Farmers, Landlords and Landscapes: Rural Britain, 1720 to 1870

Rather than an economic history of 18th- and 19th-century Britain, Susanna Wade Martins presents a rural history that places the farmer, and the landlord, at the centre of change. Industrial and urban expansion and a rising population brought pressure to bear on the countryside, something that was shouldered largely by the farmer and it is with this in mind that Martins examines the transformations that were taking place in rural areas of Britain. Full of examples and case studies, she looks at the philosophies and technologies that drove change, the obligations and motives of landlords who provided the infrastructure, and his relationship with his tenants. Enclosure, the advent of new farming practices, intensification, reclamation, drainage, new reaping and threshing machines, the construction of new farmsteads and so on, all had a major impact on rural life with machines taking over from horsepower and science taking over from farming tradition.