YEOMAN FARMING IN OXFORDSHIRE FROM THE 

 SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE NINETEENTH 



By H. L. Gray 



(From the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. XXIV, p. 293, 

 February, 1910) 



********** 



RECENT discussion about the decline of independent farming 

 . in England begins with the appearance of Rae's paper in 

 1883. In it he maintains "that up till the close of the eighteenth 

 century no really serious breach had as yet been made in the ranks 

 of the yeomanry, if indeed their strength had not positively risen." 

 From 1815, however, "they have steadily declined, and the suc- 

 ceeding sixty years . . . have been sufficient to compass their gen- 

 eral, and, except in one or two individual spots, their complete 

 disappearance from the face of England." The principal reason 

 for this calamity Rae finds in the decline of prices and prosperity 

 after the close of the French war. Men who had invested in land 

 when the prices of provisions rose in the early years of the war, 

 and others who had made improvements in their holdings, or had 

 lived somewhat extravagantly during prosperous times, saw them- 

 selves unable to meet their mortgages in the subsequent period of 

 depression and low prices. The passing of domestic industry and 

 the loss of the carrying trade contributed to the same end. Rae's 

 propositions have been recently elaborated by H. C. Taylor in a 

 careful study of the printed material. 



In opposition to this " myth that the end of lasl century 

 witnessed the heyday of the since vanished yeomanry," J. D. 

 Rogers points out the data used by Rae and Taylor refer in part 

 to life-lessees and concludes that "farmer-owners . . . have not 

 played a great part in our history, and have only been important 



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