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SUMMARY:Aspects of Agrarian Change in South Staffordshire:  A Case Study o
 f Kingswinford\, 1650 to 1750 - Irene Haycock (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20120521T114500Z
DTEND:20120521T130000Z
UID:TALK38333@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:25346
DESCRIPTION:This paper examines the nature and extent of agrarian change a
 nd early industrial change in the parish of Kingswinford\, south Staffords
 hire (now the West Midlands) in the early modern period.  It addresses the
  dearth of work on pastoral regions as opposed to the much studied arable 
 eastern and southern areas of England.  Staffordshire is a county renowned
  for its precocious early population growth\, and early industrial develop
 ment in minerals such as coal\, iron\, metal-wares\, and glass.  It is a c
 lassic area of by-employment where\, according to Thirsk\, farming househo
 lds took up domestic manufacture when work was slack.  Using probate docum
 ents (and parish registers for a wider context) a quantitative analysis fi
 nds that the wealth of the whole sample of the parish and that of farmers 
 and of the by-employed significantly decreased over time\; the wealth-gap 
 between the farmers and industrialists increasingly narrowed.  The incenti
 ve to become by-employed must lie with the industrialists rather than with
  farming households\, since the farmers were the richer of the two accordi
 ng to gross inventory wealth.  However\, there were proportionately less o
 f the inventoried population practising by-employment as time progressed.\
 nWith regard to changing farming patterns in a predominately pastoral regi
 on\, the proportions of those involved in mixed farming and keeping livest
 ock significantly decreased over time\, particularly in sheep husbandry.  
 The proportion of those farming\, in terms of both those with an appropria
 te occupational designator or with the accoutrements of husbandry appraise
 d in an inventory\, appeared to be decreasing in the area with reasons for
  this decline difficult to determine.\n
LOCATION:Room 101\, Sir William Hardy Building\, Downing Site
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