DECLINE OF LANDOWNING FARMERS 207 



proprietors farming their own land were numerous, but "a great 

 many of them " had been ruined. 1 In Shropshire and in Chesh- 

 ire the number of " small landed proprietors " had " greatly 

 diminished, . . . since the year 1800." 2 In Herefordshire there 

 were still a great many yeomen, but fewer than twenty years 

 earlier. 3 In Worcestershire a good many freeholders, who 

 farmed their own lands, had sold out. 4 In Kent, near Rochester, 

 no great number had gone to the wall, but they were poor, many 

 of them living little better than workingmen. 5 Such farmers 

 were yet numerous in Hampshire and West Sussex, but many 

 had been compelled to sell their estates, 6 and those who remained 

 were " much reduced in point of circumstances." In Wiltshire 

 the number of landowning farmers had diminished " most mate- 

 rially " within the last fifteen years. 7 In Somersetshire land had 

 been changing hands a great deal since the war, and the number 

 of farmers who bought land was not so great as the number of 

 those who had sold. 8 It was the custom there for the landlords 

 to " run out " the life leases and not make any new ones. 9 Thus 

 all the evidence points to the conclusion that an unusually rapid 

 decline of the yeomanry had taken place during the period of the 

 agricultural depression which followed the close of the Napoleonic 

 wars. We shall now investigate somewhat in detail the causes of 

 this unusually rapid decline. 



Extravagance (living beyond one's income) often leads to bank- 

 ruptcy in all lines of business, and it would be strange indeed if 

 this were not, occasionally, the cause which compels farmers to 

 sell their estates. From Norden we learn that in 1607 this was 

 sometimes the cause of failure on the part of landowning farmers 

 in England. 10 In 1833, a great many of the yeomen of Cheshire 

 were living beyond their means. During the period of high prices 

 they had accustomed themselves to a standard of living which 

 they were unable to maintain after prices had fallen, without 



1 Parliamentary Papers, Buckley, questions 8574, 8579, 8581, 8587. 



2 Ibid., Lee, questions 5825, 6158. 7 Ibid., questions 9923, 9926. 



3 Ibid., questions 8475. 8 Ibid., question 1262. 



4 Ibid., question 1697. 9 Ibid., questions 9208-9209. 



5 Ibid., questions 6405-6413. 10 Ibid., questions 4970-4974. 



6 Surveyors' Dialogue, Edition of 161 8, pp. 81 et seq. 



