Village Traders and the Emergence of a Proletariat in South Warwickshire, 175 O-I 851 ByJ M MARTIN HE numerical dominance of the each produced suggestive case-studies with a landless labourer within agricultural bearing on the present piece? T districts like the Feldon of Warwick- The Feldon was a wholly farming locality, shire is a commonplace of nineteenth- but in the eighteenth century the bulk of the century social history. In the east Feldon for pre-enclosure villagers, it will be suggested, example over 6o per cent of occupied males probably followed a trade or craft. Malcolm- ii were of that class at the 1851 census, l This son's recent text can perhaps provide a useful transformation is often associated with starting point. In many localities, even enclosure, although the details remain where most men did not occupy regular field 1 almost wholly obscure.-" One of the present land, they might, he notes, still secure a aims is to probe further the implications of major part of their livelihood from the land Feldon land tax figures which warn of the because of the wide prevalence of customary extreme complexity and variability of rural rights of usage. 5 So in the Feldon many of the society on the eve of change. 3 By pressing near-landless preserved rights of access to into use a variety of sources one hopes to the land in one form or another. The present illuminate more clearly the impact of discussion attempts to assess the usefulness enclosure and the growing pattern of of such rights, highlighting the vulnerability landlessness. The focus here is largely upon of common-field communities on the eve of the east Feldon. In 173 o this remained an area the re-ordering of the fields. The land could of generally nucleated settlement and sustain a not inconsiderable population of extensive common fields. Specialized indus- cottagers and tiny landowners, both tries like those found in the densely occupying and non-occupying, precisely populated hamlets of North Warwickshire, because they drew their living not only from or in adjoining counties like Northampton- the land, but also from other ancillary shire, were largely absent. The debt here to pursuits. This can perhaps be seen as an other writers on the eighteenth century will intermediate stage in the proletarianization be obvious. Malcolmson and Patten have of the village community, though in its made general statements about the cottager origins it preceded the parliamentary phase and country trading classes, while Kerr, of the enclosure movement. Holderness, Neeson and Obelkevich have A detail which calls for a word of 'The author is grateful to Drs J Thirsk and M Turner for explanation at the outset is the concept of commenting on an earlier draft of this piece. The 1851 census village trader used here. The cottager who enumerators' schedules for South Warwickshire, PRO, HO IO7/2o75-7. :Fur general comment see: G E Mingay, 'The Size of Farms in the 4R W Malcolmson, Life and Labour in England t700-.1780, I98I, pp 18th Century', Econ Hist Rev, 2nd ser, XIV, I96x, pp 480-7; Artlmr z3-t58; J patten, English Towns 15oo-17oo, 1978, pp 2o5-z3; Young and his Tinles, 1975, pp 112-I5; The Agricultural Revolution: B Kerr, Bound to the Soil: A Social History of Dorset t75o.-IOtS, Changes in Agriadture 166o-188o, t977, pp 52-3, 64; M E Turner, I968, pp 12-H6; B A Holderness, 'Rural Tradesmen 166o-185o: A 'Parliamentary Enclosure and Landownership Change in Bucking- Regional Study in Lindsey', Lincs Hist and Ard,, 7, t97z, pp 77-8t; hamshire', Econ Hist Rev, 2nd set. XXVIII, 1975, pp 565-6L J Neeson, 'Common Right and Enclosure in Eighteenth Century 3j M Martin, 'The Parliamentary Enclosure Movement and Rural Northamptonshire', unpubl, PhD thesis, University of Warwick, Society in Warwickshire', Ag Hist Rev, 15, I, 1967, pp i9"-39; 1977, pp t88-22o; J Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society: South 'The Small Landowner and Parliamentary Enclosure in Warwick- Lindsey 18z5-1875, Oxford, 1976, pp 46-to2. shire', Econ Hist Rev, 2nd ser, XXXII, 3, I979, pp 32;]-43. SMalcolmson, op tit, p 24. t79 I80 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW ?'11 ;:71 " } ': inhabited the pastoral districts of England, other factors like the tendency, touched on and who found his salvation around 17oo in elsewhere, for local population to expand. 8 the pursuit of some specialized craft activity, has become a familiar figure. Preoccupied II with national and international markets, One might begin the detailed discussion by such craftsmen were fundamentally differ- considering the question of occupational ent in character from the class of more structure. At Priors Marston, located on the localized traders which grew up in clays of the east Feldon, Styles discovered predominantly arable districts like the that by 171o some 41 per cent of males were Feldon. 6 In the latter one can broadly already absorbed into the trades, crafts and distinguish three types of country trader: a professions. 9 Furthermore this tendency sprinkling of very substantial men- was probably strengthened by the depres- maltsters, mercers and the like; the farmer sion of prices at that time. Thus, for who from the late seventeenth century also example, at Brailes, a parish located in the occasionally carried on some trading south-east Feldon, Tennant tells us that the activity; and finally the figure at the heart of numbers engaged in trades and crafts the present discussion: the near-landless multiplied then, a tendency which was cottager who combined some craftly calling complemented by a proliferation of very with a small, but for him significant, stake in small holdings. 1° And this seems to have the land. occurred elsewhere. At Wolfhamcote It is not easy in Warwickshire to assess the nearby even the day-labourer was said in effects of enclosure since so many villages 173o to be better offthan the poor farmer on were enclosed prior to I78O. Still, where the clays of the east Feldon, so that a move common fields survived up to the era of the into village trading perhaps made sense to land tax both tiny landowners and village hard-pressed cultivators on poor soils. ~ traders also sometimes survived in large A source which further underlines this numbers, the one group lending strength to trend is the accounts of overseers of the poor. the other: There is also a suggestion that in Those of the parishes of Grandborough and such parishes the cottager class at least were Wolfhamcote were examined for the years adversely affected by the abolition of the 1755-7o, and those of the parish of Tysoe for fields, and that this in turn hastened the I79o-99. ~-" In each case some 4o-50 males divorce of the trade and craft elements from provided a range of I2-I7 trading and craft the land. As the agricultural economy was services; the equivalent of half of the 89 and transformed these groups came under 85 families returned for Grandborough and pressure from other quarters. The outcome Wolfhamcote in 18oi. There was also a can be pieced together from the 1851 census noticeable crowding in the traditional lesser returns. In the light of this evidence the trades like carpentry, tailoring and shoe- discussion concludes by suggesting that making; this became very much more village traders and craftsmen formed a major pronounced in the next century, as we shall source of recruitment for the rural proletariat see, and can be regarded perhaps as a rough of the nineteenth century. This does not, of hj M Martin, Tile Rise in Population in E(¢hteenth Century lYarwick- course, exclude the possible importance of shire, Dugdale Society Papers, "3, 1976. 9p Styles, 'The Social Structure of Kincton Hundred in the Reign of Charles Ir, in P Styles, Studies in t7th Century West Midland History. :! C'For the early history of these industries see: J Thirsk, Economic Kineton, I978, p 154. Policy and Projects, Oxford, 1978, pp z58-8o. '°Tennant, op tit, pp i2o-1. YOn this point see: S Addington, An Enquiry into the Reasons for and "See: 'The Case Stated for the Enclosure of Flecknoe Field', Against Inclosing the Common Fields, Coventry, 1768, p 38', more Warwickshire County Record Office (henceforth CRO), ref recently, Mingay, 'The Size of Farms', Ioc tit, p 473; A J Tennant, Z/12. 'Brailes: A Feldon Community, H5o--18oo', unpubl. MPhil thesis, ':Tysoe Overseers of the Poor Accounts, CRO, ref DR 288/5; Leicester, x977, pp t2o-2, I45-52, 193-7. Grandborough, refDR III/26-8; Wolfl~amcote, ref DR 167/5. ii,'! i'ii~3 ,: VILLAGE TRADERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A PROLETARIAT I8i :! index of incipient pauperization, made fact other. This material serves to remind us that after enclosure. not all village traders were mere cottagers; Support for these findings comes from some were men of more substance, two other useful sources: the Victuallers employed in some form of dual enterprise Recognizances of I764, and the Return of coupled to farming. It was a tendency which Persons using Weights, Measures and began in Brailes, says Tennant, in the late Balances of I797.13 The proliferation of seventeenth century. I6 The number of victuallers was most marked, with several of freeholders tended to increase over the the larger agricultural parishes recording course of the century: in 18 parishes enclosed eight or nine apiece. In aggregate some 34 between I775-I 815 for instance the rise was east Feldon parishes returned 89 licensed from Io8 to r5z (4o per cent) between those persons. The r797 Return is equally dates. This influx was mainly of the new class illuminating.