LAND IN ENGLAND IN 18TH & 19TH CENT.   Term Paper ID:25517 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Impact of changing land policy on urbanization, economics, politics, class relations, laws, industrialization.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Impact of changing land policy on urbanization, economics, politics, class relations, laws, industrialization. Paper Introduction: Land is the most fundamental of resources, the beginning and end of human wealth, the beginning and end of human identity. Where a person happens to be born defines their sense of identity forever; the reason that the dead are committed to the ground is in some measure because it reaffirms this human connection to place. The wealth of a person is tied to the land that she or he controls: A good farmstead, a poor claim, a reliable well make or break a person’s fortune in the world. In the 18th century, England – like other countries throughout the world at the time (and arguably in some measure still today) was a country marked by enormous distinctions of wealth, distinctions that were expressed in terms of owner ship of land. Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. But perhaps a more significant (and certainly more extreme) challengeto the traditional relationship between power and land in England cameabout at the end of the 18th century as a small group of radicals began toattack the entire concept of private property and so to strike at thefundamental mechanism of gentry entitlement. [iii]Ibid., 13. The most famous of theseradicals, Thomas Paine, proposed a death penalty of ten percent to belevied against landholders, the proceeds of which would compensate thelandless population of the country for the loss of their "naturalinheritance" of the land; annual pensions would also be provide to theelderly poor[iv]. This repealmarked a victory for individual laborers, but perhaps even more so for thelarge mercantile interests that had been petitioning Parliament for freerand freer trade. [xi]John Botsford, English Society in the Eighteenth Century as Seenfrom Overseas (New York: MacMillan, 1824), 154-5. On the one handthis meant that wealth and land ownership (which had for centuries beeninterchangeable) had now become distinct. Moreover, asfarms grew in size they depended more on seasonal labor, laying off workersfor long periods during the year, a practice that had been rare on smallfarms.[ix] Such poverty pushed the landless farther and farther from the land andfurther into the cities and the realm of waged work and this shift of sucha large percentage of the population reduced the importance of land inestablishing relations between the classes. His wages might wellnot stretch far enough to feed his children, and he no longer had his bitof land to plant or the local gentry's woods to lay a trap in. London: Longman, 1994.Reed, Mick & Wells, Roger (eds.). [vi]Roger Wells, in Mick Reed and Roger Wells, Class, Conflict andProtest in the English Countryside, 17 -188 (London: Frank Cass, 199 ),31. Endnotes BibliographyBotsford, John. At the same time as farms grew in size and access to common land waslimited and game laws were more severely enforced, the English agriculturalworker found that his wages were barely sufficient and that he no longerhad access to other means of supporting his family. It must be noted at this point that during this same time England wasceasing to be an net exporter of grain and becoming an importer ofgrain[vii]. On the other hand, it meant thatpeasants could no longer draw their identity from the land that theyworked. Farm size had been increasing through the 18th and 19th centuries sothat the people who most benefited from Corn Laws were the holders of largefarms, not the individual smallholder. [v]Ibid., 119. Mingay, English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 482. These parliamentary reactions seemdraconian to what were in general fairly peaceful demonstrations, but thedramatic level of the response was prompted by an old order that feltitself under siege. The wealth of a person is tied tothe land that she or he controls: A good farmstead, a poor claim, areliable well make or break a person's fortune in the world. Evenas the upper-classes redefined themselves and their wealth in terms that nolonger revolved around land, the working classes of the country redefinedthemselves as well. But it also belonged (at least insome small way, as evidenced by the ancient concept of the Commons) to allof the people of a place. Notonly did the urban elite count their wealth in ways other thanlandholdings, they also began to create their own forms of refinedamusements not linked to rural traditions. Pushed by the Irish potato famine, Parliament reduced the taxesto a nominal fee and the laws were repealed entirely in 1869. The fact that the Corn Laws were benefiting large farmers over smalland aiding mercantile and trading interests prompted protests over breadprices. In the 18th century, England - like other countries throughout theworld at the time (and arguably in some measure still today) was a countrymarked by enormous distinctions of wealth, distinctions that were expressedin terms of owner ship of land. The decline ofagriculture reduced the value of land during the 19th century, and thelandowning class itself was reduced in power by successive reforms of thefranchise and by the arrival of new representative institutions in localgovernment[v]. These protests - sure portents of a new order and so greatly to befeared - were met by repressive legislation suspending the legal right ofhabeas corpus, abridging freedom of assembly and the press, and reducingimmunity from arbitrary house searches. The relationship between a people and the land they occupy is acomplex one for it necessarily incorporates within it all the history of aplace. This lawexcluded almost all foreign grain until the price of domestic wheat rose toa specified high level. cit., 33. Thus the effect of a tariff such as the Corn Law of 1815 wasnot to benefit small English farmers but rather to punish all but the verywealthy through the rising costs of the price of bread. These large-scale farmers wereanalogous to merchants of the era: Their relationship to the land was onein which they tried to maximize profit rather than one in which theyexercised ancient rights[viii]. English Society in the Eighteenth Century as Influenced from Overseas. [ix]G.E. There were a number of contemporary critics of this shift away fromthe traditional division of landed gentry and landless (but tied to theland) peasantry, such as the mid-18th-century rant by John Byng, fifthViscount of Torrington, who in his diary both railed against the levelingof distinctions brought about by mercantile-based wealth[iii]. In a move the historical, political and symbolic importance of whichcannot be overemphasized, the league appealed successfully to workers andfarmers to unify against the landlords who supported the continuance of theCorn Laws. The culture of the wealthy, embracing art, literature, architecture, music and drama, and not least manners and the arts of polite conversation and correspondence, contrasted sharply with the unsophisticated country lore and confined horizons of the laboring folk, whose leisure hours were mainly devoted to rustic sports, often brutal and violent[i]. Thosewho owned large estates were not only wealthy, but they constituted thegoverning classes both in terms of those who were legislators sitting inParliament and passing laws and those who served as magistrates sitting inlocal courts enforcing them. In other words, theCorn Laws helped maintain traditional distinctions between landed andlandless people in an era in which those distinctions were becomingincreasingly archaic and the subject of growing social unrest[vi]. Moreover, the urban upperclasses were more inclined in their religious views towards Nonconformism. Thus men (and to a lesser extent women) of the landed classes werebound together not only by common interest in the protection of thatproperty but by an entire network of cultural beliefs and activities. The 19th century saw a fundamental disentangling of this relationship,this connection between the English people and their land. And yet, while the division of the country between poor and landedwealthy was hardly egalitarian, it did remain for centuries a workingsystem, during which era the country was generally able to feed its peopleand to make the shift from rural agrarianism to at least semi-urbanindustrialization with economy and efficiency. Butthis relatively homogeneous and unified culture began to disintegrate overthe course of the century, at least in some part because of the increasedurbanization of the country. New York: MacMillan, 1924.Mingay, G.E. Class, Conflict and Protest in the English Countryside, 17 -188 . They hadin effect gone from being landless peasants to skilled workers whosetraining was as portable as land was not. Where a personhappens to be born defines their sense of identity forever; the reason thatthe dead are committed to the ground is in some measure because itreaffirms this human connection to place. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.Mingay, G.E. While the Corn Laws had at different times in English history beenmodified or amended to serve different interests, on the whole, thecondition of the English farmers and workers was not improved. The great country estates would still exist, but owning one would nolonger be a necessary marker of a powerful position in society or a suremeans of gaining such power. Much of the shifting relationship between power and land that occurredduring the 19th century was reflected in the battles fought over variousCorn Laws - those forms of legislation that had been used for hundreds ofyears to regulate the price of grains as well as to ensure the adequatesupply of food for the country. During the 19th century wage controls, high wheat prices, andresultant high bread prices placed a heavy burden on the mass of thepopulation. By the end of the 19th century, industrial wealth in terms ofmanufacturing infrastructure and trained work forces had taken the place interms of calculating and determining wealth that land had once held. [viii]Wells, op. [vii]Mingay, op. As Great Britain became increasingly industrialized throughout thecourse of the 19th century, dependence on foreign food sources increasedand mercantile interests demanded that Parliament establish free trade andrepeal the Corn Laws. One of the primary ways that the meaning of land changed in the 19thcentury was that it ceased to be the prime support of the ruling class - aposition it had held since before the Norman Conquest. Moreover, as Mingay notes, the culture of thewealthy landed class diverged sharply from that of the unlanded peasantry. This rise of an urban upper class was thus one of the small chinks intraditional English beliefs about the connection between land and powerthat, once started, would grow dramatically, as Mingay notes: Thus the landed interests and the commercial and industrial interests moved on separate courses, divided not only by the differing sources of their wealth but also by differences in outlook, culture and even in some degree religion[ii]. However they were a direct result of the fact that ithad become clear to the landed classes that they were losing their grip ontheir traditional Parliamentary power, and this was this only chance tohold on to the remaining vestiges of that power[xi]. [x]Ibid., 31. cit., 49. This meant that while the poor were still landless,this lack of property was no longer central to their identities. The rich still held the largerural estates, but such holdings became less and less relevant, like nobletitles or ancient family names[x]. It should be noted that these suggestions of radicalreform were taking place against a background not only of urbanization andindustrialization but also the fencing in of the commons and theinstigation of other policies by large landholders that were increasinglydisadvantageous to small farmers and lessors. Mingay, Land and Society in England, 175 -198 (London:Longman, 1994), 6. [iv]Ibid., 13. Land and Society in England, 175 -198 . As there grew to be more and more peopleliving in cities who were wealthy and cultured, the link between bothwealth and refinement and ownership of property became more tenuous. English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century. Land is the most fundamental of resources, the beginning and end ofhuman wealth, the beginning and end of human identity. In 1838 the statesmen John Bright and Richard Cobdenand five Manchester merchants formed an anti-corn law association, thefirst of many similar organizations that joined in 1839 to form the Anti-Corn Law League. Thus it is no surprise that the changing political and cultural tenureof English life during the 18th and 19th centuries was reflected in themeaning of land; the metaphors and significances associated with land bothmirrored and in some measure created these political changes. The Corn Laws thus perpetuated the economic distinction betweenthe classes and were a source of continuing discontent. London: Frank Cass, 199 .----------------------- [i] G.E. [ii]Ibid., 11. This wascertainly true during the economic crisis that followed the end of theNapoleonic Wars when Parliament enacted the Corn Law of 1815. In England of the 18th century, land in general meant wealth andpower and so was the dominion of a few. At the beginning of the 18th century England (like other Europeannations) was marked by extreme distinctions of wealth, with a very largedistance between rich and poor, powerful and impotent and cultured anduneducated. These distinctions were in many ways defined and maintained bythe different relationships that the different classes had to land. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.