Annals of the Labouring Poor
Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660–1900

K. D. M. Snell (Author)

9780521335584, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 2 April 1987

476 pages, 47 b/w illus. 25 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 3.1 cm, 0.785 kg

'It all adds up to a historical tour de force, particularly valuable for its long perspective and for its many stimulating ideas … It deserves to be read, and read carefully, by those who wish to understand better the growth of our modern society.' The Times Literary Supplement

This collection of inter-connected essays is concerned with the impact of social and economic change upon the rural labouring poor and artisans in England, and combines a sensitive understanding of their social priorities with innovative quantitative analysis. It is based on an impressive range of sources, and its particular significance arises from the pioneering use made of a largely neglected archival source - settlement records - to address questions of central importance in English social and economic history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Levels of employment, wage rates, poor relief, the sexual division of labour, the social consequences of enclosure, the decline of farm service and traditional apprenticeship, and th equality of family life are amongst the issues discussed in a profound re-assessment of a perennial problem: the standard of living (in its widest sense) of the labouring poor during the period of industrialisation. The author's conclusions challenge much of the prevailing orthodoxy, and his extensive use of literary and attitudinal material is closely integrated with the quantitative restatement of an interpretation that owes much to the older tradition of the Hammonds' Village Labourer.

Preface
Introduction
1. Agricultural seasonal unemployment, the standard of living, and women's work, 1690–1860
2. Social relations - the decline of service
3. Social relations - the poor law
4. Enclosure and employment - the social consequences of enclosure
5. The decline of apprenticeship
6. The apprenticeship of women
7. The family
8. Thomas Hardy, rural Dorset, and the family
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB]