Agricultural History Review, Volume 50 Part 2 (2002), pp. 253–270

The Land Drainage Act of 1930 became the benchmark of twentieth-century agricultural-drainage legislation. Its purpose was to simplify and update drainage legislation enacted since the sixteenth century and to reorganize the maintenance and improvement of arterial drainage on a catchment-wide basis. The paper reconstructs the five stages by which such a fundamental overhaul was perceived to be necessary and implemented. The bitter controversy as to the funding of the major improvements to the estuary and tidal length of the River Great Ouse had a considerable bearing on the timing and content of the Bill. The immediate and longer-term significance of the Act is discussed, both in respect of the wider management of watercourses and the potential for agricultural improvement of the adjacent lands. 

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