Agricultural History Review, Volume 60 Part 1 (2012), p. 136

Edmund Rack was a founder member and the first secretary of what became the Royal Bath and West of England Society: though he had no practical experience of farming, he was keen to encourage agricultural improvement. He had been a shopkeeper in Essex until he retired to Bath in 1775 aged 40, where he wrote articles and poetry, as well as having interests in geology and fossil collecting. In the 1780s he collaborated with Rev. John Collinson in producing a history of Somerset. Collinson was mainly responsible for the documentary and historical research, while Rack carried out the field survey of the parishes, travelling around the county from 1781 until his early death in 1787. His health was never very good and the travelling in all weathers probably hastened his end, when some parishes remained unfinished. When the history finally appeared in 1791 under Collinson’s name, he used only small parts of Rack’s material. For modern historians this is probably the more interesting part of the project, providing an observant and informative contemporary survey of the majority of the parishes of Somerset, arranged by Hundred.

This handsome volume, well designed and thoughtfully produced, makes available most of Rack’s survey, arranged by hundred, from his original manuscript now deposited in Bristol Record Office; a small part of his manuscript is in private hands and unavailable. The deposit also includes letters from Rack to Collinson, which the editors have used in the introduction to throw light on the way the history was being prepared and subscribers found. Rack’s wide interests are reflected in the range of information he included for many of the parishes, everything from geology to the surnames found on gravestones. For most parishes he noted the current population, with annual numbers of baptisms and burials; the number of dwellings in the main settlement and also in each hamlet, with their size and materials; the interior fittings of the churches; watercourses and the species of fish found; woodland and the species of tree; the roads and their surfaces; local industry and its employees and output; bridges, mills, workhouses, almshouses, charities, public houses, meeting-houses; the dates of fairs and revels. Occasionally he included significant passages of historical information, on manors and estates or church livings and tithes, possibly gathered from local sources.

The agricultural material is fairly brief: he naturally concentrated on what he perceived to be the main production of the parish, and did not give a total picture of agricultural output, though he also included more detail in his accounts of each hundred. He was more interested in arable farming when it was present, and possibly because of his East Anglian background, was fairly critical of farming practices in Somerset: not enough marl, under-drainage, turnips, or hoeing all round, but he did note good practice as well. Animal husbandry is mentioned less often, usually only when it formed the significant part of the production, such as on the rich coastal pastures of parishes like Huntspill or Burnham, with their many wealthy graziers, or the fine Cheddar cheese made in Weare in the Somerset Levels.

The amount of information varies considerably from place to place, but he frequently gave figures: price of labour, value of meadow, pasture, or farms, value of industrial output. He noted the main products sold at the fairs and weekly markets, and any unusual or outstanding products, and sometimes the actual value of goods traded. Though his home city of Bath received detailed treatment, several major towns, notably Taunton, are not covered: possibly he was going to rely on local contributors, or his death intervened.

The book also includes in a separate pocket a reproduction of Bowen’s Map of Somerset, first published in 1750, showing the hundreds and parishes and much additional information. Two of the illustrations are by Rack himself, one a rendering of the topography of Dunster, used for the endpapers, and the remainder are appropriate topographical drawings and paintings of the period. Rack’s survey gives a valuable snapshot of the county in the later eighteenth century, not only for agricultural change, but also aspects such as population, housing, and religious life. The Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society are to be congratulated on making this interesting material more widely available.