Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

ways by different townsfolk: to graze sheep, cattle or draught animals or to let out as a
source of income. 37
Probate inventories before 1760 reveal mixed farming and in some cases suggest
a possible sideline in horse-dealing. 38
In addition to labourers, yeomen and husbandmen,
a couple of gardeners and warreners also appear in local records before 1750. 39
The term
‘gardener’ is an ambiguous descriptor. Alcester’s gardeners may have been marketgardeners
or the servants of one specific employer, or self-employed men who gardened
for many clients. 40
A swing back towards agriculture in the mid-eighteenth century is suggested by
Tables 4.2 and 4.4. The improved road network would ease the movement of agricultural
produce to lucrative west midlands markets. Alcester farmers perhaps also exported their
corn via Bristol for example in 1766, when Alcester market was visited by a crowd
protesting against corn prices. 41
Although probate inventories cease to be kept at this
time, we can tell that fewer of the town’s tradesmen were involved in farming. The
practice of letting their land out to farmers increased, and the enclosure award of 1771
consolidated land tenure still further. 42
There were six farms after enclosure, although in
37 French, ‘Urban agriculture, commons and commoners’, pp. 197-8.
38 For example, WoRO, probate of William Dewes, senior, husbandman/yeoman, 1718, £540. His
inventory includes malt, wheat, barley, oats, peas, clover, ryegrass, cows and sixteen geldings, mares and
colts. P. Edwards, ‘The horse trade of the Midlands in the seventeenth century’, Ag. Hist. Rev., 27, (1979),
discusses the extensive midlands horse-trade. TNA, IR23/91, Alcester Land Tax returns from 1798 list a
piece of land called the Hopyard, suggesting the cultivation of hops. Flax and hemp were also grown, (see
the textile section below).
39 WaRO, Coughton burials, 1721, 1722, mention warreners on Alcester Heath.
40 For example, WaRO, N1/95, 96, 97, Napton-on-the-Hill parish records, in 1693 refer to George Smith,
Alcester, gardener. The extensive market gardening industry associated with the Vale of Evesham is
discussed more fully in Chapter 5.
41 Adam’s Weekly Courant 14 October 1766.
42 Saville, Alcester – a History, pp. 44-5, states that the estate map of 1754 already shows evidence of
several strips in the open field being combined in larger blocks. Some 74 proprietors pre-enclosure were
reduced to fewer than 40 after enclosure. Martin, ‘Village traders and the emergence of a proletariat in
South Warwickshire, 1750-1851’, Ag. Hist. Rev., 32, (1984), p. 185, states that many smaller holders in
Alcester sold up between the act and the award.
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