Agricultural History Review, Volume 45 Part 2 (1997), pp. 165–175

The allotment movement played an important part in rural class relations after 1830, but its history has been neglected. This article explores one aspect of that history, opposition to allotments between 1830 and 1850. Opposition to allotments amongst landowners seems to have been largely confined to those who felt an ideological commitment to political economy. These landowners feared, on what it is argued were mistaken grounds, that allotments would prove economically damaging, and in particular that they would increase population. Opposition amongst farmers was common, although by no means, as some historians have supposed, universal. Farmers opposed allotments for a variety of reasons, principally out of a desire to keep labourers in as dependent an economic position as possible and to maintain a sharp status distinction between themselves and labourers. Labourers, surprisingly, also often opposed allotments at least on their initial introduction. This opposition is best explained as an indication of the depth of suspicion existing between labourers and their social superiors at this time. The article concludes by arguing that the existence of opposition to allotments in this period does not afford grounds for doubting their social benefits, but that the divergence of opinion between farmers and landowners over allotments contributed to a serious deterioration in the relationship between the two classes in this period. 

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