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Keeping the Wheels of the Farm in Motion: Labour Shortages in the Uplands during the Great War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

HILARY CROWE
HILARY CROWE*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9SH
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Abstract

Revision of the early estimates of the extent of labour shortages in agriculture during the Great War suggest that, for England and Wales, labour was more plentiful than contemporaries asserted. However national averages disguise important regional variations. Using newly discovered material from a District Committee of the Westmorland County Agricultural Executive, supplemented with contemporary commentary and reports, this article investigates farm labour shortages in the uplands. It considers labour supply and shows that assumptions about the level of recruitment of farmers and their families and about the availability of substitutes as used in revisionist estimates cannot be supported here. It then shows that the ‘plough up campaign’ imposed by Government increased labour demand in the uplands to a greater extent than in other regions. This combination of reduced supply and increased demand served to exacerbate existing labour shortages and resulted in labour shortages that were more severe than is suggested by the revisionist figures for England and Wales.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , October 2008 , pp. 201 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

Notes

1. Ernle, LordThe Land and its People (London, 1923), p. 99Google Scholar.

2. Lord Ernle, The Land and its People, p. 100.

3. Murray, K., Agriculture, History of the Second World War (London, 1955)Google Scholar.

4. Whetham, E., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1914–1939 (Cambridge, 1978), p. 71Google Scholar.

5. Dewey, P., British Agriculture in the First World War (London, 1989), p. 140Google Scholar.

6. E. Whetham listed the records of four county committees, Bedford, Huntingdon, Norwich and Worcester, see Whetham, E., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1914–39, Vol VIII (Cambridge, 1978) p. 97Google Scholar. Various other papers have come to light elsewhere and P. Dewey consulted material from another twelve counties. See P. Dewey, British Agriculture in the First World War. The Westmorland papers are unusual as they comprise the detailed papers of a District Committee and reflect farming in an upland area.

7. After 1917 agriculture was organised through a system of County War Agricultural Executive Committees which oversaw direction of farmers and farming through a system of District Committees staffed largely by local unpaid farmers and land agents. The committees were given wide ranging powers which included the direction of cultivation and production and in the last resort had the authority to evict farmers and take over cultivation of a holding.

8. Cumbria Archives, Kendal, WD/BS Boxes 3 and 5.

9. Journal of the Board of Agriculture, Circular August 1915.

10. Journal of the Board of Agriculture, Circular December 1915.

11. Journal of the Board of Agriculture, Circular February 1916.

12. Lord Ernle, The Land and its People, p. 107.

13. Journal of the Board of Agriculture, Circular February 1917.

14. Lord Ernle, The Land and Its People, p. 163.

15. Lord Ernle, The Land and Its People, p. 165.

16. BPP 1919 VIII Wages and Conditions in Agriculture (Volume I, p. 35).

17. The Report published in 1905: BPP 1905 XCVII Second Report by Mr Wilson Fox on Wages, Earnings and conditions of Employment of Agricultural Labourers in the United Kingdom highlights the higher wages paid to workers in the pastoral regions of the north as a result of the competition for labour from industry.

18. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 17th May 1913, ‘The Whitsun Hirings’.

19. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 6th June 1914.

20. Kendal Mercury, 16th May 1913.

21. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 11th January 1913.

22. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 7th March 1914.

23. Kendal Mercury, 4th September 1914.

24. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 7th November 1914.

25. Kendal Mercury, 20th November 1914.

26. Kendal Mercury, 28th May 1915.

27. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 1st May 1915.

28. Cumbria Archives – Kendal Record Office (KRO) – WD/BS Box 3 – March 1916 Patterdale.

29. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – March 1916 Crosby Ravensworth.

30. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – March 1916 – Brougham.

31. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – 7th November 1916.

32. Kendal Mercury, 10th November 1916.

33. Kendal Mercury, 24th November 1916. The term lea is used to refer to ‘land that has remained untilled for some time, land ‘laid down’ for pasture’ (OED on line).

34. Kendal Mercury, 26th January 1917.

35. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – April/May 1918.

36. Kendal Mercury, 5th May 1916.

37. Kendal Mercury, 22nd December 1916.

38. Smith, J., ‘The Supply and Cost of Labour on Small Farms’, Farm Economist, VI (1948)Google Scholar.

39. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 6th February 1918.

40. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – 6th Sept 1916.

41. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – October 1918.

42. British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) – Agricultural Statistics for England and Wales 1913 to 1919.

43. BPP – Agricultural Statistics 1913 to 1919.

44. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – File from May 1917.

45. BPP – Agricultural Statistics 1913 to 1919.

46. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 5th June 1915.

47. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 18th March 1916.

48. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 11th March 1916.

49. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 9th September 1916.

50. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 18th March 1916.

51. 2nd December 1916.

52. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 8th July 1916.

53. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 12th June 1915.

54. 1911 Census – Occupation Tables.

55. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – 1917 Cropping Survey.

56. Cumbria Archives, KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – File from April 1918 – letter 7th May 1918.

57. Kendal Mercury, 26th May 1916.

58. Kendal Mercury, 4th February 1916.

59. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – 16th May 1917 Lowther.

60. Kendal Mercury, 29th October 1915.

61. Kendal Mercury, 19th November 1915.

62. KRO – WD/BS Box 3 – 30th April 1917.

63. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 4th March 1916.

64. Kendal Mercury, 3rd March 1916.

65. Kendal Mercury, 11th August 1916.

66. Kendal Mercury, 22nd December 1916.

67. Journal of the Board of Agriculture – Circular February 1917.

68. Kendal Mercury, 27th November 1914.

69. KRO West Ward Parish School Logs.

70. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 6th May 1916.

71. Source: Ashby, A. and Davies, J., ‘Farming Efficiency and the Agricultural Depression’, JPAES 1 (1929) as Dewey p. 141Google Scholar.

72. Labour demand calculated by applying man hour requirements for each category of production to Westmorland county agricultural statistics from the annual June returns.

73. TNA MAF 68 – Agricultural Statistics for Westmorland 1914–1918.

See also H. Crowe, ‘Profitable Ploughing of the Uplands? World War One and the Food Production Campaign’, Agricultural History Review 55:2, 205–28.

74. Kendal Mercury, 22nd December 1916.

75. BPP 1919 VIII, Royal Commission on Agriculture, para 9031. The report of the enquiry includes similar evidence for the poor condition of the farming in other upland regions and for England and Wales as a whole.

76. Westmorland and Cumberland Herald, 4th December 1915.