The Inarticulate Few: Agrarian voices during the modernisation of agriculture in Leicestershire 1935–1955

Abstract

Abstract Leicestershire experienced a uniquely pronounced shift from pastoral to mixed arable agriculture during the Second World War, with changes to farming practice being overseen and enforced by the County War Agricultural Executive Committee. The invasive powers of such Committees have led them to be criticised in recent historiography as an affront to individual freedoms. Opposition and resentment towards these policies would surely be most pronounced where they caused the greatest change – in Leicestershire. This article studies oral testimonies, alongside corresponding farm surveys from the period to provide a more objective basis for comparison, to reveal contemporary farmers did not share the negative historiographical characterisation of wartime policy. By the mid-1950s, agriculture in Leicestershire had embraced the ‘modern’ scientific methods demanded by the committees, but farmers’ recollections of the committee appear to span from favourable to, at worst, ambivalent. They considered the committee’s demands and methods necessary and for the most part, entirely reasonable.