F.M.L. Thompson - English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century

STUDIES IN SOCIAL HISTORY

ENGLISH LANDED SOCIETY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

ENGLISH LANDED SOCIETY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

F. M. L. THOMPSON

First published in 1963

This edition published in 2007 by

Routledge

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Transferred to digital print 2013

First issued in paperback 2013

1963 F. M. L. Thompson

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century

ISBN13: 978-0-415-41285-8 (Hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-84848-0 (Pbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-40266-8 (set)

Routledge Library Editions: Studies in Social History

ENGLISH LANDED SOCIETY

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

by

F. M. L. Thompson

Lecturer in Modern History

University College London

LONDON: Routledge & Kegan Paul

TORONTO: University of Toronto Press

First published 1963

in Great Britain by

Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

and in Canada by

University of Toronto Press

Printed in Great Britain by

Staples Printers Ltd

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism

T HE theme of the decline of aristocratic power has often been treated in the political histories of the nineteenth century, and is indeed inescapable. Almost as often the influence of the landed interest has been prematurely dismissed, in eagerness to write nineteenth-century history in terms of the growth of middle-class power, the democratization of institutions, and the increasing importance of radical and working-class movements. While not seeking to re-tell the political history of the period, this book may contribute towards a more just appreciation of the relative importance of the different major social groups in the life of the country. It deals in the main with the economic history of the landed interest, and with its role as a social group. It includes much agrarian and some industrial history as seen from the landowners point of view, although it is not intended to provide a history of agriculture, still less one of industry or the economy as a whole. It should not be taken as a definitive or exhaustive history of the landed interest: the vast riches of the private archives of landed families are increasingly being made available to historians, and are only just beginning to be tapped. In the present early stage of such research this book is, like all history only more so, an interim report.

The first seven chapters of the book aim to present an analysis and description of the main elements in the institutions and way of life of the landed classes, suggesting their significance for society at large, and emphasizing the forces of change which were at work within an order which in many ways presented a remarkably stable appearance to the outside world. The last five chapters take up the theme of change, and examine the dynamic elements in the economic social and political life of the group, in a sequence of chronological subdivisions of the century and a half with which this book is concerned. The impact of the major changes in the social structure of the country, and of the industrialization of the economy, is hinted at, but no attempt is made to treat in detail those developments which were external to the landed interest. The main concern of the book in the fortunes of the influential classes is such that, reinforced by the limitations of space and records, the histories of the smaller landowners, the farmers, and the labourers have been deliberately confined to a very subordinate position which is not intended to provide a measure of their own intrinsic importance and interest.

It would have been impossible to write a work of this nature without the generous help and cooperation of the owners of private collections of manuscripts, and I am deeply indebted to the following for access to their collections. The Marquess of Ailesbury (the Savemake Papers); Lord Barnard (the Raby Papers); the Marquess of Bath (the Longleat Papers); H. Lorenzo Christie (the Jervaulx Papers); R. F. Dickinson (the Dickinson Papers); Earl Fitzwilliam and the Trustees of the Fitzwilliam Settled Estates (the Milton Papers and the Wentworth Woodhouse Papers); Earl Fortescue (the Castle Hill Papers); Hoares Bank (the Ailesbury Trust Papers and the Banks records); Sir Stephen Hugh Middleton (the Belsay Papers); the Duke of Northumberland (the Alnwick Papers); the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery (the Wilton Papers); Viscount Ridley (the Blagdon Papers); the Duke of Rutland (the Belvoir Papers); Sir Richard Sykes (the Sledmere Papers); the Earl of Verulam (the Gorhambury Papers). As the entries in the Bibliography show, I have also enjoyed the help of many County Archivists, and been able to take advantage of the service which many owners have rendered to historians by placing their papers in County Record Offices. To all these I should like to express my thanks.

In the years that have passed since I began the research on which this book rests I have been helped by many people, not least those who make the discussions of the Seminar in Modern English Economic History at the Institute of Historical Research so wide-ranging and stimulating. In particular I should like to thank Dr G. E. Mingay, the author of the companion study of the eighteenth century, who has read most of the draft and made many helpful comments. But I owe most to Professor H. J. Habakkuk, who originated modern work in this field, supervised my post-graduate work, and who read and made valuable comments on a part of my final draft. Without him I would never have embarked on this work. Without the help of my wife the book would never have been written. She has not only spurred a naturally reluctant author to work, but has developed an enthusiasm for a subject she found naturally dull, and has helped the book on its way with an immense amount of typing.