Agriculture, 1860–1914

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The one great sector of the economy that seems to have been in more or less unremitting decline from 1860 down to the Great War was agriculture. Agriculture’s share of national income fell from about 20 per cent in 1851 to 10 per cent by 1881 and 6 per cent in the first decade of the twentieth century (Collins 2000b: 9–10, 13). Agriculture’s share of capital fell from three-fifths in 1832 to less than a quarter in 1885 and under 10 per cent by 1912 (Collins 2000b: 14). Agricultural rents as a proportion of total domestic income fell from about 7 per cent in the early 1850s to 2 per cent by the Great War (Collins 2000b: 7, citing Feinstein 1972: T4–5, column 7). The greatest declines were in England and Wales where the numbers employed in the farm sector, including farmers and their relatives living on the farms, fell from 1.7 to 1.2 million from 1851 to 1911 (Collins 2000b: 7). By 1901 no counties of England or Wales had more than 45 per cent of their working populations employed in agriculture. In 1851 twenty English and five Welsh counties had over 20 per cent of their total populations employed in agrarian occupations, but by 1911 only eight English counties had more than 10 per cent and sixteen counties had 3 per cent or under. However, those that remained were involved in a more complex ‘industry’: in 1841 100 farm workers generated subsidiary work for 27 others off the farm; in 1881 they were supported by 47 others; and in 1911 by 67.