Agricultural History Review, Volume 53 Part 2 (2005), p. 257

This is the fourth and final volume in the Arley Archive Series, and deals with the same area of northern Cheshire as the three books that preceded it. Whilst they were mainly concerned with the processes of agrarian change and the everyday lives of farming families, this time commercial and industrial activities are placed centre stage. As the title suggests, the book has ambitious aims, seeking to shed some light on the emergence of a ‘business culture’ in north-west England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As Foster acknowledges, this is not an attempt to analyze the origins of the industrial revolution, but merely to study the emergence of ‘a new type of society in a small area of the Mersey basin’, through detailing the lives of a large number of families living in this area between 1500 and 1780. From these collective biographies he argues convincingly the importance of two factors, namely the emergence of large numbers of small rural capital owners, and the development of a business culture amongst this group as they increasingly diversified into nonagrarian activities. It is suggested that these two processes set pastoral north-west England apart from the arable areas to the south and east, and most of continental Europe, where an inequitable distribution of wealth and hierarchical gentry culture stunted economic development. Although the distinctions drawn here between arable and pastoral areas are a little overstated, the argument for a closer exploration of capital formation and entrepreneurship amongst small rural property owners is certainly persuasive and provides the book with an organizing theme.

The book is set out in three parts. The first focuses on changes to property rights and rising land values during the period 1530 to 1670, seen as prompting the redistribution of wealth and diversification of the social structure, thus creating the conditions necessary for the emergence of a business community. Here Foster, drawing partly on the evidence from the three earlier volumes, follows the changing fortunes of numerous tenants living and working on the Arley and Tabley estates. In the second part we move forward to 1660, tracking the development of key industries in the Mersey basin through a selection of detailed business biographies. Foster takes us on a tour of the salt works of Northwich and its neighbourhood, visits the sailcloth manufacturers of Warrington, and describes the extensive business network of a leading Quaker family in the town, before concluding with a brief sketch of the social structure of Warrington society in 1771 on the eve of the industrial revolution. The rather brief third section attempts to place the study area within the wider context of the business society of the north-west, and to compare experiences here with other parts of England, Europe and the rest of the world.

This is unashamedly a work of local history with all the attendant strengths and weaknesses of that genre. Foster shows a keen sense of place, an admirable attention to detail, and clear awareness of the local historical and social context within which his study families lived. However, much of the discussion in the book fails to engage with recent debates in rural history or to consider the extensive recent literature on regional industrialization, social networks and entrepreneurship. Given the wealth of evidence presented, this represents a missed opportunity to critique current understandings of early industrial development. For instance, by comparing taxation and probate records with detailed tenurial histories Foster, presents evidence that many families had accumulated levels of wealth beyond those attainable from their known landholding and thus must have been engaged in some other economic activity. This challenges existing assumptions about the diversity of occupational structure in the countryside during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, yet the implications of these findings appear not to be fully appreciated. Indeed, the thread of the argument is sometimes lost in the detail of the discussion, particularly in Part Two, where the detailed biographies of particular business families are presented. The various chapters in this part of the book are certainly less clearly related, and hence the argument more fragmented. The contextualization of evidence in Chapter 11 also seems rather detached and would have been more powerful if woven into the body of the text. 258 the agricultural

That said, there is much to be taken from this book by the agricultural historian. Part One, in particular, covers many key aspects of agrarian change including property rights and the land market; rural capital accumulation; social mobility; household and family structure; occupational diversification, and the role of dissenters in industrial and agrarian change. Throughout the book’s pages, Foster clearly demonstrates the agrarian roots of industrial development in north-west England, charting the paths by which many business families emerged from amongst the small freeholders and three-life leaseholders of the mid-sixteenth century. This book then contains some important findings, and a wealth of evidence both within the text and extensive appendices that many readers of the Review will find useful for their own research. Certainly its significance extends beyond the realms of local history, and it deserves to be read widely by historians of the period.