A Farmer's Life
With a Memoir of the Farmer's Sister

The unusual and descriptive biography of a rural nineteenth-century English farmer, first published in 1922.

George Sturt (Author)

9781108025256, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 November 2010

218 pages, 6 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.3 cm, 0.28 kg

George Sturt (1863–1927) was a British wheelwright and writer who usually wrote under the pen-name George Bourne. A native of Surrey, he inherited his father's workshop in the rural village of Bourne, near Farnborough, in 1894. He began to record the daily lives and recollections of his rural family and acquaintances, which he published towards the end of his life. First published in 1922, this volume contains Sturt's unique biography of his uncle, farmer John Smith. Sturt bases his account of his uncle's life around Smith's anecdotes and recollections as recounted him during the last years of Smith's life. This unusual structure provides a lively, intimate account of the life of a farmer in rural England during the nineteenth century. Through Smith's recollections and Sturt's own memories, Sturt sensitively describes the domestic life, work and farming methods of a now vanished way of life.

1. Welsh cattle
2. Dog-traction
3. The country flavour
4. Tramps
5. 'Smith'
6. Surface water
7. Obstinacy
8. Oddities
9. Farnborough recalled
10. Two harvester
11. The bachelors
12. At the farm
13. Chiefly thatching
14. Retiring
15. Retirement
16. Mr. Smith's chatter
17. More chatter
18. Ebbing power
19. A rally. 1: Mr. Smith's manner
20. A rally. 2: Conversation
21. Collapse
22. Souvenirs
Ann Smith
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB]