The English Rural Poor, 1850–1914
Editor: Mark Freeman
978 1 85196 822 0: 234x156mm: £450.00/$795.00
The nineteenth-century rural poor were often neglected both in their own time and since. Drawing heavily on the difficult-to-access pamphlets, reports, periodical literature and political tracts of the day, this groundbreaking, five-volume set reproduces in facsimile a large number of neglected sources relating to rural life in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The bulk of academic attention has been paid to the industrial poor at the expense of the rural poor, on which there is much less published work. This set moves to redress the balance.
Complementing earlier Pickering & Chatto editions, the extremely rare texts chosen for this authoritative selection provide evidence for historians working on many aspects of rural England and allow the reader to examine the diverse and complicated ways in which rural England was represented in this period.
Alongside a wealth of new editorial matter, this original and ambitious set closely examines subjects as disparate as the employment of women in rural England, the social relationships within rural communities, the role of the clergy in poor relief and local philanthropy, the impact of rural depopulation, and other features of rural history. It will be of interest to scholars in nineteenth-century studies and to all social historians.
- Full editorial apparatus includes a general introduction to the set in the first volume and fully consolidated index in the final volume
- Headnotes to each document or set of documents, and explanatory endnotes where necessary
- Draws together many hard-to-find and ephemeral texts essential for the study of rural social conditions
- Each facsimile page is digitally cleaned and enhanced, significantly improving on the quality and legibility of the original
Contents
Volume 1: The Moral and Material Condition of the Mid-Victorian Rural Poor
John Eddowes, The Agricultural Labourer as He Really Is, or Village Morals in 1854 (1854); Rev. Henry Moule, Four Letters to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, as President of the Council of the Duchy of Cornwall, on the Dwellings and Condition of Eleven Hundred of the Working Classes and Poor of Fordington (1854); John Stokes, An Essay on the Moral and Religious Improvement of the Farm Servant and Labourer (1855); Henry Tucker, An Address upon the ‘Condition of the Agricultural Labourer’, Delivered at the Annual Dinner of the Faringdon Agricultural Library on the 25th November 1858 (1858); J Y Stratton, ‘The Life of a Farm Labourer’ (1864); J B Haynes, How to Supply the Agricultural Labourer with Good Beer at a Low Price (1865); J H Tremenheere, ‘Agricultural Gangs’ (1867); Edward Girdlestone, ‘Landowners, Land, and Those Who Till It’ (1868); A Hampshire Agricultural Labourer, A Few Words on Courtship and Marriage, or, Trials and Struggles, Sweets and Bitters (1867); Charles Whitehead, Agricultural Labourers (1870); Francis T Bond, The Home of the Agricultural Labourer: Its Defects, and How to Remedy Them (1873)
Volume 2: The ‘Revolt of the Field’
Baldwyn Leighton, William Morris and E L O’Malley, ‘How May the Condition of the Agricultural Labourer be Improved?’ (1872); The Strike in the Agricultural Districts: The Life and Experiences of a Warwickshire Labourer, with His Own Thoughts and Opinions on the Strike, as Told by Himself (1872); Rev. W H Ridley, The Agricultural Labourers’ Union (1872); A Farmer’s Son, The Agricultural Labourer (1873); S Reynolds Hole, The Cry of the Labourer against Landlord, Farmer and Priest: A Sermon (1873); George Mitchell, The Skeleton at the Plough, (1874) (contains the constitution and rules of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union); Edward Richardson, The NALU Melody Book: Original Hymns and Songs (1874); Howard Evans, Songs for Singing at Agricultural Labourers’ Meetings (1875); The Farm Labourers’ Catechism, Prepared for the Special Use of those Agricultural Labourers Who Are Not in the Union (1875)
Volume 3: Life on the Land: the 1880s
Henry Evershed, Cow-Keeping by Farm Labourers (1880 – reprinted from 1879); Thomas Hardy, The Dorset Farm Labourer Past and Present (1884); Rev. Augustus Jessopp, ‘Clouds Over Arcady’ (1883); Richard Jefferies, ‘The Wiltshire Labourer’ (1883); Richard Jefferies, ‘After the County Franchise’ (1884); An Agricultural Labourer, The Position of the Agricultural Labourer in the Past and in the Future (1885); P Anderson Graham, The Rural Exodus: The Problem of the Village and the Town (1892)
Volume 4: Life on the Land: the 1890s
J Theodore Dodd, Local Rights and Interests of Farm Labourers (1890); Scrivener C Scrivener, The Depopulation of Villages (1891); English Land Restoration League, Special Report 1891: Among Suffolk Labourers with the ‘Red Van’ (1891); Earl of Thring, William E Bear and Henrietta Batson, ‘The Rural Voter’ (1892); Arnold D Taylor, ‘Hodge and His Parson’ (1892); J Morrison Davidson, The Villagers’ Magna Charta: ‘The Village for the Villagers (1894); A G Butler, Hodge and the Land (1907); Arthur Wilson Fox, Reports on Glendale, Northumberland, and Garstang, Lancashire: Royal Commission on Labour: Reports from Commissioners, Inspectors and Others (1893–4); Report by Mr Wilson Fox on the Wages and Earnings of Agricultural Labourers in the United Kingdom, with Statistical Tables and Charts (1900); C Cochrane, Papers on Rural Housing: The Present Condition of the Cottage Home of the Agricultural Labourer (1901)
Volume 5: The Edwardian Rural Poor
H H Mann, ‘Life in an Agricultural Village in England’ (1905); Maud F Davies, Life in an English Village: An Economic and Historical Survey of the Parish of Corsley in Wiltshire (1909); R L Outhwaite, Peer or Peasant? The Ruin of Rural England and the Remedy (1909);Rev. A H Baverstock, The English Agricultural Labourer (1912); B S Rowntree, The Labourer and the Land (1914)
Reviews
‘The range of material, as selected temporally and geographically, is impressive... that Freeman manages to combine several 'classics' of the genre with some hitherto not widely known texts is further testament to his growing reputation as the foremost scholar of rural social investigation in the period...[a] splendid resource'’
– Carl J Griffin, Journal of Historical Geography
'these volumes deserve to reach as wide an audience as possible'
– Nicola Verdon, Agricultural History Review
'A 'must-read' for any historian of social structure, poverty, welfare or rural England. Freeman is to be commended.'
– Stephen King, Economic History Journal
'This set ... will be a most valuable library acquisition for many academic libraries ... the editor and publisher are to be highly congratulated'
– K D M Snell, Rural History