Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

poor beggar boy from Derbyshire drowned at Arrow, while an Italian vagrant was present
in Spernall. 220
Summary for the Central (Wood-pasture) Belt 1660-1840
As expected, this zone’s economy was very different from the market town (Zone
A). As can be seen from the analysis and discussion above, its economic story is similar
to that of the Champion Country (Zone B), although there were subtle differences. In
Zones B and C agriculture was of course much more predominant than in the market
town, and both these rural zones also had quarries which were an important factor in their
economy. Perhaps the supposed differences in agricultural practice between Zones B and
C had been greater before 1660. Thereafter it seems to have been a story of mixed
farming in both zones, although the Central Belt never embraced market gardening as the
Champion Country did. The Central Belt’s leather trade had been more important than
that of the Champion Country, but after 1750 this distinction lessened.
In the Central Belt’s villages near Alcester, tradesmen, such as millers, carpenters
and masons, were well placed to serve the market town. Before 1750 much farm
produce, such as cheese, and also wooden, leather and textile products were made in
great enough numbers to sell outside the zone. Apart from the odd metalworker and the
ubiquitous smiths and quarrying masons, the economy was very much organic-based.
The economy of this zone must have suffered during the epidemics in the period 1725 to
1730, but perhaps its occupational structure changed less than in other zones in the 1730s
and 1740s.
220 WaRO, Arrow burials, 1741, and WaRO, DR275/25, Spernall overseers of the poor accounts, 1778,
regarding a vagrant born in Spernall in 1747.
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