English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century

G.E Mingay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134529223
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

First published in 2006. This book is based on research into estate records and studies around the three broad categories of landowners: peers, gentry, and freeholders. Landed property was the foundation of eighteenth-century society. The soil itself yielded the nation its sustenance and most of its raw materials, and provided the population with its most extensive means of employment; and the owners of the soil derived from its consequence and wealth the right to govern.

XI

The Landed Interest in the Eighteenth Century

IN the century after the Glorious Revolution, English society maintained a certain placid stability, an era of calm which contrasts markedly with the preceding turbulence of the seventeenth century and the subsequent tensions of the age of reform. It was, as foreign observers noted, a prosperous, contented society which enjoyed a degree of democratic freedom, of individual liberty, and of equality before the law much in advance of most continental countries. The ‘perfection’ of the English constitution, the democratic process of law-making, and the incorruptibility of the law courts were held up to universal admiration. Among the politically important classes there was, indeed, general agreement on the advantages of the constitution, and on the prime political and social necessity of protecting property. The constitution preserved the freedom and rights of the country gentleman, farmer, merchant, manufacturer, professional man and tradesman, as against the autocratic tendencies of the monarch and the assumption of aristocratic privileges by the great magnates; the government itself, while based on the power of royal patronage, relied ultimately on the support of the independent members of the Commons. Protection of property was the universal principle which judges and magistrates saw as the main prop of the ordered society, and in theory (if not in practice) the small man could defend his property as well as could the great landowner and capitalist.

Firmly based on this constitutional and legal framework English eighteenth-century society went steadily about its business. The ending of the Stuart dynasty, the South Sea Bubble, the ’Forty-five and the American war each gave rise to a major flurry of excitement, but the disturbances affected only a minority of the people and made little impact on the country at large. Landed society dominated the constitution and the economy, and the permanence and stability of landed society was a vital factor in the stability of society as a whole.

On a closer view, however, it is clear that the structure of landed society was not unchanging and that it was divided by sectional interests. Earlier chapters have attempted to describe the changes within landed society, the continual influx of newcomers from trade and the professions, the rise of some families through marriage, office, law, and careful husbanding of resources, and the decline of others through extravagance, unwise speculation in business or politics, or over-large dowries. On the whole, the large proprietors were gaining over the small ones by consolidating and expanding their estates at the latter’s expense. Economic forces, taxation, and the rise in living standards tended to work against the small gentry and freeholders; they depended on their small rentals and farming profits, while the great landlords and wealthy gentry could often draw on incomes from government, mortgages, the Funds and trade, and had more scope for improving and diversifying their estate revenues.

The interests of the large proprietors, therefore, were not identical with those of the small proprietors. The latter had more to fear from war, which increased the burden of taxes on their limited incomes, and made it more difficult to borrow. The country gentlemen groaned at land tax at four shillings in the pound, and found little comfort in the eventual conquest of the enemy and the acquisition of remote colonies. War might benefit the ironmasters, government contractors and speculators, but for the country gentlemen it meant greater financial stringency and risks. There was divergence also on matters affecting agricultural development and prosperity. The large owners, with their wide range of interests, could afford to regard narrow questions of agricultural policy with some indifference. Not so the country gentlemen, freeholders and farmers, whose livelihood depended on the soil. There was a clash of interests, therefore, over the attempts before 1801 to secure a General Enclosure Act (the object of which was to cheapen the process of enclosure), over the prohibited export of wool (which kept down prices in favour of the woollen manufacturers), and over the question of tithes (which, when taken in kind, hindered agricultural improvement). On all three issues the ‘farming interest’ was defeated in a Parliament dominated by the ‘landed interest’, the struggles bringing into the open a highly significant and portentous division in agrarian society.⁴³⁰

The dissatisfaction of the small gentry, farmers, and urban middle class mounted to a peak during the American war. The effects of high taxation stimulated criticism of the government’s policy and war management, a criticism not untinged with sympathy for the aims of the American rebels. Richard Hayes, a yeoman farmer of Kent, complained of ‘this unnatural War against our best allies or friends the Americans’, and wrote uncompromisingly in his diary: ‘I do not like this War.’⁴³¹ A demand for constitutional reform developed and made most rapid headway in Ireland, where in 1782 the independent ‘Grattan’s Parliament’ was established. In England the reform movement was concentrated round the radicals of London and the Yorkshire Association of middle-class landowners led by Christopher Wyvil, while the movement received general support from the Pittite whigs led by Rockingham, Fox and Shelbume. The movement had the dual objects of financial and political reform—the reduction of government expenditure on pensions and sinecures, and a reform of the House of Commons to secure a more rational and balanced representation of the country. The intention was by no means revolutionary: there was general satisfaction with the constitution as a whole, and no support for the institution of democracy—merely a desire to weed out abuses that had crept into an otherwise perfect system. The agitation did reflect however the discontent with the American war, the popular dislike of the government’s subservience to the king, the uneasiness aroused by the Wilkes episode, and not least, the great hostility towards pensions and sinecures naturally felt by people who could not participate in them.

Little was achieved: Burke’s Bill for ‘Economical Reform’ proved a damp squib and the resulting economies were correspondingly disappointing, while the demand for political reform—which of course was not concerned with basic rights—fizzled out when the Gordon riots seemed to show how easy it might be to slip into a state of anarchy. Parliament and the propertied classes at large were conservative at heart, and wary as to what unknown forces a reform of the constitution, however modest, might unleash. Prudence was the counsel that prevailed also in fiscal matters. The protection of property was the overriding consideration, and no one knew where economical reform might end—after all a reassessment of the land tax, by now a very modest burden, might prove to be its unforeseen and disastrous consequence.⁴³²

What was now the position of the urban middle class—the merchants, industrialists, and professional men? Non-representation in the Commons of the big and growing manufacturing towns and seaports, swarming with inhabitants and vital to our commerce, was one of the most obvious defects in the existing political system. But the leading citizens of Manchester and Birmingham gave but lukewarm support to the reform movement. As a whole they were not much interested at this time in political representation, and did not really feel the lack of it. Through their contacts with the county Members, or more directly through petitions, addresses, or some such pressure group as the Chamber of Manufacturers, they could effectively make their views and wishes known. This, however, was only a temporary compact and could not endure. Criticism was mounting of government inefficiency and the absurdity of unreformed institutions; and before long, as the balance of the economy shifted from agriculture and self-sufficiency to industry and reliance on trade, so the demand for redress of the balance of politics was bound to be heard. For the time being, however, the political supremacy of the landed interest was unchallenged.

In part this supremacy rested on the traditional role of landowners in government, a role based on their wealth and great stake in the country, and their position as the only class of people with sufficient ...