"Lowther's Lambs": Rural Paternalism and Voluntary Recruitment in the First World War, by Keith Grieves, published April 1993 in Rural History (vol. 4, issue 1, article, pp.55-75, ISSN: 0956-7933) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 11924] View Online
Abstract:On the outbreak of war in August 1914 landowners in Sussex immediately started to employ their local leadership roles in the cause of voluntary recruiting and in doing so demonstrated the continuing utility of paternalistic social relations and the traditional rural structure to a nation preparing for war. The slow decline in social prestige provided by landownership was far from visible in the military sphere. As members of the military establishment - regular and territorial, past and present - landowners with clearly identifiable local economic, political and leisure interests attended to the search for recruits with the age old expectation that the deferential labourers would follow their 'betters' to war. As Alun Howkins has written,'men were urged to go as much as part of their duty to the social structure of rural areas as to King and Country'.
Conservation, Class and Custom: Lifespace and Conflict in a Nineteenth-century Forest Environment, by Brian Short, published October 1999 in Rural History (vol. 10, issue 2, article, pp.127-154, ISSN: 0956-7933) View Online
Abstract:Cannon … is busy now bringing fern from the moor to use as bedding, he has cut it about a mile off up the lane behind Belle Green. It is a rough road to bring it down. I think I will go up next time with the cart and help the children to rake it, it is such a nice crackly fern.
At the East Grinstead Petty Sessions in March 1868 Charles, sixth Earl De La Warr brought ten poor men forward charged with oak and beech underwood cutting and trespass. George Edwards the Reeve had discovered six men cutting and tying, another three with handbills but who were not actually cutting at the time, and Abraham Card 'a woodbuyer, etc.' loading the wood onto his wagon. Edwards had cautioned the men against cutting: 'When I got to them I read a paragraph from Mr Hunt's letter [Hussey Hunt, De La Warr's steward, warning against litter cutting]. They laughed and went on cutting. I then gave them all into custody'. It appears that the men were handcuffed and led away. Daniel Heasman, one of the men once again, was convicted and originally imprisoned for 21 days, the other defendants were originally fined 1s. damages, 1s. penalty and costs.
At the East Grinstead Petty Sessions in March 1868 Charles, sixth Earl De La Warr brought ten poor men forward charged with oak and beech underwood cutting and trespass. George Edwards the Reeve had discovered six men cutting and tying, another three with handbills but who were not actually cutting at the time, and Abraham Card 'a woodbuyer, etc.' loading the wood onto his wagon. Edwards had cautioned the men against cutting: 'When I got to them I read a paragraph from Mr Hunt's letter [Hussey Hunt, De La Warr's steward, warning against litter cutting]. They laughed and went on cutting. I then gave them all into custody'. It appears that the men were handcuffed and led away. Daniel Heasman, one of the men once again, was convicted and originally imprisoned for 21 days, the other defendants were originally fined 1s. damages, 1s. penalty and costs.
Common Meeting Places and the Brightening of Rural Life: Local Debates on Village Halls in Sussex after the First World War, by Keith Grieves, published October 1999 in Rural History (vol. 10, issue 2, article, pp.171-192, ISSN: 0956-7933) View Online
Abstract:In the burgeoning literature on war memorials and the commemoration of the war dead in Britain after 1918, the growth of village halls in rural areas has not been extensively analysed. K.S. Inglis has alerted us to the dichotomy of monuments to mourn the dead and amenities to serve the living. He noted that where a preference was made for utility over monumentality, local war memorial committees did not confine their attention to commemorating those who died on active service and made the Great Sacrifice, but also had in mind those who served and returned. The complex locally-determined processes of negotiating ways which would bring solace or comfort to the bereaved, through the creation of an object of mourning, has been examined with great care and detail, but analysis of urban-centred initiatives predominates.
Consequently, the linkage which might be made between the experience of war and the participation of ex-servicemen in village war memorial debates, the demise of old elites and the quest for improved social and material conditions in rural areas, the diminishing support for parish churches as the focal point of community life and the emergence of undenominational social centres, all point towards the need for further examination of the proceedings of local committees, where parish records allow. As British participation in the Great War contained the powerful rhetoric of a religious crusade and was not connected to the improvement of social conditions until the publication of war aims in January 1918, many committees gave priority to the creation of sacred objects of mourning, with much use of exhortatory moral language and Christian iconography.
Consequently, the linkage which might be made between the experience of war and the participation of ex-servicemen in village war memorial debates, the demise of old elites and the quest for improved social and material conditions in rural areas, the diminishing support for parish churches as the focal point of community life and the emergence of undenominational social centres, all point towards the need for further examination of the proceedings of local committees, where parish records allow. As British participation in the Great War contained the powerful rhetoric of a religious crusade and was not connected to the improvement of social conditions until the publication of war aims in January 1918, many committees gave priority to the creation of sacred objects of mourning, with much use of exhortatory moral language and Christian iconography.
Estate Improvement and the Professionalisation of Land Agents on the Egremont Estates in Sussex and Yorkshire, 1770-1835, by Sarah Webster, published April 2007 in Rural History (vol. 18, issue 1, article, pp.47-69, ISSN: 0956-7933) View Online
Abstract:The role of land agents in the management and improvement of English landed estates between 1770 and 1850 is examined in this paper. The focus is on the responsibilities of land agents, their contribution to agricultural improvement, and in particular the validity of a thesis of the professionalisation of agents during this period. The Petworth House archives are used to compare the work of two legal agents at Petworth in Sussex with that of a professional land agency firm in Yorkshire, both employed by the third Earl of Egremont (1751-1837). This study suggests that the role of land agents in agricultural improvement at Petworth was limited to the financial, legal and political aspects of these developments rather than practical management. It proposes that legal agents remained more influential than has been supposed, even on estates renowned for agricultural improvement, and despite contemporary criticism that emphasised the importance of applied agricultural expertise. The belated professionalisation of the Petworth agents and the significant differences in their roles when compared with contemporary and historical accounts suggests that estate management was therefore far more diverse than is suggested in some recent literature.
"Some banglyng about the customes": Popular Memory and the Experience of Defeat in a Sussex Village, 1549-1640, by Andy Wood, published April 2014 in Rural History (vol. 25, issue 1, article, pp.1-14, ISSN: 0956-7933) View Online
Abstract:This article deploys a body of remarkably detailed witness statements to interrogate the nature of popular memory and social conflict in Petworth, Sussex. These depositions are located in two specific contexts: a struggle between the tenants of Petworth and the ninth earl of Northumberland (1591 - 1608) and the broader pattern of resistance and negotiation in the village between the 'commotion time' of 1549 and the calling of the Short Parliament. The essay presents a micro-history of local struggles over land, rights and resources and the findings open up questions within the recent historiography of early modern social relations, undermining the notion that authority was flexibly negotiated between ruler and ruled. Instead, it locates negotiation within social structures that gave a powerful advantage to the gentry and nobility. In this respect, the essay builds upon the return in social history to questions of economic inequality and imbalances of political agency.