The Great Depression of British Agriculture occurred during the late nineteenth century and is usually dated from 1873 to 1896. Contemporaneous with the global Long Depression, Britain's agricultural depression was caused by the dramatic fall in grain prices that followed the opening up of the American

prairies Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as t ...

to cultivation in the 1870s and the advent of cheap transportation with the rise of steamships. British agriculture did not recover from this depression until after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Other countries in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

such as the

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experienced the same agricultural crisis (1878–1895) as a result of the market being flooded by cheap grain from the United States and Canada.Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "landbouwpolitiek § geschiedenis", "Leeuwarden §3. geschiedenis". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum.

Background

In 1846 Parliament repealed the Corn Laws, which had imposed a

tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and p ...

on imported

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

, and thereby ''de facto'' instituted

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...

. There was a widespread belief that free trade would lower prices immediately. However, that did not occur for about 25 years after repeal; the years 1853 to 1862 were famously described by Lord Ernle as the "golden age of English agriculture". That period of prosperity was caused by rising prices from the discovery of gold in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

and

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, which encouraged industrial demand. Grain prices dropped from 1848 to 1850 but went up again from 1853, with the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

(1853-1856) and the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

(1861-1865) preventing the export of cereals from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, thereby shielding Britain from the effects of free trade. Britain enjoyed a series of good harvests (apart from in 1860) and the area of land under cultivation expanded, with increasing land values and increasing investments in drainage and buildings. In the opinion of the historian

Robert Ensor Sir Robert Charles Kirkwood Ensor (16 October 1877 – 4 December 1958) was a British writer, poet, journalist, liberal intellectual and historian. He is best known for ''England: 1870-1914'' (1936), a volume in the ''Oxford History of England'' ...

, the technology employed in British agriculture was superior to most farming on the Continent because of more than a century of practical research and experimentation: "Its breeds were the best, its cropping the most scientific, its yields the highest". Ernle stated that "crops reached limits which production has never since exceeded, and probably, so far as anything certain can be predicted of the unknown, never will exceed". In his 1845 book "The Condition of British Workers",

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' In 1862 the

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

passed the

Homestead Act The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of t ...

which led to the settlement of a large part of the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

. The United States also witnessed a great increase in railways, mainly across the prairies. In 1860 the United States possessed about 30,800 miles of railways; by 1880 this had increased to about 94,200 miles. The railway companies encouraged farmer-settlers by promising to transport their crops for less than cost for a number of years. Due to the technological progress of shipping, there was for the first time plenty of cheap steam ships to transport their crops across the seas. This drove down transport costs: in 1873 the cost of transporting a ton of grain from

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Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

was £37''s''., in 1880 it was £21''s''. and in 1884 £14''s''. New inventions in agricultural machinery also aided the American prairie farmer. Due to the scarcity of hired farm labourers, prairie farmers had to collect their own harvest and the limit of their expansion was set by what one pair of hands could do. The advent of the

reaper-binder The reaper-binder, or binder, is a farm implement that improved upon the simple reaper. The binder was invented in 1872 by Charles Baxter Withington, a jeweler from Janesville, Wisconsin. In addition to cutting the small-grain crop, a binder als ...

in 1873 revolutionised harvesting because it meant the doubling of every farmer's crop as it enabled the reaping to be worked by one man instead of two. For these reasons, cheap imports of vast amounts of American prairie wheat were able to flood the market and undercut and overwhelm British wheat farmers. The bad harvests of 1875, 1877, 1878 and particularly the wet summer of 1879 disguised the cause of the depression. The

Duke of Bedford Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for five distinct people) in the Peerage of England. The first and second creations came in 1414 and 1433 respectively, in favour of Henry IV's third so ...

wrote in 1897 that "Agriculturalists and the nation at large were alike insensible to the real character of the depression...Cheap marine transport had already thrown open the English market to the cereals of four continents...It is easy to be wise after the event, but it is strange that a catastrophe which was no longer merely impending but had actually taken place should have been regarded by those best able to judge as a passing cloud". In previous seasons of bad harvests, farmers were compensated by high prices caused by the scarcity. However, British farmers could no longer rely on high prices due to the cheap American imports.

Effects

Between 1871–75 and 1896–1900, the importation of wheat and flour increased by 90%, for meat it was 300% and for butter and cheese it was 110%. The price of wheat in Britain declined from 56''s'' 0''d'' a quarter in 1867–71 to 27''s'' 3''d'' in 1894–98. The nadir came in 1894–95, when prices reached their lowest level for 150 years, 22s. 10d. On the eve of the depression, the total amount of land growing cereals was ; by 1898 this had declined to , a decline of about 22%. During the same period, the amount of land under permanent pasture rather than under cultivation increased by 19%. By 1900 wheat-growing land was only a little over 50% of the total of 1872 and shrank further until 1914. The depression also accelerated Britain's rural depopulation. The 1881 census showed a decline of 92,250 agricultural labourers since 1871, with an increase of 53,496 urban labourers. Many of these had previously been farm workers who migrated to the cities to find employment. Between 1871 and 1901 the population of England and Wales increased by 43% but the proportion of male agricultural labourers decreased by over one-third. According to Sir James Caird in his evidence to the

Royal Commission on the Depression in Trade and Industry The Royal Commission on the Depression in Trade and Industry was a Royal Commission of the United Kingdom set up by the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury's minority Conservative government in August 1885 and completed in December 1886. It occurred ...

in 1886, the annual income of landlords, tenants and labourers had fallen by £42,800,000 since 1876. No other country witnessed such a social transformation and British policy contrasted with those adopted on the Continent. Every wheat-growing country imposed tariffs in the wake of the explosion of American prairie wheat except Britain and Belgium. Subsequently, Britain became the most industrialised major country with the smallest proportion of its resources devoted to agriculture. Britain's dependence on imported grain during the 1830s was 2%; during the 1860s it was 24%; during the 1880s it was 45% (for corn it was a whopping 65%). By 1914 Britain was dependent on imports for four-fifths of her wheat and 40% of her meat.

Social effects

Between 1809 and 1879, 88% of British millionaires had been landowners; between 1880 and 1914 this figure dropped to 33% and fell further after the First World War. During the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, the British landed aristocracy were the wealthiest class in the world's richest country. In 1882 Charles George Milnes Gaskell wrote that "the vast increase in the carrying power of ships, the facilities of intercourse with foreign countries, ndthe further cheapening of cereals and meat" meant that economically and politically the old landed class were no longer lords of the earth. The new wealthy elite were no longer British aristocrats but American businessmen, such as

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew W. Mellon, who made their wealth from industry rather than land. By the late nineteenth century, British manufacturers eclipsed the aristocracy as the richest class in the nation. As Arthur Balfour stated in 1909: "The bulk of the great fortunes are now in a highly liquid state...They do not consist of huge landed estates, vast parks and castles, and all the rest of it".

Responses

The Prime Minister at the outset of the depression,

Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation ...

, had once been a staunch upholder of the Corn Laws and had predicted ruin for agriculture if they were repealed. However, unlike most other European governments, his government did not revive tariffs on imported cereals to save their farms and farmers. Despite calls from landowners to reintroduce the Corn Laws, Disraeli responded by saying that the issue was settled and that protection was impracticable. Ensor claimed that the difference between Britain and the Continent was due to the latter having conscription; rural men were thought to be the best suited as soldiers, but for Britain, with no conscript army, that did not apply. He also claimed that Britain staked its future on continuing to be "the workshop of the world", as the leading manufacturing nation. Robert Blake claimed that Disraeli was dissuaded from reviving protection because the urban working class was enjoying cheap imported food at a time of industrial depression and rising unemployment. Enfranchised by Disraeli in 1867, working men's votes were crucial in a general election and he did not want to antagonise them. However, Disraeli's government appointed a Royal Commission on agricultural depression. It attributed the depression to bad harvests and foreign competition. Its final report of 1882 recommended changing the burden of local taxation from real property to the Consolidated Fund and the setting up of a government department for agriculture. The new government, a Liberal administration under

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-con ...

, did little. Lord Salisbury's government founded the

Board of Agriculture The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) was a United Kingdom government department created by the Board of Agriculture Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c.30) and at that time called the Board of Agriculture, and then from 1903 the Board ...

in 1889. After a series of droughts in the early 1890s, Gladstone's government appointed another Royal Commission into the depression in 1894. Its final report found foreign competition as the main cause in the fall in prices. It recommended changes in land tenure, tithes, education and other minor items.Ensor, p. 286.

Notes

{{reflist, 2

References

*The Duke of Bedford, ''The Story of a Great Agricultural Estate'' (London: John Murray, 1897). *David Cannadine, ''The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy'' (London: Pan, 1992). *H. M. Conacher, ‘Causes of the Fall of Agricultural Prices between 1875 and 1895’, in P. J. Perry (ed.), ''British Agriculture 1875-1914'' (London: Methuen, 1973), pp. 8–29. *R. C. K. Ensor, ''England 1870-1914'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936). *Lord Ernle, ''English Farming Past and Present. Sixth Edition'' (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961). *T. W. Fletcher, ‘The Great Depression of English Agriculture 1873-1896’, in P. J. Perry (ed.), ''British Agriculture 1875-1914'' (London: Methuen, 1973), pp. 30–55. *

Alun Howkins Alun Howkins (8 August 1947 – 12 July 2018) was an English social historian, specialising in the history of English rural society. Regarded as a leading historian of the English countryside and its working class, Howkins was a professor of histor ...

, ''Reshaping Rural England. A Social History 1850-1925'' (London: HarperCollins Academic, 1991). *Mancur Olson and Curtis C. Harris, ‘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'' (London: Methuen, 1973), pp. 149–176. *Christable S. Orwin and Edith H. Whetham, ''History of British Agriculture 1846-1914'' (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971). *Richard Perren, ''Agriculture in Depression, 1870-1940'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). *P. J. Perry, ‘Editor's Introduction’, ''British Agriculture 1875-1914'' (London: Methuen, 1973), pp. xi-xliv. *F. M. L. Thompson, ''English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century'' (London: Routledge, 1971).

Background

Effects

Social effects

Responses

Notes

References

Further reading