The Bettesworth Book
Talks with a Surrey Peasant

This fascinating biography of a nineteenth-century gardener provides numerous insights into rural life, work, and social concerns.

George Sturt (Author)

9781108003698, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

336 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.66 kg

In 1901, George Sturt (using the pen-name George Bourne) published this biography of his gardener, Frederick Bettesworth. This unusual ethnographic account, written in a modified dialect, uniquely captures rural life in late nineteenth-century England. The book bridges the class divide between 'master and man' as Sturt, through many interviews, gets to know his down-to-earth day labourer, and comes to understand peasant life and poverty as seen through the eyes of Bettesworth. In the introduction, Sturt precisely lays out his interviewing methodology, which allows the reader to understand both men as the conversations, and the book, progress. Through 35 chapters, he opens a window on the social relationships between the classes amid descriptions of the work, childhood, education, and family life of the region's agricultural workers. Sturt is humbled and enriched by his friendship with Bettesworth, calling him the 'voice of Britain', a man 'rugged, unresting, irresistible'.

1. Introductory
2. Boyhood and youth
3. A roaming commission
4. Youth
5. Wanderings
6. Harvest talk
7. Sundry appreciations
8. A favourite horse
9. Other horses
10. 'Much have I seen' – and done
11. Further observations on well-sinking
12. How the harvesters travel
13. Practical jokes
14. Nicknames
15. Pigs and the weather
16. Christmas – and after
17. Gypsies
18. Old Biggs
19. Laying turf
20. From bees to April fools
21. Contains a story of Weyhill fair
22. Concerning many matters
23. Exasperation
24. Weather and toothache
25. Pets
26. Of pigs and cats
27. Cricket
28. A shifty employer
29. Gypsies again
30. Our dominant topic
31. The book-learned
32. One of the old school
33. Philosophy
34. Hops
35. A wet hop-picking – conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB]