SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 



HISTORY 



TO its triple division into vale, wold, and forest a physical 

 feature of which the effects are still discernible in the 

 character and prejudices of the inhabitants the county of 

 Gloucester owes the prominent place which it has occupied 

 in the past. Each has had its special industry ; each, by its special 

 facilities, has aided the other. The Severn the pride of the vale was 

 the earliest gate to the outer world possessed by a county almost enclosed 

 by forest ; and the natural harbours, which it provided, made early 

 Gloucestershire one of the foremost in the race for commercial prosperity. 

 Thus Bristol and Gloucester set an industrial example to the inland parts of 

 the shire ; the wolds helped on the towns by the fine growth of wool which 

 was fostered on their pastures ; and the merchants of the towns were, in 

 their turn, able to help the wolds when their main industry migrated 

 thither. For, though the Forest was famous for its ironworks and its timber 

 for ship-building, in early days it stood somewhat apart from the rest of the 

 county, and the more important part of Gloucestershire's industrial history 

 lies mainly in the upland district. The Cotswolds, in addition to their 

 pastures, were rich in water-power, and thus drew to themselves in the 

 sixteenth century the greater part of the woollen manufacture, while the 

 two big ports devoted themselves more entirely to commerce across the seas. 

 With its infinite variety, Gloucestershire could never lack a direction for its 

 industrial energies ; and, when the woollen trade was languishing, a sudden 

 fresh development of the iron industry in the Forest of Dean, about 

 the middle of the nineteenth century, offered them a new outlet in what 

 had hitherto been the most backward part of the county. 



While at any rate till recent times Gloucestershire's prosperity has 

 thus been chiefly due to commercial causes, its agricultural history must not 

 be neglected. In Domesday we only find one town of any size, Gloucester, 

 though Bristol, Winchcombe, and Tewkesbury possessed privileged tenants, 

 known as burgesses ; and the county, as a whole, was inhabited by a thinly 

 scattered agricultural population rather poor, probably, for the value of the 

 land was low. 1 Before, therefore, it is possible to treat of the industrial side 

 of the history of the county, it will be well to describe the long period 

 between the eleventh and the fifteenth century, when the bulk of the people 

 were given over to rural pursuits. 



In the main physical features that arise from the proportion of wild to 

 cultivated land, the county did not differ very widely at the time of the 

 Domesday Survey from its present condition. There were 469,035 acres of 



1 F. W. Maitland, DomeiJay Book and BeycnJ, 412-13. 

 I2 7 



