Landed Estates and Rural Inequality in English History

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. The Landed Interest

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 1-10

3. Cotton into Land

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 11-31

4. The Lower Orders

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 33-43

5. Expelling the People

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 45-55

6. Road Capture

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 57-70

7. Killing Grounds

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 71-81

8. Living by Rapine & Plunder

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 83-92

9. Institutions and Inequality in the Countryside

   • Eric L. Jones

   Pages 93-105

10. The Estate System as Market Failure

    • Eric L. Jones

    Pages 107-123

11. Back Matter

    Pages 125-129

    PDF

Based on a detailed investigation of local sources, this book examines the history of the landed estate system in England since the mid-seventeenth century. Over recent centuries England was increasingly occupied by landed estates run by locally dominant and nationally influential owners. Historically, newcomers adopted the behaviour of existing landowners, all of whom presided over a relatively impoverished mass of rural inhabitants. Preferences for privacy and fine views led landowners to demolish or remove some whole villages.  Alongside extensive landscape remodelling, rights-of-way were often privatised, imposing a cost on the economy.

Social and environmental implications of the landed system as a whole are discussed and particular attention is paid to the nineteenth-century investment of industrial profits in estates. Why was the system so attractive and how was it perpetuated? Matters of poverty and inequality have always been of perennial interest to scholars of many persuasions and to the educated public; with this important book surveying environmental concerns in addition.  

• Landed estates in English history
• Rural inequality
• Road capture
• Demolition of villages
• Mid-Seventeenth century England
• Poverty in English history
• Agricultural history
• Environmental history
• Economic history of landed estates
• Cotton industry
• Domestic service
• Glorious Revolution
• Labour migration
• Social apartheid
• Amenity motive
• Privacy motive
• Public assets
• Efficiency of social institutions
• Redistribution of wealth
• Rural poverty

“Eric Jones, one of the most respected and original economic historians of our age, has produced an indignant and sparkling indictment of landed estates in rural England. He mercilessly dissects the economic follies, environmental destruction, and social travesties committed by a callous gentry class in search of luxurious mansions, hunting grounds, and rustic views.” (Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University, United States)

“Landed estates and their owners have long dominated the political, social and economic control of the English countryside.  In this masterly survey of their development since the mid-seventeenth century, Eric Jones uses a potent mix of well-chosen case examples and select economic concepts to draw out their character in a way that convincingly challenges past ideas about them.” (Robert Dodgshon, Aberystwith University, Wales)

“Jones presents an overview of the English landed estate system from its medieval origins to the influx of industrial capital in thenineteenth century. He demonstrates that it was not only the concentration of capital in the landed class which defined and perpetuated social inequities, but also how the capital was deployed in re-shaping the countryside to service the leisure as well as the business interests of the land owners and their upwardly mobile tenants.” (Patrick Dillon, University of Exeter, United Kingdom)

“Landed estates have been a defining feature of English society for centuries. In this book Jones examines aspects of their impact that have hitherto been typically less well explored in the literature, such as the estates’ roles in the erosion of public rights of way, in the socially destructive remodelling of the landscape, and in the environmental harm wrought by blood sports.” (Gary Magee, Monash University, Australia)

• La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

  Eric L. Jones

Eric L. Jones is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University, Australia. He has spent a lifetime working and publishing extensively on the economic history of agriculture and environmental history. 

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