RUSHDEN 251 



THE RUSHDEN PERMANENT ALLOTMENT AND 

 SMALL HOLDINGS SOCIETY, LTD.* 



Rushden, in Northamptonshire, has had a very 

 rapid increase of population, owing to the shoe- 

 making industry. It has now a population of 

 12,453. The Society was founded in 1892. It 

 has 500 members, and rents 110 acres of land, 

 which are let in plots, varying from 10 poles to 

 8 acres, to about 450 men. It has also bought 

 20 acres at 50 an acre, and resold them to 

 members in plots varying from 10 poles to 3 acres. 

 The purchase money has to be paid off in six 

 years. Fifty-one acres of the land are rented at 

 l 15s. an acre on a twenty years' lease, and are 

 relet to the men at the rate of 2 and upwards. 

 Two fields nearer the town, which are prospective 

 building sites, are held on a yearly tenancy. 

 Twenty-seven acres of glebe land are let out in 

 larger plots of 1 to 8 acres, many men holding 

 3, 4, and 5 acres at l 7s. 6d. an acre. 



The tenants of the allotments are nearly all 

 shoemakers. The larger plots are held by retired 

 shoemakers or agricultural jobbing men, who go in 

 for dairying or market-gardening. 



Many of the older men are anxious to get more 

 land, so as to have enough for a living; age is 

 becoming a serious drawback in the shoe trade, 

 and men of forty-five and fifty years are finding 



* Taken from the evidence of the secretary, Mr. W. 

 Gutteridge, before the Small Holdings Committee, 1906. 



