6 INTRODUCTION. 



It is a reflection upon English literature tliat Ihc history 

 of this d;\s* of workers .possessing the greatest English tradi- 

 tions, which has never failrd to play its part in every national 

 pageantry of peace and war, with an ancestry as old as the 

 manorial system, should have been left to a foreigner to 

 write. Dr. Hasbach was the first man to write a history of 

 the Kniji-h agricultural labourer. His work has been accom- 

 plished with painstaking industry, but it contains one grave 

 omission- a record of the revolt of the labourers of 1830, 

 and for an account of this students should turn to the pas- 

 sionate pages of J. I., and Barbara Hammond's book Tlic 

 T*//A/i.v iMlourcr, 1760 1830. He also failed to describe the 

 great 1. irk-out of 1874. 



Dr. I la-bach's history takes us only to 1894. There are 

 certainly half a do/en pages which go beyond that year, but 

 tin-re are no more, and these do not profess to be more 

 than a glance at the few succeeding years. 



Very much has happened in the life of the agricultural 

 labourer since 1804, the story of which I shall attempt to 

 tell in ther-e pages. I begin my history at 1870 because 1872 

 was an epoch-making year in the industrial life of the agricul- 

 tural labourer. It was the year when Joseph Arch appeared 

 as a force in the industrial and political lite of the country. 



There are two men who stand out as historical figures, 

 froin the r.tnks of the agricultural labouring community in 

 the nineteenth century \Yilliam CobbettandJosephArc.il. 

 To undiTMand the character of the English peasant; to 

 understand jo>rph Arch and his movement, it is necessary 

 to realise the character of his great fore-runner, William 

 Cobbrtt, for what Cobbett sowed with his 7W/7.'Vc// Register 

 and /v'/r/.'V IIit>\t;:^nc* in the twenties and thirties, Arch reaped 

 in the seventies. There was much in common between the 

 two in..-n. Uoth were skilled farm woik-rs. Cobbett, 

 lik>- Arch, was bred at the plough-tail. Cobbett 's father 

 \\\i< r a bov wt-nt out to plough for twopence a day, and 

 probablv An h's fathei prrfornied the same skilled work at 



( 'obbet t , like Arch when he came 

 as a bov had to sup off bread and be 

 of the cheese , as IIH jjrannv would tell 



