o-187o, by Roger Scola RICHARD PERREN 89 William Cobbett and Rural Popular Culture, by Ian Dyck MICHAEL TURNER 9o Flitting the Flakes: The Diary ofJ Badenacl, a Stonehaven Farmer 1789-I797, edited by Mowbray Pearson RON WEIR 91 The Trinity College Estates 18oo-1923; Corporate Management in an Age of Reform, by R B MacCarthy J v BECKETr 9I 3. Le Paysan et la Terre. Agriculture et Structure Agraire Gen&m Au XVIIIe Si&le, by Dominique Zumkeller HUGH CLOUT 92 ;,_: ] I /t / The Agricultural Labourers' Standard of Living in Lincolnshire, 179o-184o: Social Protest and Public Order By T L RICHARDSON Abstract In trying to establish what happened to the standard of living of the rural labouring classes in Lincolnshire two statistical variables, the cost of living and the earnings of adult male labourers, have been constructed to determine the long-run trend of real wages. The analysis shows that the cost of living was the dynamic variable in the real wage equation and that in the short-run, as during the French wars, volatile price movements had a devastating effect upon the purchasing power of wages. The level of employment and incomes after I815, though varying between upland and clayland areas, was a potent cause of distress and class conflict. In analysing the shift in emphasis from overt to covert expressions of anger, attention is paid to the collective response of the county's ruling order to the threat from below and the mechanisms of control that were used to restore law and order. N RECENT years an increasing amount can be satisfactorily resolved. 2 In order to of systematic research has been directed understand the precipitating factors I towards quantifying changes in rural behind the upsurge in overt and covert living standards and identifying the princi- forms of rural protest, for example, much pal causal factors behind the rise in social more statistical information is required on unrest during the later eighteenth and the relationship between wages and the early nineteenth centuries. As a result of cost of living. Similarly, although his- this interest, historians have a much clearer torians know much more than hitherto understanding of the underlying causes of about the timing and scale of the labour- class conflict, the character of social pro- ers' protest movement, very little detailed test, and the incidence of popular disturb- information is available on the mechan- ances in the eastern and south-eastern isms that were created to suppress public counties.' Despite this advance in knowl- displays of anger towards private property edge, however, more area studies need to and the established landed order. In be undertaken before the areas of conten- acknowledging the need for more specific tion which have arisen out of this work information on these issues, this essay will examine the case of the Lincolnshire agri- cultural labourers. In order to obtain a ' T L Richardson, 'The Agricultural Labourers' Standard of Living quantitative measure of the standard of in Kent, 179o-184o', in D Oddy and D Miller, eds, The Making of the Modern British Diet, 1976, pp m3-i6; T L Richardson, living, the same methodological approach 'Agricultural Labourers' Wages and the Cost of Living in Essex, 179o-184o: A Contribution to the Standard of Living Debate', in B A Holderness and M Turner, eds, Land, Labour and Agriculture, : R A E Wells, 'The Development of the English Rural Proletariat 17oo-192o: Essays for Gordon Mingay, E991, pp 69-9o; R A E and Social Protest, 17oo-I85o', A Charlesworth, 'The Develop- Wells, 'Social Conflict and Protest in the English Countryside in ment of the English Rural Proletariat and Social Protest, the early Nineteenth Century: A Rejoinder', in M Reed and 17oo-185o: A Comment', and J E Archer, 'The Wells-Charles- R Wells, eds, Class, Conflict and Protest in the English Countryside worth Debate: A Personal Comment on Arson in Norfolk and 17oo-18oo, 199o, pp 65-81. This article was first published in 1981; Suffolk' in Reed and Wells, eds, op tit, pp 29-53, 54-64, 82-9. j E Archer, By a Flash and a Scare. lncendiarisnl, Animal Mainling, These articles were first published in 1979, t98o, and 1982 and Poaching it1 East Attglia 1815-187o, Oxford, 199o. respectively. Ag Hist Rev, 4I, x, pp 1-19 I 2 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW to that used in studies of Kent and Essex enhanced the labourers' bargaining power is employed. 3 In particular, the interaction with their employers. According to one of two statistical variables, the wage earn- authority, agricultural wages were 'not ings of agricultural labourers and the fixed by any precise rules', but rather by prices of foodstuffs, is examined in order what the market would bear, and there- to determine the long-run trend of real fore 'the labourer exacts the utmost he wages. Short-run fluctuations in the pur- can get'. 6 The prevalence of this practice, chasing power of wages are then con- especially in areas of low population den- sidered in order to throw more light upon sity such as the fens, wolds, and heath, the nature of socio-economic relationships tended to exert an upward pressure on in the Lincolnshire countryside. wage rates and piece work earnings. As As most studies of Lincolnshire's agri- Arthur Young noted, the 'scarcity of cultural revolution place the landowning hands' invariably raised the price of and farming classes at the centre of their labour, thus making agricultural wages in analysis, the rural labouring classes have Lincolnshire 'higher than in any other long remained neglected figures in the county in the kingdom'. 7 Furthermore, Arcadian landscape. 4 Indeed, most of our the landed classes were celebrated for the knowledge about the agricultural labour- paternalism they showed towards their ers' standard of living is limited to a small work-force. The provision of cow-garths number of contemporary printed sources and allotments, it is emphasized, forged a which invariably depict the labourer in a strong bond between farmers and their somewhat flattering light. The recla- men, and this made for stability and har- mation and enclosure of the county's 'wild mony in the countryside. 8 and trackless' wastelands, and the laying In the light of what is known about the down of the fens, heath, and wolds to incidence of social conflict in the eastern high-yielding labour-intensive tillage and southern counties, it is evident that crops, it is emphasized, made exceptional the conventional portrayal of Lincolnshire demands upon an indigenous labour force rural life can no longer be accepted whose short-run supply curve was rela- uncritically and is therefore in need of tively inelastic. At times, the shortage of revision. Indeed, this essay, in challenging labour on the newly drained fens, and the the traditional view, will argue that over recently enclosed chalk and limestone a large number of years the labouring uplands was so acute that many arable classes experienced, and protested angrily farmers were obliged to recruit gangs of against, a deterioration in their material female and juvenile workers from the standard of living. During this period the populous 'open' parishes, and engage size- Lincolnshire countryside, far from being able numbers of itinerant Irish labourers a place of peace, stability, and communal to perform the more pressing tasks on the harmony, was characterized by violence, land. 5 Long-term and short-term seasonal discord, and class antagonism. imbalances between the demand and supply of labour, it is frequently stressed, I 3Richardson (1976), ot) cit, pp 103-16.