Agricultural History Review, Volume 67 Part 2 (2019), p. 323

This book looks at six villages in the Doncaster area during the middle years of the nineteenth century. It contains five thematic chapters along with an introduction and conclusion. The themes under consideration are ‘Social hierarchies, power relations and agency in the countryside’; ‘rural economies’; ‘living and working conditions’; ‘religion and education’ and ‘rural recreation’. As such, it might be considered to be a relatively conventional local history which makes use of a range of both local and national sources to discuss developments in the area during the period under study.

In a relatively slim volume, the author attempts to cover a wide area of rural history. On the one hand, this might be considered as a strength in as much as a lot of topics are touched upon. On the other hand, it can lead to some surprising generalizations which are not always supported by the material under consideration. For instance, in the chapter on ‘Rural economies’ we are presented with: ‘Brown brought wealth and business acumen from industry to agriculture, and his investments epitomized a metamorphosis of the entrepreneurial spirit in the nineteenth century’ (p. 64). While the Brown family had made their money in the West Yorkshire woollen industry, the suggestion that agriculture required industrial entrepreneurs to kick-start innovation is somewhat questionable, and a more thorough investigation would surely have highlighted a more complex dynamic for agricultural investment and innovation.

Perhaps rather surprisingly, the theoretical premise of the book lies in a critique of Dennis Mills’ Lord and peasant in nineteenth century Britain (1980) and his work on open and closed villages, rather than using a more recent theoretical framework. While the author uses a framework of ‘agency’ for her discussion, the theoretical underpinnings for this discussion are not made explicit and the reader is left with the impression that this is a book that might have been written during the 1980s. Indeed, on occasion, one is left with the impression that Mills remains the prevailing paradigm determining the structure of the research, while the critique of the model included here fails to indicate the extent to which it remains useful as an analytical tool for the nineteenth century. Having said this, for those interested in Doncaster and its rural hinterland, the book will prove to be worthwhile reading.

The title might be considered somewhat misleading as it does not really investigate ‘communities in contrast’. There is some discussion of the varying landownership structures across the parishes but one is left with the feeling that the discussion is rather bland. For instance, landlord-tenant relations are only considered in a superficial manner, while there is little evaluation of the internal hierarchies within the agricultural labour force. There is no meaningful discussion of politics (with a small ‘p’) or of protest. There is no mention of the origins of the Revolt of the Field, nor of what Raymond Williams termed ‘oppositional cultures’; indeed Holland goes as far as to state that church and chapel were ‘closely aligned with authority’ (p. 112). While she considers Anglicanism to some extent, there is only a limited discussion of the various strands of nonconformity. Categorizing Anglicanism and nonconformity as a single entity ignores a significant power dynamic in the nineteenth-century countryside at a time when religion and religious adherence were of real importance. Reading the text, the reader is left with the impression that the entire period can be viewed as a single entity that was relatively unproblematic and where actions can be explained through a rather passive perception of agency.