agriculture, 19th-century British

After a period of depression following the Napoleonic Wars, agriculture developed rapidly during the 19th century. The landed interests countered the post-war slump in agriculture with protective legislation, although the implementation of the Corn Laws led to rural poverty and discontent in the first half of the 19th century and contributed to the distress in Ireland caused by the potato famine. Following the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, the expanding urban population and improvements in transport opened up a greater market and led to what has been called the ‘golden age’ in British farming (1850–70). This, however, was followed by a great depression in agriculture that lasted until 1914, as rising imports of cheap foodstuffs undercut the British farmer.

The Napoleonic Wars and agricultural depression During the Napoleonic Wars, British farmers found themselves with increasing demand and high prices. They increased the amount of land under cultivation, and borrowed to finance improvements. After the war, they were faced with cheap imports, falling prices, and poor harvests. The farmers reduced wages and laid off employees. This heightened the economic depression of the rural poor, and the farmers were consequently faced with the additional financial burden of increasing demands from the poor law rates. To prevent agricultural depression, the landed interests in Parliament used their political power to enact the Corn Laws, measures designed to keep prices high.

The Corn Laws The Corn Law of 1815 protected British farmers, but it harmed the poor. William Huskisson took part in a government commission which inquired into agricultural distress in 1821, and he amended the Corn Law with a sliding scale in 1828, but rural discontent and poverty increased, leading to the Swing Riots in 1830. Opposition to the Corn Laws from the Anti-Corn Law League, together with the start of the potato famine in Ireland in 1845, led eventually to their repeal by Robert Peel in 1846, although it ended his political career.

The golden age of British farming, 1850–70 The repeal of the Corn Laws did not destroy British agriculture, as had been predicted. The years which followed, 1850–70, are sometimes called the ‘golden age of British farming’ or the era of ‘high farming’. Production increased some 70% in this period.

The chief causes of the prosperity were the rapidly expanding urban population, which provided a huge market, and the development of the internal transport system (canals and railways), which allowed farmers to access the market.

Continued technical improvement also increased the success of farming in these years. The Royal Agricultural Society was established in 1838, and the Royal College of Agriculture in 1846. New types of cattle feed (notably oilseed cake) were produced, which allowed cattle to be fattened up even in winter.

There were also developments in drainage. John Reade invented tile drain pipes, and John Fowler's mole plough allowed the pipes to be laid without digging long stretches of large trenches. In 1840 Justus von Liebig developed the science of fertilizers such as phosphate of lime, sulphate of potash, and salts of magnesia, and John Lawes patented the first ‘superphosphate’ fertilizer in the 1840s. British farmers began to use bonemeal, nitrates from Chile, potash from Germany, and guano (bird droppings) from Peru on their fields. Yields improved greatly.

Other important changes in the agricultural methods of the time were brought about with the invention of a number of harvesting and processing machines in the USA. The first successful harvesting machine was patented by Cyrus McCormick in 1834. This was followed by the first mechanical thresher, which was patented in the same year by the brothers John and Hiram Pitts, and the steel plough, which was invented by John Deere in 1837. John Fowler invented a steam plough in 1856.

The Great Depression, 1870–1914 Between 1873 and 1879 British agriculture faced a series of wet summers that damaged grain crops. Cattle farmers were hit by foot-and-mouth disease, and sheep farmers by sheep liver rot. The poor harvests, however, masked a greater threat to British agriculture: growing imports of foodstuffs from abroad. The development of the steamship and the establishment of a railroad network in the USA, together with the invention of the refrigeration car, allowed US farmers to export hard grain to Britain at a price that undercut the British farmer. US farmers used machinery, and had economies of scale because they could farm huge fields on the open prairies. At the same time, large amounts of cheap corned beef started to arrive from Argentina, and the opening of the Suez Canal opened the British market to cheap lamb and wool from Australia and New Zealand. By 1900 half the meat eaten in Britain came from abroad.

Agriculture remained in a depressed state until 1914. Output fell, particularly in areas that produced cereal crops. Stock breeders were less severely hit, and there was a shift to higher-cost, high-quality produce such as fruit and vegetables, and high-quality meat. Farmers took land out of production and laid off labourers (400,000 jobs were lost in farming between 1870 and 1900). The result was difficulties for agricultural labourers, and Joseph Arch formed the National Agricultural Labourers' Union in 1872 (the first of its kind), although it collapsed in 1896 after opposition from farmers.

The government set up the Board of Agriculture in 1889, to offer advice. Two Smallholdings Acts were also passed (1893 and 1907) to allow farm workers to buy small farms.