Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

with better transport links allowing more cattle to be fattened on the Avon valley pastures
and then driven to markets such as Birmingham or taken downstream to Bristol.
Although no gardeners are named as such in Period C, it may be that the increase
in labourers in probate subsumes some independent labourers cum market-gardeners. 40
These parishes may well have been included in the description of rent by Eden’s
Inkberrow correspondent: ‘In the vale of Evesham, from which the inhabitants are almost
wholly supplied with vegetables, £2 to £4 an acre…’, compared with 15s to 25s. an acre
in Inkberrow. 41
Amongst the handful of labourers who left probate approximately half
owned a number of houses, while William Canning’s probate was handled at the
prerogative court. 42
The increased demand for market-garden produce may have enabled more
labouring families to stay put rather than move in search of work. However, proving the
involvement of any individual in the market-gardening industry at this time is difficult.
Martin found that in the eighteenth century few people specialised as market-gardeners
even in the heart of the vegetable growing areas of the Vale of Evesham. At this period it
was a by-employment for labourers and petty tradesmen, going hand in hand with hemp
and flax growing on small plots, which had probably also been used to raise tobacco in
the previous century. Such poor men could utilise their small patch of ground, family
40 Table 5.4 (from marriage licences) shows a very similar percentage for labourers mid-century and end of
century. No gardeners appear in the marriage licence data.
41 Rogers, The State of the Poor (by Sir Frederic Morton Eden), p. 350. Inkberrow is in Zone C.
42 TNA, PCC probate of William Canning, Long Marston, labourer, 1762. On the other hand some of the
labourers’ probate documents show values of less than £20 and were only drawn up because of special
factors such as the minority of the deceased’s children.
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