A Grain of Truth: the Nineteenth-Century Corn Averages by WRAY VAMPLEW
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! A Grain of Truth: The Nineteenth-Century Corn Averages By WRAY VAMPLEW HE initial use of the corn averages value of British corn imports, 3 to estimate and was to regulate Britain's external examine domestic wheat production, 4 to form T grain trade, but during the nineteenth consumer price indices, 5 as indicators of the century other functions were added. Many state of the harvests, 6 as guides to social landlords began to use them as the basis of unrest, 7 and, of course, simply as a record of corn rents; from 1837 they were widely agricultural prices. 8 Unhappily, such use has utilized in the calculation of tithe commuta- tended either to ignore or to play down the tion payments; and in the 1880s they were concern of contemporaries as to the validity of acknowledged as a 'public official record of the figures. 9 Apart from the recent work of the average prices of [an] important article of Adrian, who discusses the reliability of the working class consumption'. 2 Historians, averages with respect to markets in East• too, have made use of the averages for several Anglia, we have to go back almost half a purposes, among them that of assessing the century, to the monographs of Fay and 1Where not otherwise stated the statistical data for this Barnes, to find any detailed discussion of the paper were obtained from PR.O Corn Office Papers, MAF calculation of the averages, and even these are 10/25-7, 298-301, 368-9, the London Gazette, and the not wholly satisfactory because of limitations Journal of the Statistical Society. I am grateful for research assistance from Joyce MacMillan and Margaret Williamson, on the time period covered, and a failure to for financial assistance from the University of Edinburgh realize the full implications of the statistical and the Hinders University of South Australia, and for procedures adopted.l ° The intention of this comments on an earlier version of the paper from my colleagues at Flinders. 6 R" C O Matthews, A Study in Trade-Cycle History: Economic ZSelect Committee on the Corn Averages (BPP 1888, X), Fluctuations in Great Britain, 1833-42, Cambridge, 1954, QQ 22-5, 33. In the twentieth century cereals deficiency pp 30, 34. payments were also based on the averages. 7 W W R.ostow, British Economy of the Nineteenth Century, 3A H Imlah, Economic Elements in tile Pax Britannica, Oxford, 1963, pp 124-5. Cambridge, Mass, 1958, p 31; J R. T Hughes, Fluctuations in 8 eg J D Chambers and G E Mingay, The Agricultural Revolu- Trade, Industry and Finance 1850-1860, Oxford, 1960, p 61. tion 1750-1880, 1966, passim; B R. Mitchell and P Deane, 4S Fairlie, 'Ttie Corn Laws and British Wheat Production, Abstract of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge, 1962, 1829-76', Econ Hist Rev, 2nd ser, XXII, 1969; E L Jones, pp 488-9; T W Fletcher, 'The Great Depression of English 'The Changing Basis of English Agricultural Prosperity, Agriculture 1873-1896, Econ Hist Rev, 2nd ser, XIII,I 1853-73', Ag Hist Rev, X, 1962, p 111; D Grigg, Tile 1960-61. Agricultural Revohtion in South Lincolnshire, Cambridge, 9 Of the works cited in the previous footnoteg only three 1966, pp 157-8; M Olson and C C Harris, 'Free Trade in authors commented on the accuracy of the statistics. Olson Corn: A Statistical Study of the Prices and Production of and Harris acknowledged that the annual prices which they Wheat in Great Britain from 1873 to 1914', QuarterlyJour used were unweighted averages, but carried on regardless; Economics, LXXIII, 1959. Matthews considered that the figures for the quantities sold s W S Jevons, 'On the Variations of Prices and the Value of were 'notoriously unreliable' as proxies for production; the Currency Since 1782', Jour Stat Soc, xxvIII, 1865; Fairlie agreed that they had deficiencies but felt that they A Sauerbeck, 'Prices of Commodities and the Precious were reasonable indicators of trends and fluctuations. No Metals', .]our Stat Soc, XLIX, 1886; R" S Tucker, 'R.eal author went into detail on the validity of the raw data. Wages of Artisans in London 1729-1935', [our American 10 C R. Fay, The Corn Laws and Social England, Cambridge, Statistical Association, XXXI, 1930; A D (~ayer, W W 1932; D G Barnes, A History of the English Corn Laws R.ostow and A J Schwartz, The Growth and Fluctuations of 1660-1846, i930; L Adrian, 'The Nineteenth Century the British Economy, 1790-1850, Oxford, 1953, I, pp 460- Gazette Corn R.etums From East Anglian Markets',Jour 84; E H Phelps Brown and S V Hopkins, 'Seven Centuries Hist Geog, III, 1977, pp 217-36. Before this article went of the Prices of Consumables Compared with Builders' to press the author was unaware of the index of sales Wage-R.ates', Economica, XXIII, 1956. returns produced by Susan Fairlie and published in _i:ikl) ¸¸I:? i 15 '¸¸ 2 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW paper is to extend the critique of Fay, Barnes central Receiver of the Corn Returns to and Adrian, to assess whether or not the corn calculate a national average price by which all averages were statistically sound, and to ports would be governed. 12 provide historians with a revised price series Before 1821 the price for the first maritime/ and an index of production for wheat, oats district, which comprised the counties off and barley. Essex, Kent and Sussex, was determined ex- clusively by dealings in the Mark Lane Corn I Exchange. Here an inspector had been The origins of the corn averages lay in the appointed by the proprietors of the Exchange, government's efforts to operate its Corn and all corn factors were required, under a Laws. u If the market price at home was to penalty of £,50, to submit to him a weekly determine the level of import duties and written account of the price and quantity of export bounties then some method of obtain- every sale of home-grown corn made by ing that price had to be devised. The revealed them, the names of the buyers, and details of deficiencies of merely relying on 'expert' the weights and measures utilized. The opinion paved the way for the production of inspector was required to convert all weights an official register of grain prices. Initially, and measures into Winchester bushels and to responsibility for its compilation was placed calculate a district average price by dividing upon JPs in a few selected counties, but the the total receipts by the total quantity of sales. legislation proved ineffectual. Greater success For the other eleven maritime districts local was obtained with an Act of 1781, which magistrates appointed inspectors for each of required an Inspector of Corn Returns to the designated towns. All dealers in corn, publish Mark Lane (London) corn prices including millers, maltsters, merchants, weekly in the London Gazette. Eight years factors, and agents, were bound, under a later data collection was extended to all mari- £10 penalty, to supply them with weekly time counties, but imperfections in the legis- written accounts of the price, quantity, and lation led to a codifying and consolidating weights and measures of all transactions. A statue in 1791 by which inspectors in selected town average price was then calculated in the towns in each of twelve English maritime same way as for Mark Lane and transmitted to districts had to produce weekly average grain the Receiver of the Corn Returns in London, prices for their particular markets. These who used the information to produce the prices were used to calculate averages for each district and national figures. 13 district which were then made the basis for Practice and prescription, however, did not controlling imports into that district. A coincide. Complaints of fraud and manipula- ludicrous position was thus created in which tion led to the appointment of a Select Com- one maritime district could have its ports mittee whose report in 1820 maintained that closed against foreign grain while another 'with the exceptions of the returns taken at allowed importation. Reaction to this situa- 1z Strictly it was not initially a national average. Scotland's tion induced legislation in 1804, which external corn trade was to be controlled by the aggregate abandoned provincialism and required the average of four Scottish districts, but in 1805, following the failure of this average to allow imports without pro- hibitory high duties at a time when Glasgow, Paisley and Industrialisierut g ,rod 'Europiiische Wirtshaft' im 19 Greenock faced almost famine prices, Parliament acceded Jahrhundert: ein tagungsbericht, Ver6ffentlichungen der to requests that Scotland should come under the control of Historischen Kommission z'u Berlin, Band 46, Walter de the English averages, which were generally higher than Gruyter, Berlin, 1976, pp 91-6. their Scottish counterparts. Ireland was classed as a foreign n This section is based on S.C. on Petitions Relating to Agri- country till 1806, after which there was free trade in corn cuhural Distress (BPP 1820, II), S.C. on Corn Averages (BPP between Britain and Ireland and Ireland's foreign corn 1888, X), particularly the Second Report and the evidence trade also became regulated by the English averages. Fay, of R Giffen, Controller of the Corn Returns; Fay, op cit, op cit, pp 63-4. pp 62-7, Barnes, op cit, pp 41-67. 13S.C. on Petitions, etc., Report, pp 3-5. ;'. j . NINETEENTH-CENTURY CORN AVERAGES the Corn Exchange, the greatest neglect and no sales at all took l~lace;17 or, worst of all, inattention has universally prevailed'.14 Even the astonishing and alarming figures from at Mark Lane there were omissions, for Manchester, Macclesfield and Stockport which although the corn factors generally obeyed the suggested that not one grain of British corn injunction of the statute, purchases made was sold there throughout the whole year! from grain growers, shippers and agents were Clearly many inspectors were not doing their not within the inspector's province.