Full text of DOI:10.1111/1468-0289.00191

Economic History Review, LIV, 2 (2001), pp. 240–266
Managerial failure in late
Victorian Britain?: land use and
1
English agriculture
By E. H. HUNT and S. J. PAM
owards the end of the nineteenth century Britain’s economic lead
T
was challenged and lost, initiating the long-running debate on the
extent and causes of relative decline. Some of this decline was inevitable,
but some might have been avoided: what opportunities were missed and
by whom? To what extent were opportunities missed through manifest
incompetence; to what extent, less reprehensibly, through failure to ident-
ify and avert market or institutional perversities? Debate has focused on
the industrial performance: tertiary activities have received less attention
and agriculture, the focus here, has been largely neglected. Both Aldcroft’s
article attributing industrial decline to entrepreneurial and managerial
failure, and that of Fletcher explaining agricultural depression in the
arable south east in terms of ‘a certain rigidity . . . of mind’, an obsession
2
with ‘corn, corn, corn’, were published in the 1960s. But whereas
Aldcroft’s interpretation provoked extensive debate, Fletcher’s critique
remains substantially unchallenged. Thus in 1996 Thompson noted that
‘
the usual argument . . . is that the response of British agriculture to the
3
flood of imports was at best inadequate, and in most cases supine’.
There are, of course, manifold aspects to this alleged ‘failure of British
4
agriculture to transform, ranging from how much was invested to the
extent of cooperative activity, each of which requires detailed investi-
gation. Several questions relate to the fundamental issue of land use: how
much less land was devoted to cereals; how much more was committed
to milk, meat, and other produce partially protected from overseas compe-
tition; what would have constituted optimal adjustment? Fletcher and
other critics are nowhere specific on how much restructuring was required
but emphasize the lingering commitment to cereals, to farming that ‘did
5
not pay’. The extent and shape of restructuring between the early 1870s
1
The authors are grateful to N.F.R. Crafts and E.J.T. Collins, each of whom commented on an
earlier version of this article, to the Suntory-Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related
Disciplines (LSE) for financial support, to Jane Pugh and colleagues in the LSE drawing office, to
Lesley Stringer for research assistance, and to Robert Delargy for help with computing.
2
Aldcroft, ‘Entrepreneur and British economy’; Fletcher, ‘Great depression’, p. 431.
Thompson, ‘Agriculture and economic growth’, in which this quotation appears (p. 43), chal-
3
lenges the ‘usual argument’ and is the most forthright among a handful of contributions that question
the failure consensus. See also his ‘Anatomy of English agriculture’ and Olsen and Harris, ‘Free
trade in corn’, pp. 152, 172.
4
Kindleberger, Economic growth in France and Britain, pp. 209, 239.
Fletcher, ‘Great depression’, p. 431; Perry, British farming, p. 123.
5

Economic History Society 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA.

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
241
and the mid-1890s, and the significance of continued cereal cultivation
as evidence of managerial failure in agriculture, are the central issues
investigated in this article.
I
Responses to depression were diverse. Evidence on crop acreage and
animal numbers is available for each parish and so land use can be
analysed in some detail. The approach adopted here is comparison of
changes within one corn county. Essex has been fittingly described as
‘
the proudest of the corn counties’ and as having suffered more than any
6
other in the depression of the late nineteenth century. There, in 1896-
, wheat still accounted for one acre in eight, and wheat, barley, and
7
7
oats together occupied one-third of farmland. This, after over two
decades of depression, might be taken to indicate a more than lingering
commitment to corn: clearly, if poor management was a feature of
English farming, Essex is among the places where it was likely to have
been manifest.
As indicated earlier, such focus upon the unchanging is prominent in
most accounts of late nineteenth-century agriculture and charges of inepti-
tude follow logically. But more restructuring occurred than most accounts
concede, even in the arable south east. In Essex the cereal acreage fell
by almost a quarter between the early 1870s and the mid-1890s, the
acreage under wheat (the price of which fell furthest) was reduced by
over two-fifths, and the number of milking cows rose by almost two-
fifths (table 3 below). Clearly not all of Essex had persisted with ‘corn,
corn, corn’. If this combination of continuity and change suggests that
Essex agriculture was perhaps neither sufficiently transformed nor totally
hidebound, that the depression performance fell somewhere between
qualified failure and qualified success, certain questions follow. Was
structural adjustment evident throughout the county? If not, what circum-
stances determined its incidence? Why did some farmers or localities
persist with corn when others heeded market incentives in favour of milk
and meat? Is there substance in contemporary claims that major obstacles
8
impeded a more widespread expansion of dairying or are differences in
responding to market changes indicative of managerial failure in parts of
the county?
Contemporary accounts, and some recent studies, suggest two variables
that influenced farming practices and that may well have influenced also
how farmers and landlords responded to market changes: access to
markets, especially to London, and soil type. Except for farms very close
to urban consumers, access to markets was influenced by proximity to
rail transport. Many parts of Essex were far from a station and the
6
Thompson, ‘Free trade and the land’, p. 110; Mathias, First industrial nation, p. 318; RC on
Agricultural Depression (P.P. 1897, XV), p. 8.
7
Annual Agricultural Returns (PP. 1898, CII).
See, for examples, Bear, ‘Survival in farming’, p. 270; Haggard, ‘Essex’, pp. 474-5, 484.
8

Economic History Society 2001

242
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
difficulty and cost of moving perishable or low-value commodities, such
as milk, hay, straw or potatoes, were such that farms 40 or more miles
from London might be better placed to provision the capital than farms
much closer but further from a railway. Moving bulky fertilizers, necessary
for potato growing and market gardening, was likewise dependent on rail
9
(
or water) transport. Milk, the most frequently recommended alternative
to cereals, depended crucially upon good transport: the twice daily milk-
cob run was considered not viable beyond ‘a couple of miles of a railway
10
station’. About one-third of Essex can be categorized as heavy clayland,
predominantly London clay. This could be used for either arable or
pasture but was ideal for neither. In favourable years the heavy clay
produced good cereal crops, but much of it was high-cost land: difficult
to work, slow to warm, expensive to drain, slow to establish good
11
permanent pasture, liable to both waterlogging and drying out, and not
12
well suited for barley, turnips, potatoes or temporary grass. Boulder
clays, about a quarter of Essex acreage, were less heavy, easier to work
and drain, more fertile and more suitable for barley, while medium soils,
although again of varying quality, were generally superior to most clayland
for both pasture and arable. The Tendring Hundred medium soil—deep,
loamy, fertile, easily worked and drained, able to take cereals, grass or
garden crops and characteristic of one of the parish groups examined
below—comprised some of the best farmland in England. Lighter soils,
while similarly adaptable, easily worked and drained, and quick to warm,
were less well suited than medium soils to permanent pasture, less fertile
than the clays, and also prone to drying out. Essex is one of the driest
13
counties and in years such as 1892, 1893, and 1894 lack of rain was
a serious problem. Most of the acreage allowed to revert to poor rough
grazing by the later stages of depression—the much-deplored ‘tumble-
down’—was heavy clay or light soil land.
To examine the influence of these variables upon land use, eight groups
of parishes have been selected to represent various combinations of access
to markets and soil type. These are shown in table 1 and map 1.
Obviously each parish group represents a ‘best-fit’ compromise, an
approximation to homogeneity. Some ‘near to railways’ parishes were
served by branch lines, others enjoyed mainline services. Some parishes
9
Coppock notes that in the Chilterns the price of London manure more than doubled five miles
from a station. One village, within four miles of a station, was considered ‘too far away for it to be
suitable for market-gardening’: Coppock, ‘Agricultural change’, pp. 73-4. In his report for the RC
on the Depressed Condition of the Agricultural Interests (P.P. 1882, XV), p. 280, S.L.B. Druce noted
that Essex was badly served by railways.
10
Whetham, ‘Changing cattle enterprises’, p. 379. E.J.T. Collins (personal communication) puts
the viable range at up to four miles on level terrain.
11
‘
On poor stiff clays permanent pasture is with difficulty made or maintained, especially when
there is not an abundant rainfall.’ Evans and Bowstead, ‘Laying down land’, p. 451.
12
The authors are grateful to A.E. Johnson of the Institute of Agricultural Crop Research,
Rothamsted, for information on soil types and their utility. Basic slag eased some of the obstacles
to producing and maintaining good grass on the clays, but it was not in general use before 1900.
13
Hew Watt, of Heath Place (Orsett) described how, in his grandfather’s time, the drought of
894 brought near tragedy to this light-soil farm. Wells dried up and ‘digging took place feverishly
in various parts of the farm to find water’: Watt, ‘Changes in agriculture’, p. 24.
1

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
243
Table 1. Parish groups
Group
Parishes
Characteristics
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Ingrave, Mountnessing, Margaretting,
Ingatestone, Shenfield
Downham, Purleigh, Laindon, West
Horndon, Ramsden Bellhouse, Cold Norton 1880s
Steeple, East Hanningfield, Gt. Wigborough, heavy London clay, poor access to railway
St Lawrence, Layer Breton
Takeley, Steeple Bumpstead, Gt. Canfield,
Rayne, Stambourne
Good Easter, Pleshey, White Roding, High boulder clay, poor access to railway
Easter, Aythorpe Roding
Frating, Lawford, Bradfield, Little Bromley medium soil (Tendring Hundred), near to
railway
Lamarsh, Hatfield Peverel, Stanway,
Southchurch, Broomfield
heavy London clay, near to railway
heavy London clay, near to railway by late
boulder clay, near to railway
light soil, near to railway
Danbury, Gt. Stambridge, Gt. Wakering,
Woodham Walter
light soil, poor access to railway
Harwich
Colchester
Braintree
Walton-on
the-Naze
Clacton
Maldon
Chelmsford
Parish groups - see table 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Brentwood
Opened before 1873
Opened 1873-96
Southend
miles
km
0
10
0
10
LONDON
Map 1. Essex: parishes and railways

Economic History Society 2001

244
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
bisected by a railway had outlying parts no closer to a station than
14
parishes designated as distant from rail. Similarly with soil type: dividing
Essex soils into just four groups overlooks certain distinct categories and
numerous sub-categories and mixtures of soils. It is unlikely that any
Essex parishes, or many Essex farms, had only one soil type within their
boundary. These compromises—deriving from the necessity to work with
parish units—will obviously tend to obscure possibly meaningful land-use
patterns related to soil type and rail access, and thus should increase
confidence in the significance of whatever patterns emerge from the
following analysis.
Further imprecision arises from shortcomings in the annual agricultural
returns for England and Wales, first collected in 1866, the main source
used here. County returns were published annually as parliamentary
papers, and the handwritten summaries of the parish returns are available
at the Public Record Office, Kew (ref. MAF 68). Unattributed references
to Essex land use and animal numbers below are all taken from this
source. Farmers’ initial reluctance to cooperate necessitated considerable
resort to estimation. By the mid-1870s, however, the returns were less
deficient and increasingly more detailed information was collected on
crops of every kind, animal numbers, and the size and ownership of
15
holdings. Not all of the returns have survived, but for the present
investigation details were extracted from all of the available returns
16
between 1870 and 1897 for each of the 39 parishes shown in table 1.
To save space, and to focus upon the most important variables, tables 2
and 3 show for each parish group only the main cereal crops, the area
under grass (permanent or temporary), and the number of dairy and
non-dairy cows at the beginning and end of the depression. Significant
points evident in the returns for other crops and livestock—on numbers
of sheep and horses and the area under hay, fallow, and market gardening,
for example—and evidence from intermediate years and certain additional
parishes, are mentioned in the text where appropriate. To reduce the
consequence of inaccuracies in any one set of returns, those for 1870
and 1874 and those for 1896 and 1897 are aggregated to indicate farming
17
practice around the beginning and end of depression. Aggregating
14
Proximity to a railway, of course, did not necessarily equate with proximity to a station. Sectional
maps of British railways, and contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, indicate that parishes in groups
, 2, 4, 6, and 7 had a station within their boundary or close by.
1
15
From 1867 to 1891 returns were required on all holdings in excess of 0.25 acre, in 1892 the
minimum became 1 acre. Returns were collected in June. A degree of ambiguity attached to several
categories of returns, in particular to the distinction between permanent and temporary pasture and
that between fallow and rough grazing. Returns of permanent and temporary pasture are shown
together in tables 2 and 3. The distinction between dairy and non-dairy cows is likewise not entirely
clear because milking cows were eventually sold as meat, as were most of their calves.
16
Returns are incomplete, or have not survived at all, for 1871, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1878,
892, 1893, and 1895. These shortcomings, and difficulties involved in categorizing and qualifying
variation in soil type and transport availability, are formidable obstacles to multivariate analysis.
1
17
This procedure also reduces bias arising from exceptional weather and short-term price fluctu-
ations. Returns for 1870 and 1874 are used (rather than those for consecutive years) because those
for 1871, 1872, and 1873 have not survived. In the text ‘1870, 74’ represents the average of the
returns for 1870 and 1874 while ‘1896-7’ represents the average of the consecutive years 1896
and 1897.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
245
Table 2. Acreage and cattle numbers per 100 acres of farmland, 1870, 74
and 1896-7 (a) 1870, 74 (b) 1896-7
Parish
group
Wheat
(W)
Barley
(B)
Oats
(O)
Cereals
(W+B+O)
Grass
Dairy
cattle
Non-dairy
cattle
(
a) (b)
(a) (b)
(a) (b)
(a) (b)
(a) (b)
(a) (b)
(a)
(b)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
21.6 10.3
25.1 9.3
29.7 13.0
25.8 17.0 17.6 19.0
28.6 23.3 18.2 20.1
22.1 18.8 19.9 16.4
28.1 17.0 15.1 12.4
25.6 11.9 11.6 7.9
8.6 7.0
7.1 6.3
8.9 7.4
6.8 9.1 37.0 26.4 42.0 56.6
5.9 5.9 38.1 21.5 33.9 56.4
5.6 6.4 44.2 26.8 23.9 48.3
5.2 6.7 48.6 42.7 22.1 33.5
4.5 6.0 51.3 49.4 19.6 28.0
5.7 9.4 47.7 44.6 26.8 33.7
4.0 8.7 47.2 38.1 23.7 32.8
7.1 5.9 44.3 25.7 25.2 41.1
5.9 11.0
2.1 3.9
2.1 2.6
2.0 2.4
1.5 1.2
1.8 1.9
2.7 4.5
2.3 2.4
6.8 10.0
5.3 6.4
4.4 6.5
4.1 3.9
4.2 4.0
5.9 5.9
5.0 4.5
4.4 4.6
Essex
England 14.0 6.9
23.8 13.7 13.0 11.9
5.2 6.9 42.0 32.5 30.8 44.3
6.1 7.4 28.3 21.3 53.8 64.8
2.8 3.9
6.6 7.3 10.4 11.1
6.2 6.3
8.2 7.0
Parish groups: see above, tab. 1 and map 1. Sources: published and MS. agricultural returns—see text
Table 3. Acreage and cattle numbers per 100 acres: change (%) between
1
870, 74 and 1896-7
Parish group
Wheat
W)
Barley
(B)
Oats
(O)
Cereals
(W+B+O)
Grass
Dairy
cattle
Non-dairy
cattle
(
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Ϫ52
Ϫ63
Ϫ56
Ϫ34
Ϫ19
Ϫ15
Ϫ40
Ϫ54
Ϫ19
Ϫ11
Ϫ17
ϩ8
ϩ10
Ϫ18
Ϫ18
Ϫ32
ϩ34
nil
Ϫ29
Ϫ44
Ϫ39
Ϫ12
Ϫ4
Ϫ6
Ϫ19
Ϫ42
ϩ35
ϩ66
ϩ102
ϩ52
ϩ43
ϩ26
ϩ38
ϩ63
ϩ86
ϩ86
ϩ24
ϩ20
Ϫ20
ϩ6
ϩ47
ϩ21
ϩ48
Ϫ5
Ϫ5
nil
ϩ14
ϩ29
ϩ33
ϩ65
ϩ118
Ϫ17
ϩ67
ϩ4
Ϫ10
ϩ5
Essex
England
Ϫ42
Ϫ51
Ϫ8
Ϫ15
ϩ33
ϩ21
Ϫ23
Ϫ25
ϩ44
ϩ20
ϩ39
ϩ11
ϩ2
ϩ7
Sources: see tab. 2
several parish returns to produce a figure for each of the eight parish
groups will likewise reduce the consequence of original recording inaccur-
acies. Parish boundary changes and land sales that transferred farms, or
fields, from one parish to another pose a further difficulty, largely over-
come here by presenting the returns on a proportionate basis so that
table 2 shows not absolute acreage or animal numbers but the proportion
of farmland under particular crops and the number of cattle present per
18
100 acres.
The hypothesis being tested, of course, is that responses to depression
may have correlated significantly with soil type and transport availability.
Such patterns, if they existed, would illustrate the variety of opportunities
18
Coppock recommended this procedure: ‘Agricultural returns as a source’.

Economic History Society 2001

246
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
and constraints faced by farmers in different locations and help to explain
why some of them appear to have been far less enterprising than others.
II
heavy clays: Parish groups 1-3
The first group of parishes (group 1) was predominantly heavy clay. It
straddled the mainline railway to Chelmsford and Colchester and thus
enjoyed exceptionally good links with the capital. The early, pre-
depression, agricultural returns show patterns of land use that are broadly
compatible with these circumstances (table 2). Over two-fifths of farmland
was then under pasture, well above the Essex average, and the density
of dairy cattle was more than twice the county level, presumably reflecting
ease of access to London milk consumers. Non-dairy cattle were present
at a little above the county density. Cereals here accounted for some 37
per cent of farmland in 1870, 74, which was clearly above the national
level but less than the Essex commitment to cereals, less in fact than the
proportion of land under cereals in each of the other seven parish groups.
Farmers here, it would seem, while obviously not immune to falling
cereal prices, were better deployed to withstand the coming challenges
than most farmers in Essex.
An appropriate response to depression appears to have occurred. The
reduction in cereal acreage (29 per cent) might be judged unimpressive
at first appraisal. But there was also a significant re-ordering of cereal
priorities. The area under wheat, the crop hardest hit by falling prices,
was halved, barley acreage fell by one-fifth, and that devoted to oats
increased by 34 per cent (table 3): oats—in demand as cattle- and horse-
feed—was the better substitute for wheat on heavy clay. Barley and oats
were less costly to cultivate than wheat and less vulnerable to overseas
competition because transport costs represented a higher proportion of
19
their final price. At the same time, the number of ‘cows and heifers in
milk and calf’ almost doubled, from 5.9 to 11.0 per 100 acres, so that
dairying became of considerably more consequence in these Essex parishes
20
than it was in Devon or Herefordshire, or in English farming as a whole.
This was one of the two greatest increases in dairy cattle among the
eight parish groups analysed. Demand for milk increased in the long run,
rail links with London were first-rate, and landlords and farmers appear
21
to have responded enthusiastically. There was also a 47 per cent increase
in non-dairy cattle. The area under grass had increased by over one-
third and stock raising on grass, even more than dairying, required less
labour than cereal cultivation. Rising real wages were a considerable
incentive to economize on labour. Moreover, significant change was
already evident by the mid-1880s: the wheat acreage fell by 30 per cent
19
A disparity between American and British prices of barley and oats still remained when that in
wheat prices had been virtually erased: O’Rourke, ‘European grain invasion’, p. 781.
2
2
0
1
Agricultural Returns (P.P. 1897, XCVIII; 1898, CII).
Atkins, ‘London’s railway milk trade’, p. 226, n. 38.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
247
between 1870, 74 and 1886-7 and the number of dairy cattle rose by
2
3 per cent. Taken together, changes in land use in this first group of
parishes come close to what textbooks depict as the appropriate response
to depression. Certainly they provide very little support to claims that
agriculture ‘failed’.
Group 2 parishes were also mainly on heavy London clay, but when
the depression started they were far less well served by railways. New
branch lines eroded this disadvantage in the later 1880s. Land use here,
therefore, might provide insights into both the influence of transport
restraints on farming practices and the response of farmers and landlords
to the opportunities that railway building made available in the later
stages of depression. When the depression began, some 38 per cent of
farmland was returned under cereals, another 18 per cent was under
beans and fallow, and the dairy cattle density was considerably less than
half that in the group 1 parishes. These proportions almost certainly
reflect poor access to urban milk markets and indicate also considerable
vulnerability to the coming depression.
One manifestation of this vulnerability was evident among the 22,000
acres of untenanted land ‘fast returning to its wild state’ witnessed by a
local landlord and a Scots farmer looking southward from the tower of
22
Rettendon Church in 1887. But more positive change was also under
way and was to be accelerated by the newly opened railway. By 1896-7
cereal acreage had declined considerably: from 38 per cent (1870, 74)
of farmland to 22 per cent, with the area under wheat falling by over
6
0 per cent, a reduction far exceeding both that in Essex and those
recorded in each of the other seven parish groups (table 3). Pasture
acreage expanded no less impressively; by two-thirds, which was more
than the increase in all but one of the other parish groups. These figures
suggest appropriate responses to long-term market trends and probably
reflect also transport improvements in the later 1880s. Moreover, and
this is very strong evidence of the importance of new railways, whereas
before the late 1880s the numbers of dairy cattle rose less fast than the
number of non-dairy cattle, subsequently dairy cattle numbers increased
23
far more rapidly while the number of non-dairy cattle actually declined.
It appears that when transport was restricted farmers here had substituted
both dairying and stock raising for wheat, but that improved rail access
allowed an accelerated expansion of dairying in which it displaced both
wheat and stock raising.
Still on the heavy clays, the more scattered parishes that comprise
group 3 were distinguished from those in groups 1 and 2 by being poorly
24
served by railways throughout the depression. When depression set in,
2
2
2
3
Watt, ‘Changes in agriculture’, p. 23.
According to the annual Agricultural Returns (PRO, MAF 68), for group 2 parishes the number
of cattle per 100 acres was as follows: 1870, 74, 2.1 dairy cattle and 5.3 non-dairy cattle; 1886-7,
.6 dairy cattle and 7.1 non-dairy cattle; 1896-7, 3.9 dairy cattle and 6.4 non-dairy cattle.
2
24
Again, this is a generalization. A minority of farmers were within five miles of a station
throughout the depression and in 1889 a branch line reached Southminster, a few miles south of
Steeple and St Lawrence. There were local markets, too, in Chelmsford and Colchester.

Economic History Society 2001

248
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
these parishes were heavily committed to cereals. Wheat, barley, oats,
beans, and fallow accounted for 60 per cent of farmland, a greater
commitment to arable than was evident in either of the clay parishes
groups already examined. Only 24 per cent of farmland was under
grass and dairy cattle density, almost identical to that in the similarly
disadvantaged group 2 parishes, was not much above one-third of the
level in group 1 clayland parishes along the London to Colchester railway.
Given the transport constraints, this pattern of land use was not irrational
so long as corn prices were maintained. But group 3 parishes were
exceptionally vulnerable to the coming depression and were to be parti-
cularly in need of agrarian restructuring.
Reduced dependence on cereals, wheat especially, was probably the
most pressing requirement and this was achieved; the wheat acreage fell
by more than half. Much of the heavier clayland here, as elsewhere, was
probably sub-marginal for wheat at the prices prevailing by 1880. The
aggregate cereal acreage in these parishes contracted at approaching twice
the county rate. Considerable expansion in the area under grass was
another obvious response to depression and this occurred also: the pasture
area more than doubled (table 3), showing over twice the increase in
Essex and more than that in any other parish group. But only a small
part of the additional pasture was devoted to milk production. Dairy
cattle numbers increased, but from a very low base and by only 24 per
cent, whereas in the clayland parishes better served by rail (groups 1
and 2) their density almost doubled (table 3), another indication that
opportunities to move from cereals to milk were significantly dependent
25
upon transport availability.
Much of the additional pasture appears to have been devoted to stock
raising, probably the most important substitute for wheat in these parishes.
Non-dairy cattle numbers expanded twice as rapidly as those of dairy
cattle, from a higher base, and at a time when there was little change in
their numbers either in Essex or in England (table 3). And in these group
3
parishes additional stock occupied a more than proportionate area of
grassland because another response to depression was to substitute cheap-
ening land (rents were falling) for increasingly expensive labour: total
cattle numbers increased by less than half, the area under pasture more
26
than doubled. This occurred in part because reduced cereal output
meant that fewer cattle were kept as part of labour-intensive mixed
farming in yards and stalls and partly because there was greater resort
to labour-saving ‘rough grazing’ that supported fewer cattle on a given
acreage. R. Hunter Pringle’s 1893 map showing where ‘tumbledown’
occurred, indicates concentrations in and about some of these group 3
27
25
Local markets served by road probably took much of the additional milk produced in these
group 3 parishes.
26
Moreover, sheep numbers fell (by 44%) as they did in most parts of Essex. Mutton prices held
up reasonably well, but fewer sheep were required for their auxiliary role in cereal production and
the price of wool fell by even more than that of wheat (tab. 4 below).
27
Thus on some Essex farms reduced dependence on cereals, and increased dependence on cattle,
occurred together with a reduction in the number of cattle: Collins, Orsett estate, p. 72.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
249
parishes. Steeple, St Lawrence, and East Hanningfield lay within that
district ‘between Chelmsford, Maldon and the Blackwater in the north
and the Tilbury-Southend railway in the south’ where two-fifths of the
land was reported ‘lying practically waste, producing a scanty coarse
28
herbage which can be used only for rough grazing’.
Another change, and another reason why pasture here expanded more
than the rise in cattle numbers, was that hay output increased substan-
tially, at a rate almost three times the county increase. Hay was a less
labour-intensive winter feed than roots or green crops. Moreover, Lon-
don’s horse population required ever-growing supplies of hay, providing
market opportunities for farmers close to London and for more distant
farmers with access to cheap transport. Although poorly served by rail-
ways, four out of five of these group 3 parishes were close to the
Blackwater estuary from where hay was taken to London by sailing
29
barge.
Thus, responses to depression here, shaped by specific local circum-
stances, differed in several respects from those noted in clayland parish
groups 1 and 2. Transport constraints precluded the textbook substitution
of dairying, and thus, as wheat ceased to be profitable, low intensity
stock raising and hay making were expanded on the basis of substituting
indifferent pasture for indifferent arable with minimal capital outlay. This
increased the output of labour, whose cost was rising, in exchange for
lower output per acre on cheapening land. Such ‘low farming’ was much
deplored at the time as aesthetically inferior to the technically more
30
sophisticated, and more productive, ‘high farming’. Some modern
accounts, either explicitly or implicitly, are similarly critical in that they
31
interpret falling, or slowly growing, farm output as evidence of ‘failure’.
Detailed local analysis of land use on the heavy clays thus reveals a
diversity of farming circumstances, and a diversity of responses to
depression, even among parishes on similar soil within one county. Beef
production, for example, was expanding in parishes where poor transport
discouraged dairying (group 3) at the same time as it was being displaced
32
by dairying in parishes along recently completed railways (group 2).
The textbook substitution of milk for cereals was important among these
responses but changes within the cereal regime, and other alternatives to
cereals, were important also, and in some places milk appears not to
have been a viable alternative. None of the changes that occurred were
obviously irrational and considerable adjustment occurred. Over 10 per
28
RC on Agricultural Depression (P.P. 1894, XVI, pt. i), endpaper; VCH Essex, II, p. 339. Pringle’s
map does not include all group 3 parishes.
29
Other crops and manure were also moved by water. St John’s College, Cambridge, MS. Senior
Bursar’s diary (1891), SB 1.20; VCH Essex, II, p. 473. Hay was taken from 10.3% of acreage in
these group 3 parishes in 1870, 74 and from 23.4% in 1896-7.
3
3
0
1
Channing, for example, Agricultural depression, p. 4.
Offer, Agrarian interpretation, pp. 94-104; Kindleberger, Economic growth in France and Britain,
pp. 239-47.
32
According to the annual Agricultural Returns (PRO, MAF 68), the number of non-dairy cattle
per 100 acres was: for group 2 parishes, 1886-7, 7.1 and 1896-7, 6.4; for group 3 parishes, 1886-
7, 4.6 and 1896-7, 6.5.

Economic History Society 2001

250
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
cent of acreage remained under wheat at the end of the depression,
probably concentrated on patches of better land amid the heavy clays.
Whether or not this residual wheat acreage, and an undiminished commit-
ment to oats and barley, is evidence of a minority attachment to ‘farming
that did not pay’ remains, of course, a crucial question.
boulder clay and medium soils: Parish groups 4-6
Moving now to group 4 parishes, we leave the London clays for the
more easily worked boulder clay. These parishes were also on, or close
to, rail transport and their farming in the early 1870s was largely arable,
with sheep and stock raising, much of it complementary to cereals, also
important. Wheat, barley, and oats accounted for almost half of farmland,
and fallow, beans, and root crops for a further 23 per cent. On these
less heavy clay soils considerably more barley was grown than on the
London clays. Given reasonable rail links with London, the proportion
of land under grass (22 per cent) and the number of dairy cattle (only
2
per 100 acres) might be considered remarkably low despite recently
satisfactory cereal prices. Dairy cattle density was no greater here in
1
2
870, 74 than in clayland parishes far less well served by railways (groups
and 3). Here, then, was land that was predominantly arable when the
depression began, yet, with access to railways, apparently well placed to
switch towards dairying or some combination of dairying and stock raising
when cereal prices came under pressure.
In this context what is most remarkable about land use here is how
little it changed in the following 20 years. Cereal acreage, 49 per cent
of farmland in 1870, 74, had fallen only to 43 per cent by 1896-7.
Cereals, fallow, beans, and root crops together still accounted for almost
two-thirds of farmland. A reappraisal of cereal priorities had occurred
with the wheat area down by one-third and rather more land under
barley and oats, which was in accordance with changing price differentials,
but it is quite clear that the overall retreat from cereals was significantly
less than that which occurred on the London clays (groups 1-3). The
contrast with group 3 parishes, doubly burdened with heavy clay and
poor transport, yet where the reduction in cereal acreage was more than
three times greater, is particularly striking. Over the same period the
pasture acreage increased, but to only about one-third of farmland, well
below levels in the London clay parishes. Dairy cattle numbers likewise
rose moderately—from 2.0 to 2.4 per 100 acres, less than the increase
in the non-rail heavy clay parishes (group 3)—and non-dairy cattle num-
bers fell slightly. Here, it appears, there was little additional reliance on
stock raising of the kind so important in group 3 parishes, although
changes in the ratio of animals to pasture acreage suggest some movement
towards methods that substituted land for labour.
These changes are very different in magnitude from those that occurred
on the heavy clays, although they are also intriguingly similar in direction,
which implies that boulder clay farmers, or some of them, were aware
of the standard alternatives when cereals no longer paid. Whereas land

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
251
use on the heavy clays changed substantially as market conditions deterio-
rated, these boulder clay parishes were unusually committed to cereals
in the 1870s and only marginally less committed at the close of the
depression. Here (at last) is evidence apparently compatible with the
familiar claims that through inertia and ignorance farmers in the south
east persisted with cereals when market indicators urged greater reliance
on milk and meat.
Group 5 parishes, also on boulder clay, were far less well served by
railways. When the depression began, land use here had much in common
with that in group 4 parishes: both groups of parishes were heavily
committed to cereals, had less than a quarter of land under grass, and
had non-dairy cattle in similar densities. Neither parish group contained
many dairy cattle but there were exceptionally few in the group 5 parishes,
indicating that even during the ‘golden age’, when dairying held limited
attractions on good arable land, it was more likely to be found on farms
with access to rail transport.
Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, in the following depression dairying
won even fewer converts in these parishes than in those of group 4: in
fact, the agricultural returns show a reduction in dairy cattle density
between 1870, 74 and 1896-7. Nor was there any significant movement
towards specialist stock raising: the density of non-dairy cattle hardly
changed, remaining well below the county average. Moreover, compara-
tively little land was converted to pasture. In the mid-1890s the proportion
of land under grass remained less than in any of the other seven parish
groups although, as elsewhere, the returns are compatible with cattle
occupying an enlarged area of (presumably poorer) pasture. Wheat, bar-
ley, and oats still occupied half of farmland in 1896-7 just as before the
depression, and fallow, beans, and root crops raised this to two-thirds of
acreage. The wheat area had declined and more land was under barley
and oats, but in most respects the broad outlines of land use appear to
have changed very little. Thus the overall pattern has much in common
with that evident in group 4 parishes, while the principal characteristics—
unwavering devotion to cereals and no significant expansion of dairy and
beef production—were even more evident, presumably because group 5
parishes were less well served by railways. Farmers might have expanded
stock raising, of course (as group 3 farmers had done), even if poor
transport discouraged dairying: but this option was not exploited either.
Group 6 comprises four east Essex parishes on good medium (Tendring
Hundred) soils. Easily worked and highly adaptable, these soils were
superior to the boulder clays and far superior to London clay. Moreover,
group 6 parishes were close to the mainline railways from Harwich and
Walton-on-the-Naze, and thus well placed to send milk to London.
However, the earlier agricultural returns suggest that little milk was sent
further than nearby towns because there were fewer than two dairy cows
to each 100 acres, well below the county average. Far more non-dairy
cattle were kept, about as many as the county average, and rather above
the density recorded in the boulder clay parishes (group 4, 5). The
proportion of grassland was likewise a little higher than that on the

Economic History Society 2001

252
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
boulder clays and, as in those areas, much beef raising was probably
then part of cereal-dominated mixed farming with cattle as likely to be
found in stalls and yards as on grass. Almost half of the land was under
cereals and a further one-fifth under fallow, beans, and root crops,
concentrations again similar to those noted for the boulder clay parishes,
although the superior quality of group 6 soils is evident in less land being
33
under fallow and beans and more under rotation root crops. How did
this pattern change in the ensuing depression? The 1896-7 agricultural
returns indicate several responses to hard times: in particular, the area
under grass had increased to one-third of acreage and that under cereals
had fallen from 47.7 to 44.6 per cent of the total. Some other changes
are evident: there were fewer sheep by the 1890s, as occurred throughout
Essex, more grass was cut for hay, and there was a 6 per cent increase
in the number of dairy cattle. But this falls well short of transformation:
across Essex as a whole, the cereal acreage fell over three times faster,
and the number of dairy cattle rose six times faster. With 45 per cent
of land still producing wheat, barley, and oats, and another 21 per cent
devoted to fallow, beans, and rotation roots, these parishes remained
predominantly corn country. Equally remarkable, milk and beef pro-
duction appear to have been of hardly more consequence at the
depression’s end than when it began. The overwhelming impression,
therefore, is that after more than 20 difficult years, in which corn
producers suffered particularly, cereals were still the farming mainstay,
although local soils could have been grassed down and railways were
34
close by. There are obvious similarities with the circumstances described
in the boulder clay parishes.
Taken together, therefore, the three groups of boulder clay and medium
soil parishes display responses to depression in important respects mark-
edly different to those introduced on the heavy clays. Whereas heavy-
clay farmers significantly reduced their dependence upon cereals and
expanded dairying where they could, those on the boulder clay and
medium soils, even more heavily committed to cereals when depression
began, had scarcely modified that commitment when it ended. But it is
no less clear that the decidedly modest changes in land use introduced
on these boulder clay and medium soils were similar in kind to those
introduced on the clays. It is clear too that on both the boulder and
heavy clays changes in land use were significantly related to transport
availability. The most interesting of these characteristics is the continuing
commitment to cereals on the boulder clays and medium soils because
such lack of response might offer support to the charge that British
agriculture, like British industry, failed to adapt to changing market
opportunities.
33
In 1870, 74 the proportion of farmland under fallow and beans in parish groups 4, 5, and 6
was, respectively, 17, 17, and 5%; the proportion under turnips, swedes, and mangolds was 6, 5,
and 16%.
34
It would have been instructive to examine land use on medium soil parishes more distant from
railways than those of group 6, but insufficient parishes fall into this category.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
light soil: Parish groups 7, 8
253
Group 7 consists of parishes largely on light soils. As noted earlier, the
advantages of light soils are that they warm quickly and are easy to work
and drain. Their disadvantages include low intrinsic fertility and rapid
‘
drying out’ which limited their value both for permanent pasture and
for cereals. These particular light soil parishes enjoyed good rail links
with London, and four of the five were also close to one of the larger
Essex towns (Southend, Colchester, Chelmsford).
In the early 1870s cereal cultivation, occupying almost half of farmland,
was almost as widespread in the group 7 parishes as it was in the boulder
clay and medium soil districts (groups 4, 5, 6). About a quarter of the
land was under grass, and dairy cattle (present at the same density as in
Essex as a whole) were considerably out-numbered by non-dairy cattle.
By 1896-7 the acreage under cereals had fallen by about one-fifth. This
considerably exceeded the decline on the fertile boulder clays and medium
soils (groups 4, 5, 6) but equally clearly was less than the decline that
occurred on the heavy London clays (groups 1, 2, 3). Wheat acreage fell
by a substantial 40 per cent, and barley acreage by 18 per cent, while
that under oats more than doubled. Over the same period (1870, 74 to
1
896-7) the pasture area rose by about 38 per cent, to almost one-third
of farmland, helping to accommodate a modestly reduced number of
beef cattle and two-thirds more dairy cattle. This was a far greater
expansion of dairying than occurred on the boulder clays and medium
soils but less than occurred on heavy clay land with access to railways.
Milk from Lord Rayleigh’s estate, despatched to London through Hatfield
35
Peverel station, was a part of this dairying expansion. Another change
evident in this parish group by the mid-1890s is that some 150 acres were
returned as market gardens, nursery gardens, and orchards, particularly in
Hatfield Peverel and near to Colchester and Southend. Considerable
quantities of potatoes, another demanding crop, were also grown. Given
sufficient manure or other fertilizers, the light soils were well suited to
intensive cultivation of these kinds.
The last parish group (group 8) illustrates farming patterns in four
36
mainly light soil parishes similar to those of group 7 but less well served
by railways. They were not entirely remote from urban markets: parts of
Danbury parish are not far from Chelmsford and the railway; parts of
Great Stambridge are near to Rochford; and in 1888 a new line to
Southend was opened, passing through Rochford. But access to urban
markets, compared with that enjoyed by group 7 parishes, was sufficiently
inferior to assist understanding of how railway availability shaped
responses to depression.
35
Lord Rayleigh’s agent (and brother) Edward Strutt commenced large-scale milk production on
the 4,000 acres he farmed in the mid-1880s. By 1895 milk accounted for half of in-hand farm
income: Gavin, Family farming, p. 85; RC on Agricultural Depression (P.P. 1894, XVI, pt. i), QQ.
1
3803-942.
36
The major qualification to this description is alluvial soil in parts of Great Stambridge and
Great Wakering.

Economic History Society 2001

254
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
In the early 1870s the proportions of farmland devoted to cereals and
grass in these group 8 parishes were very similar to their equivalents in
group 7 parishes. But whereas in the group 7 parishes dairy cattle
numbers by 1896-7 had increased by two-thirds, in the group 8 parishes,
more distant from railways, their number barely changed. Moreover,
whereas the number of cattle raised for beef had fallen slightly in the
light soil parish group where dairying expanded (group 7), in these
parishes where poorer transport restricted dairying opportunities there
was a small increase in their number. Another feature of land use in
these group 8 parishes was an expansion in the area under grass that far
outstripped the rise in cattle numbers. This occurred partly because the
37
acreage devoted to hay production more than doubled and also because,
as in some other areas badly placed to expand dairying, farmers responded
to depression partly by converting marginal corn land to labour-saving
rough grazing.
Thus, with these two light soil parish groups, we return to patterns of
the kind evident on the heavy clays (parish groups 1-3) and so conspicu-
ously absent on the boulder clay and medium soils (parish groups 4-6).
That is, to changes in land use that were broadly compatible with
farmers and landlords having been aware of market trends and responding
appropriately. These changes differed in extent between the two light soil
parish groups, not least because of differing access to railways (tables 1,
2
), but the overall direction of change was clearly away from cereals,
especially from wheat, and, according to transport availability, towards
dairying or other alternatives to wheat.
III
Clearly land-use evidence indicates great variety in responses to depression
in different parts of Essex. Among the parish groups analysed here,
changes in cereal acreage ranged from the scarcely perceptible to
reductions of over two-fifths; dairy cattle numbers fell in some parishes
but almost doubled in others; and changes in the number of non-dairy
cattle ranged from a fall of 10 per cent to increases of almost half. Certain
broad patterns, and some interesting deviations from these patterns, have
been highlighted and are summarized in figures 1-3. Categorizing parish
groups according to soil type indicates that the retreat from cereals was
far more evident on heavy London clay than it was on the more fertile
boulder clay and mixed soils (figure 1). Figure 2 demonstrates that poor
access to rail transport was associated with only modest increases (or
decreases) in dairy cattle numbers, but also that proximity to railways
did not everywhere lead to substantially increased dairying because parish
groups 4 and 6, respectively on boulder clay and medium soils, present
37
Between 1870, 74 and 1896-7 cattle numbers increased only from 6.7 to 7.0 per 100 acres
and sheep numbers fell by a quarter) while the area under grass rose by 63%. These group 8
(
parishes were well positioned to send hay to London cheaply by water (map 1). Potatoes for
London, and fertilizer brought from London, were probably also moved by water.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
255
Figure 1. Change in proportion of farmland under cereals (%), 1870, 74 to
1
896-7: soil type and rail access
Source: table 3
Figure 2. Change in dairy cattle number/acreage (%), 1870, 74 to 1896-7:
soil type and rail access
Source: table 3
the remarkable (and possibly reprehensible) combination of reasonable
access to railways, little expansion of dairying, and barely diminished
cereal acreage. Within these boulder clay and medium soil parish groups,
however, there was a contrast between modest expansion of dairying in
parishes with good access to railways (groups 4, 6) and modest contrac-
tion in those more distant from railways (group 5). In the case of non-
dairy cattle (figure 3), changes during the depression, not surprisingly,
appear to have been less closely related to rail accessibility. On the
boulder clays, medium, and light soils their numbers changed very little:
on the heavy clay they rose significantly. Most of the responses described

Economic History Society 2001

256
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
Figure 3. Change in non-dairy cattle number/acreage (%), 1870, 74 to 1896-
7
: soil type and rail access
Source: table 3
appear to have been rational and market-driven. The reasons for others,
particularly the relative lack of change on the boulder clays and medium
soils, are less immediately evident. But it is quite clear that responses to
depression were more varied, more nuanced, than a uniform conversion,
or failure to convert, from cereals to livestock.
On the heavy clays (parish groups 1-3), which was good corn land
only when prices and the weather were favourable, the cereal acreage
was reduced considerably despite the difficulty and cost of establishing
good pasture. What was substituted for cereals appears to have been
shaped partly by transport availability. Thus in parish groups 1 and 2,
with access to rail, dairying expanded far faster than stock raising, while
in parish group 3, still poorly served by railways in the 1890s, the greater
expansion was in stock raising. Particularly interesting is the finding that
in the first half of the depression, when group 2 parishes were still remote
from railways, dairy cattle numbers there increased less rapidly than the
number of non-dairy cattle, but when new branch lines reached farms
that previously had converted from arable to rough pasture the expansion
in dairying accelerated and stock raising contracted. In group 3 parishes,
still without railways in the 1890s, pasture acreage expanded considerably
faster than cattle numbers and this, it was suggested, is further evidence
of finely tuned responses to depression. As land became cheaper, and
labour more expensive, farmers were less fastidious about weeding, hedg-
ing, and ditching and moved towards rough grazing and raising grass for
hay, using their land less intensively, economizing on labour, and effecting
conversion from arable to grassland without the heavy expenditure that
was necessary to make good pasture on heavy clay.
This, of course, was ‘low farming’ and, as noted above, it meant
reduced output per acre, farms and fields less pleasing to the eye, and—
both at the time and more recently—disparaging comparison with more

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
257
productive farming. An important implication of the diversity of responses
to depression described earlier, however, is that there is good reason to
38
regard ‘low farming’ more positively. It curbed escalating labour costs
and avoided much of the considerable risk that attended thorough-going
conversion to pasture on land ill-suited to grass or distant from railways.
The failure of farm output to grow much at this time, and the probability
that it fell in the south east, are perhaps given too much emphasis in
appraisals of the agricultural performance, while the related improvement
in labour productivity that ‘low farming’ made possible deserves greater
39
emphasis. Kindleberger, for example, was able to claim that British
agriculture failed to adapt sufficiently, partly because he conceived ‘low
farming’ not as part of that adaptation, but as the contemptible last
resort of farmers with insufficient initiative to pursue higher-yielding
40
alternatives to cereals. In fact, given that its introduction required
farmers to repudiate yield-maximizing doctrines of the kind so widely
endorsed in the ‘golden age’, ‘low farming’ might be regarded as among
the more innovative responses to depression.
On the lighter soils too (parish groups 7 and 8), responses to
depression, as indicated by changing land use, offer little support to
charges that southern farmers were fatally attached to wheat: there the
wheat acreage fell by 40 per cent (group 7) and 54 per cent (group 8).
And in one or both of these parish groups, partly depending on proximity
to rail or water transport, there was expansion of dairying, of hay and
oats production (much of which found its way to London for animal
feed), of low-intensity stock raising, and also of potato growing and
market gardening. So, on both the heavy clays and lighter soils, responses
to depression appear to have been rational and in accordance with local
circumstances and market opportunities. Milk production was widely
substituted for cereals, but was one among a number of responses.
What stands out particularly is the variety of local circumstances and of
appropriately focused responses to depression. Far more such diversity is
evident in the agricultural returns than has been mentioned above: there
was, for example, extensive market gardening on Thames-side light soils
41
close to London and much heavy clay land close to London was already
under grass when the depression began and hence well placed to respond
38
Wages were the farmers’ biggest outgoing. One estimate suggested that every 25-35 acres
grassed-down enabled farmers to dispense with one labourer: Perry, British farming, p. 111.
39
Labour productivity estimates vary greatly according to which prices are used to measure output
and how the labour force is defined. The number of hired labourers fell considerably faster than
´
the number of employees and farmers combined. O Gr a´ da’s figures indicate ‘a sharp rise in output
´
per worker’: O Gr a´ da, ‘British agriculture, 1860-1914’, pp. 146-8. Whether capital was also re-
allocated away from agriculture is not entirely clear, although O Gr a´ da’s figures (ibid., p. 149)
´
suggest this was the case.
4
0
Kindleberger, Economic growth in France and Britain, pp. 209, 239-43. Offer, Agrarian interpret-
ation, p. 95: ‘agriculture in Britain led the vanguard of economic re ´t ardation and decline’.
41
See, for example, Collins, Orsett estate, pp. 66-9.

Economic History Society 2001

258
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
42
to the capital’s ever-growing need for hay and horses. Another important
theme is the extent to which positive adaptation focused above all upon
cutting costs, especially labour costs, while also expanding output of
produce for which demand was comparatively buoyant. Rough grazing,
43
grass for hay, and the displacement of wheat by oats and barley each
represented movement towards low-cost, low-yield, farming. Oats and
barley raised less revenue than wheat but also required less labour, took
less from the soil, and, because they were relatively costly to transport,
proximity to London markets gave Essex farmers some advantage in
their production.
The major exception to such evidence of rational responses to
depression is, of course, that apparent in the land-use returns for the
boulder clay and medium soil parishes (groups 4, 5, 6). There, as we
saw, land use changed, or rather failed to change, in ways that might
appear entirely compatible with charges of agricultural ‘failure’. Cereal
imports mounted, cereal prices fell, and although two parish groups had
reasonable rail links with London, the cereal acreage barely altered and
expansion in milk and beef production was infinitesimal. Was this a
consequence of the legendary obsession with corn that features so promi-
nently in accounts critical of agricultural performance? Possibly. But there
are reasons to believe that farmers of boulder clay and medium soil who
persisted in cereal production may not have been acting irrationally. Was
the extensive restructuring that has been described in other Essex parishes
likely to have co-existed with enclaves of economic irrationality? Is it
credible that some farmers were indifferent to market signals while others
not far away behaved like textbook economic men? The nature of such
low-key change as occurred on these boulder clays and medium soils
perhaps helps to answer these questions. Although change was limited it
was consistent with market signals: some land, presumably that least
44
suited to cereals or closest to stations or towns, was converted to
pasture and where rail transport was available (groups 4, 6) there was a
modest increase in dairying. Also, as occurred elsewhere, there was a
subtle re-ordering of cereal priorities in response to differentiated price
falls (table 3 above).
Of course, if cereal growing on these boulder clay and medium soils
persisted for long at a loss, as some critics allege, charges of economic
na ¨ı vety could not easily be disregarded. Cereal prices certainly fell sub-
stantially: by 1894-5 wheat was selling at under 25s. a quarter although
2
0 years earlier there were complaints that it barely paid at double this
price. But production costs varied significantly according to soil type:
42
In the parishes of Waltham Holy Cross, Lambourne, Theydon Bois, Chingford, and Loughton,
cereals in 1870, 74 occupied only 18% of farmland. Half of farmland then produced hay and 59%
did so by 1896-7. In 1870, 74 there were 3.9 horses to each 100 acres and by 1896-7, although
less land was ploughed, there were 5.8 horses per 100 acres.
4
4
3
4
Hay prices fell less than cereal prices: Hunt and Pam, ‘Prices and structural response’, p. 479.
It bears repeating that there was a variety of minority soil types within most Essex parishes.
Thus some land in the predominantly boulder clay and medium soil parishes became marginal for
wheat as prices fell, while in the heavy clay districts there were areas of lighter soil on which cereal
growing probably remained viable.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
259
there was never a single benchmark price below which growing cereals
was evidence of indifference to market signals. Raising cereals on these
boulder clay and medium soils was easier and more rewarding than
producing similar crops on the heavy clays. As cereal prices fell the more
intractable land became marginal and then sub-marginal, first for wheat
and, in time, for barley and oats also. Accordingly, as we have seen, on
the clays and light soils wheat was being abandoned in favour of other
cereals, and cereals generally gave way to dairying and stock raising. But
on the better cereal land—and the boulder clay and medium soils of
parish groups 4, 5, and 6 included some of the best cereal land in
England—wheat could be grown profitably, despite falling prices, long
after it ceased to be viable elsewhere.
Moreover, the price range at which cereal production was viable shifted
constantly, and usually downwards because costs were falling. Rents were
reduced and rising wages were more than offset by labour economies as
farmers abandoned the quest for maximum output. New farm machines,
especially the reaper-binder, operating effectively by 1880, made a distinc-
45
tive contribution to cutting labour costs in arable farming, as did
improved drainage. Labour economies were not difficult to achieve
because local labour markets, except on the metropolitan fringe, had long
been characterized by labour abundance and underemployment: one farm
on the Tabor estate employed 19 men and boys in 1873 but only 11 by
4
6
1
896. Another Essex farm, on good corn land, in 1895 still found it
worthwhile to produce wheat at under 25s. a quarter whereas in the
870s the break-even price was reckoned to be around 40s. Making
47
1
wheat pay at depression prices was ‘no mystery at all’ according to
another Essex farmer whose explanation encapsulates the essence of ‘low
farming’: the key was to produce only ‘fairly good’ crops ‘at a minimum
48
of cost’, ‘the first thing was to reduce the number of men and horses’.
Christopher Matthews, farming on boulder clay near Good Easter (group
), was likewise able to continue growing cereals at prices prohibitive on
5
the heavy clays and which at one time would have been discouraging on
even the best Essex soils. In evidence to the second Royal Commission
on Agricultural Depression he reported only 15 per cent of his farm
49
under grass and no plans to increase this proportion. Reviewing options
soon afterwards, the Matthews family proposed planting cricket-bat wil-
4
5
‘
A godsend to hardpressed farmers . . . making it viable to grow wheat at thirty shillings a
´
quarter’: O Gr a´ da, ‘British agriculture, 1860-1914’, p. 156.
46
Hunt, ‘Wages in Britain’, pp. 956-7; idem, Regional wage variations, chs. 1, 4; Essex Record
´
Office, Chelmsford, D/D-Ta A53, 1873; D/D Ta A74, 1896. Between the census of 1871 and that
of 1901 the Essex farm labour force was reduced by one-third. The ‘leaner-meaner’ low-farming
regime included less altruistic attitudes to employees. Workers were more likely to be laid off during
adverse weather and in slack seasons, elderly and other marginal employees were less often retained.
4
4
7
8
Danvers, ‘Agriculture in Essex’, pp. 255, 259.
McConnell, ‘Scotsman on the Essex clays’, pp. 317, 320. Wheat yields afford further insight
into the consequences of ‘low farming’. Although the wheat acreage fell substantially between the
early 1870s and the mid-1890s, with the land least suited to wheat being abandoned first, wheat
yields increased little, if at all: Perry, British farming, pp. 124-5; Thompson, ‘Agriculture and economic
growth’, p. 49.
49
P.P. 1896, XVII, QQ. 61466-9.

Economic History Society 2001

260
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
lows and keeping hens, but rejected increased milk or beef output, not
50
least because the farm was seven or eight miles from a station. On the
Rayleigh estate careful record keeping proved not incompatible with
maintaining a considerable (although diminishing) commitment to wheat
51
throughout the depression. Such examples demonstrate how on the
better Essex soils cost reductions, together with some judicious substi-
52
tution of oats or barley for wheat, and receipts from sales of straw,
almost certainly enabled farmers to continue cereal growing without
incurring the losses that Perry and others (above) equate with mana-
gerial failure.
It could be argued that continued cereal cultivation might, even so,
have owed something to inertia, that Christopher Matthews and others
on good land persisted with cereals not because dairying or stock raising
would have been no more profitable, but because the very excellence of
their land allowed them to avoid changes of a kind inevitable on the
heavy clays. The relative ease of converting the medium soils perhaps
implies that this was not generally the case, as does the Matthews’
readiness to experiment with hens and willows. Further reason to suppose
that cereals may have remained a rational choice on good corn land can
be found in an earlier article where we argued that claims equating
continued cereal production with agricultural inertia arise partly from
exaggerated notions concerning the profitability of stock raising and
53
dairying. Market signals indicating conversion to livestock were more
muted, more ambiguous, and less consistent, than once supposed. There
were long periods when milk and meat prices were depressed, and even
in the long run, differences between cereal and livestock prices were not
as great as Fletcher supposed. Beef and mutton prices fell by not much
less than those of barley and oats, wool prices fell more than wheat
prices (table 4), and farmers who substituted beef production for cereals
were motivated less by the course of beef prices than by the opportunity
54
thus presented to reduce labour costs. The allegedly ‘lucrative liquid
milk trade’, supposedly with ‘everything in its favour’, in fact was certainly
no guaranteed route to prosperity: there were frequent milk gluts and
numerous contemporary reports of markets ‘flooded’, ‘overstocked’, of
50
Personal communication, the late J. A. Matthews to S. J. Pam. J. A. Matthews was the grandson
of Christopher Matthews who gave evidence to the 1896 Commission. Members of the Matthews
family still farm at Good Easter.
5
5
1
2
Gavin, Family farming, pp. 85-6, 100; Haggard, ‘Essex’, pp. 463-4.
Straw, usually overlooked in discussions of cereal profitability, was used inter alia for animal
bedding, animal feed, thatch, paper making, packing, and the manufacture of hats, baskets, and
furniture. Its price held up better than the price of wheat. One estimate, from 1887, put its value
per acre at around 25% of that of ‘grain’: Hunt and Pam, ‘Prices and structural response’, p. 479;
Bear, British farmer, p. 32; Perry, British farming, p. 124; Walton, ‘Varietal innovation’, pp. 39-42.
5
5
3
4
Hunt and Pam, ‘Prices and structural response’, pp. 486-95.
Thus, increased Essex beef output was far more of poor quality rough-grazed stock than of
stall-fed prime beef, notwithstanding cheaper brought-in feed and growing overseas competition at
the lower end of the market. On the Rayleigh estate, still producing wheat, careful book keeping
indicated that ‘no man . . . could keep cost accounts and yarded cattle’: Gavin, Family farming,
pp. 85-6.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
261
Table 4. Agricultural prices, 1871-95, five-year averages (1871-5 = 100)
Date
Wheat Barley Oats
Pork Mutton Wool
Beef
Milk Butter Cheese
1
1
1
1
876-80
87
73
57
51
92
79
68
64
Ϫ36
93
81
67
69
Ϫ31
99
93
80
82
Ϫ18
93
94
79
72
Ϫ28
69
48
47
46
Ϫ54
91
91
72
72
Ϫ28
100
97
88
86
Ϫ14
97
93
82
80
Ϫ20
94
95
84
74
Ϫ26
881-5
886-90
891-5
Change, 1871-5 Ϫ49
to 1891-5 (%)
Source: Hunt and Pam, ‘Prices and structural response’, p. 481
55
milk ‘never so plentiful’. Nor was milk production in Essex entirely
56
‘
immune from foreign competition’ because rising cheese and butter
imports encouraged west country and midland farmers to add their quota
of liquid milk to the periodically over-supplied London market. Cereal
farmers on the boulder clay and medium Essex soils would have been
far more aware of such developments than their late twentieth-century
critics. They knew too that much of the clay and light soil land becoming
sub-marginal for cereal growing would eventually intensify pressure on
57
milk prices. They were aware also that low rainfall in Essex—and the
consequent supplementary feeding—added to the considerable risk
entailed in moving towards dairying, that conversion required considerable
investment and a temporary loss of income, that labour skilled in manag-
ing a dairy herd to ensure milk throughout the year was not easily
5
8
recruited in traditional corn country, and that animal disease might
59
‘
sweep away half a man’s capital’.
Farmers’ responses to incentives to plant more, or less, of different
cereals afford further implicit evidence on their likely response to incen-
tives to make the more costly and risky transition from cereals to dairying.
Work still in progress on year-upon-year fluctuations in prices and acre-
age, of which two examples are cited here, adds to the impression that
Essex cereal farmers were more market-oriented than their critics claim
and that they are unlikely to have cultivated cereals at a loss or when
long-term prospects for dairying appeared distinctly more profitable.
55
Hunt and Pam, ‘Prices and structural response’, pp. 492-3; Fletcher, ‘Great depression’, p. 419;
Brown, Agriculture in England, p. 48.
5
5
6
7
Fletcher, ‘Great depression’, p. 420.
The Cowkeeper and Dairyman’s Journal in Dec. 1893 (p. 109) reported dairy farmers begging
R. Hunter Pringle not to drive milk prices lower by recommending that farmers still producing
cereals should turn to milk. The following year he wrote, ‘I would particularly guard myself against
recommending any palpable expansion of the milk supply to London . . . during the last six years
the margin of profit to the cowkeeper has been very narrow’: R.C. on Agricultural Depression (P.P.
1
894, XVI, pt. i), p. 83.
58
This problem was frequently noted. See, for examples, Collins, Orsett estate, p. 44; Essex
Standard, 15 Dec. 1883; Haggard, ‘Essex’, pp. 480, 484; Danvers, ‘Agriculture in Essex’, pp. 269-70.
59
Essex Standard, 23 Jan. 1886.

Economic History Society 2001

262
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
110
price (previous year)
acreage
1
00
9
8
7
6
5
4
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
873 1875
1880
1885
Year
1890
1895
1898
Figure 4. Wheat prices and acreage, Essex 1871-98 (1871-5 = 100)
Sources: Agricultural Statistics (England and Wales); Hunt and Pam, ‘Prices and structural response’, tab. 1
Figure 4 plots wheat prices (lagged) and acreage in Essex. The long
retreat from wheat was frequently interrupted: in 1876-8, for example,
and in 1886-8, the area planted with wheat exceeded that of previous
years. Such short-run supply fluctuations occurred for many reasons—
changes in rent and wages, for example, and expectations of future price
movements—but if farmers acted rationally we should expect that recent
prices were important among these influences, and figure 4 suggests, fairly
clearly, that this was the case: marginal land, it seems, was added to the
wheat acreage when wheat prices rose and put to alternative use when
they fell. Thus, when prices fell in 1873/4 and 1874/5 the area planted
to wheat (in 1875 and 1876) fell also: the 1876 and 1877 harvests
fetched better prices and in 1877 and 1878 more land was put under
60
wheat. Changes in the prices of alternative crops were another influence
upon supply, and figure 5 shows how wheat supply, relative to barley
supply, fluctuated in response to changes in the wheat-barley price ratio.
Much land could be used for wheat or barley and it appears that in the
short run (as in the long run, for which see tables 3, 4) farmers ‘fine-
tuned’ their cereal-mix in response to changes in relative cereal prices.
What happened when wheat prices began a hesitant recovery in the mid-
1
890s has similar implications. Higher prices brought more of the better
land under wheat and in good years returns were distinctly satisfactory.
Shortly after the turn of the century Edward Strutt on the Rayleigh estate
reported wheat among the most profitable of farm activities, ‘wheat pays
60
The Pearson correlation coefficient of all the readings from 1873 to 1896 is 0.93.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
263
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
10
00
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
ratio of barley to wheat acreage
ratio of barley to wheat price
(
previous year)
110
1
00
9
8
0
0
1
873 1875
1880
1885
Year
1890
1895
1898
Figure 5. Wheat and barley prices and acreage, Essex 1871-98 (1871-5 = 100)
Sources: Agricultural Statistics (England and Wales); Hunt and Pam, ‘Prices and structural response’, tab. 1
better than any other crop, more indeed than cows and much more
61
than bullocks’. By 1911 the boulder clay wheat acreage exceeded that
of 1870.
IV
Disaggregated spatial analysis of land use in one county has enhanced
understanding of the late nineteenth-century agricultural depression and
of farmers’ responses to depression. Parish by parish analysis indicates a
greater range of farming opportunities and restraints, and more nuanced
responses, than are evident in county or national statistics. Switching to
dairying or meat was by no means the only, or everywhere the best,
substitute for wheat. In Essex producing hay or oats for sale in London
were important alternatives. Most such change occurred within the con-
text of determined, innovative, and effective attempts to reduce costs,
particularly labour costs, a campaign central to Essex farmers’ response
to depression. It has been argued also that ‘low farming’, crucial to this
campaign, should be viewed more positively. The lower yields it entailed
have too often been interpreted as evidence of agricultural ‘failure’, or
even of failure to adapt. But maximizing output was an indulgent strategy
rather than an appropriate one, even in the high farming ‘golden age’,
and in the depression ‘high farming’ became unsustainable: falling prices
61
Haggard, ‘Essex’, pp. 463-4.

Economic History Society 2001

264
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
had made poor land marginal, and it was not irrational to treat it
accordingly. Adaptation required a ‘leaner-meaner’ regime, and the conse-
quent reduced output is no more evidence of ‘failure’ than is the
accompanying rise in labour productivity. At the same time, of course,
labour was successfully re-allocated to better-paid, higher-productivity
work outside agriculture.
The agricultural returns demonstrate beyond question that considerable
structural change occurred in Essex, and in English farming generally.
Local soil type was crucial in determining whether or not cereals remained
profitable, and, when cereals no longer paid, what was substituted
depended largely on local transport availability. Successful dairying
required access to urban markets, and on land favourably situated, and
not particularly suitable for cereals, conversion from arable to livestock
along textbook lines occurred rapidly. In this context it is worth noting
62
also that, contrary to popular myth, Essex farmers did not wait upon
migrant Scots to demonstrate the viability of dairying: there was consider-
able dairying along the London-Colchester railway long before low rents
attracted land-hungry Scots. The parish returns likewise indicate that the
much-maligned, allegedly inflexible, heavy-clay farmers were prominent
among those converting from cereals to livestock. Where poor soil and
inaccessibility to urban markets precluded both cereals and milk, the
most usual resort was low-intensity cattle raising on rough pasture, in
places accompanied by sales of hay.
It was on the better cereal land, on soils far more adaptable than the
heavy clays, that least conversion occurred. Land use in the boulder clay
and medium soil parishes (groups 4, 5, 6) came closest to being compat-
ible with claims that Essex farmers persisted with cereals out of misplaced
loyalty to ‘king corn’. But persistence with cereals in these parishes is,
almost certainly, better understood as a rational response to market
opportunities. Cost reductions—the substitution of machines and horses
for labour as well as ‘low farming’ innovations—and the substitution of
barley or oats for wheat, sustained cereal viability on good corn land
long after lesser soils had become sub-marginal. Moreover, returns from
dairying and meat production were everywhere less attractive, and con-
siderably more precarious, than Fletcher and others have suggested. Thus
the amount of adjustment required was also less than critics have
assumed. This exercise has found no evidence that land use was largely
determined by inertia and indifference to market forces. Rather, it has
produced considerable detailed evidence supportive of Thompson’s robust
questioning of the ‘failure’ consensus.
This broader question of whether or not agriculture ‘failed’ obviously
depends upon far more than how land was allocated between cereals and
livestock: the issues are as complex, as multi-faceted, as those in the
parallel debate on entrepreneurial failure in industry. Landlords’ perform-
ance, possible institutional weaknesses arising from the tripartite system,
62
See, for example, Brown, Agriculture in England, p. 48; V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 339; RC on
Agricultural Depression (P.P. 1894, XVI, pt. i), Q. 13890.

Economic History Society 2001

land use and agriculture in late victorian britain
265
farm size, and leases, and the near-absence of cooperation in the English
countryside, each have a place in the overall debate. Moreover, further
work focused upon the number of pigs and hens and the acreage under
fruit and vegetables might well find more reasons for disquiet than have
emerged in the present investigation. But the pace of land reallocation
from cereals to dairying and beef has long been central in critical interpret-
ations of the English agricultural performance and, in this aspect at least,
analysis of land allocation in Essex reveals no clear evidence of ‘failure’.
London School of Economics and Political Science
Footnote references
Aldcroft, D. H., ‘The entrepreneur and the British economy, 1870-1914’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd
ser., XVII (1964-5), pp. 113-34.
Atkins, P. J., ‘The growth of London’s railway milk trade, c. 1845-1914’, J. Transp. Hist., IV (1978),
pp. 208-26.
Bear, W. E., The British farmer and his competitors (1888).
Bear, W. E., ‘Survival in farming’, J. Roy. Agric. Soc., LII (1891), pp. 257-75.
Brown, J., Agriculture in England: a survey of farming, 1870-1947 (Manchester, 1987).
Channing, F. A., The truth about the agricultural depression (1897).
Collins, E. J. T., A history of the Orsett estate, 1743-1914 (Thurrock, 1978).
Coppock, J. T., ‘The agricultural returns as a source for local history’, Amat. Hist., 4 (1958-9),
pp. 49-55.
Coppock, J. T., ‘Agricultural change in the Chilterns, 1875-1900’, in P. J. Perry, ed., British
agriculture, 1875-1914 (1973), pp. 56-76.
Danvers, F., ‘Agriculture in Essex during the past fifty years, as exemplified by the records of one
farm’, J. R. S. S., LX (1897), pp. 251-77.
Evans, M. and Bowstead, T., ‘Report on laying down land to permanent pasture’, J. Roy. Agric.
Soc., XXXVI (1875), pp. 442-509.
Fletcher, T. W., ‘The great depression of British agriculture, 1873-1896’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser.,
XIII (1960-1), pp. 417-32.
Floud, R. and McCloskey, D., eds., The economic history of Britain since 1700, II (Cambridge, 1994).
Gavin, W., Ninety years of family farming (1967).
Haggard, R. H., ‘Essex’, Rural England, I (1902), pp. 436-508.
Holderness, B. A. and Turner, M., eds., Land, labour, and agriculture, 1700-1920 (1991).
Hunt, E. H., Regional wage variations in Britain, 1850-1914 (Oxford, 1973).
Hunt, E. H., ‘Industrialization and regional inequality: wages in Britain, 1760-1914’, J. Econ. Hist.,
XLVI (1986), pp. 935-66.
Hunt, E. H. and Pam, S. J., ‘Prices and structural response in English agriculture, 1873-1896’,
Econ. Hist. Rev., L (1997), pp. 477-505.
Kindleberger, C. P., Economic growth in France and Britain, 1851-1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964).
McConnell, P., ‘Experiences of a Scotsman on the Essex clays’, J. Roy. Agric. Soc., LII (1891),
pp. 311-25.
Mathias, P., The first industrial nation (1983).
Mathias, P. and Davis, J. A., eds., Agriculture and industrialization (Oxford, 1996).
Mingay, G. E., ed., The Victorian countryside, I (1981).
´
O Gr a´ da, C., ‘British agriculture, 1860-1914’, in R. Floud and D. McCloskey, eds., The economic
history of Britain since 1700, II (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 145-72.
O’Rourke, K. H., ‘The European grain invasion, 1870-1913’, J. Econ. Hist., LVII (1997),
pp. 775-801.
Offer, A., The First World War: an agrarian interpretation (Oxford, 1989).
Olsen, M. and Harris, C. C., ‘Free trade in corn: a statistical study of the prices and production
of wheat in Great Britain from 1873 to 1914’, in P. J. Perry, ed., British agriculture, 1875-1914
(1973), pp. 149-76.
Perry, P. J., ed., British agriculture, 1875-1914 (1973).
Perry, P. J., British farming in the great depression, 1870-1914 (Newton Abbot, 1974).
Sectional maps of British railways (1948).
Thompson, F. M. L., ‘Free trade and the land’, in G. E. Mingay, ed., The Victorian countryside, I
(1981), pp. 103-17.

Economic History Society 2001

266
e. h. hunt and s. j. pam
Thompson, F. M. L., ‘An anatomy of English agriculture, 1870-1914’, in B. A. Holderness and M.
Turner, eds., Land, labour, and agriculture, 1700-1920 (1991), pp. 211-40.
Thompson, F. M. L., ‘Agriculture and economic growth in Britain, 1870-1914’, in P. Mathias and
J. A. Davis, eds., Agriculture and industrialization (Oxford, 1996), pp. 40-67.
Victoria County History of Essex, II (1907).
Walton, J. R., ‘Varietal innovation and the competitiveness of the British cereals sector, 1760-1930’,
Agric. Hist. Rev., 47 (1999), pp. 29-57.
Watt, H., ‘Changes in agriculture in Thurrock, 1880-1995’, Panorama, 9 (1965), pp. 22-8.
Whetham, E. H., ‘The changing cattle enterprises of England and Wales, 1870-1910’, Geog. J., 129
(1963), pp. 378-9.
Official publications
Annual Agricultural Returns, 1866-1900 (P.P).
Royal Commission on the Depressed Condition of the Agricultural Interests (P.P. 1882, XV).
Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression (P.P. 1894, XVI, pt. i; 1896, XVII; 1897, XV).

Economic History Society 2001