Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

and harvested by cutting, whereas flax and hemp (harvested by pulling), grass, growing
timber and root crops are not generally included. Using only probate inventories a farmer
who specialised in root crops or flax would appear less wealthy than his arable colleague,
and indeed, the absence of references to flax and hemp could lead to incorrect
assumptions regarding the proportions of land given to certain crops and to the source of
local raw materials for linen-weavers and ropemakers.
In the seventeenth century, when people had fewer possessions, each item was
often included as the house was examined room by room. By the mid-eighteenth century
possessions were less likely to be itemised in detail, and, although inventories were
perhaps still compiled, the number of inventories retained amongst probate records fell
dramatically. The inventories of the 1750s and 1760s tend to include much less, and by
the 1770s inventories are quite rare amongst local probate records. 19
Despite problems with interpreting values, inventories have been used as a crude
indicator of changing fortunes in the different sub-districts over the period 1660 to 1760.
Altogether some 2400 inventories (some 2000 male and 400 female) were found. 20
Inventories were used to provide information regarding working practices, for instance
the number of looms owned by a weaver, but space did not allow a more detailed analysis
19 A few inventories for the study area survive post-1780 including one from the 1840s.
20 These were entered on spreadsheets for each parish in twenty-year periods. The numbers involved are as
follows: 521 from 1660-79; 590 from 1680-99; 523 from 1700-1719; 641 from 1720-39; 130 from 1740-59
and 42 from 1760-79. In practice the inventories after 1760 often seem of little use.
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