Agricultural History Review, Volume 68 Part 1 (2020), p. 125

In considering the economy and culture of north-east England in the period 1500 to 1800, Adrian Green and Barbara Crosbie have co-edited a book which explores one of the earliest periods of industrialization, before the traditional time frame of the Industrial Revolution. The industries which developed along the banks of, and between, the rivers Tyne and Wear, as well as the thriving town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, attracted considerable numbers of people, all of whom needed feeding by local agricultural systems.

The editors suggest that modern historians view the four northern counties of England as under-developed, reflecting an ignorance of this early evolution in industry, agriculture and commerce. Because historians have only considered ‘coal and class’, they have ignored the cultural interactions which underpinned the development of an economy and society in the area. Further, the introduction suggests that economic integration across the England-Scotland border was an underlying factor in the consolidation of the Union between the two countries.

The first two chapters of the book are of primary interest to agricultural historians. In chapter 1, A. T. Brown examines those who occupied land on Durham Cathedral’s estate, with the progression of the Dean and Chapter’s bond tenants of the fifteenth century into the church leaseholders of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thereby bridging traditional periodization. The township of Horton is used as a case study to understand the land they farmed, their possessions through probate inventories and their wealth, both relative to each other and to those from other regions. A comparison between the tenants of the Dean and Chapter and those of the bishops of Durham demonstrates the limited economic and social outlook for the former.

Adrian Green commences the next chapter by examining the contribution made by agriculture in support of the early industrialization, and the changes in agriculture necessary to feed a growing population: with the majority employed in non-agricultural activities, this represented an early agricultural revolution. Enclosure by agreement was undertaken by the leading freeholders and leaseholders, resulting in few open fields by the eighteenth century: enclosure peaked between 1630 and 1680, with only six townships in the county requiring Parliamentary enclosure after 1800. This enabled selective stock breeding which produced livestock specialized for the region’s climate (Border Leicester sheep and Durham Shorthorn cattle). In addition, milking took place at the farmsteads, thereby replacing the ancient habit of transhumance. Farmhouses and farm buildings were rebuilt, often in the centre of the newly enclosed fields. Animal and human waste, along with nitrogen-fixing crops, coal ash and lime were all used to improve the land. However, it was often those who held land by freehold or extended leasehold who had the confidence to do so. A second agrarian revolution occurred during the eighteenth century with large landowners promoting commercial tenancies on improved farms to maximize rental income. This was achievable due to the expanding market for food in the region. Adrian Green concludes that there is more work to do on the relationship between farming and industry in north-east England and considers a set of research questions: however, the scene has been set.

John Brown examines lead mining through the role of the Bowes family as gentry entrepreneurs in Weardale and Teesdale, with tenants who regarded lead production as a ‘casual cash crop’. In terms of by-employment, these tenants were definitely farmer-miners, rather than miner-farmers. Moving away from matters rural, in chapter 4, Leona Skelton looks at the efforts of the civic officers of Berwick-upon-Tweed in presenting the town as an urban space rather than part of its rural hinterland by improving sanitation and other infrastructure in the town. Despite this, civic employees were paid in units of ‘ewe’s grass’ rather than money, dunghills persisted in the streets and the mowing of grass for hay around the outskirts of Berwick was an important ceremonial event, reflecting the entrenched agricultural nature of the town’s economy.

In chapter 5, Andy Burn considers the development of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in terms of population, migration and occupational structures over the period 1600–1710, whilst Lindsay Houpt-Varner examines the role of the Quakers in the region in chapter 6. Using the example of the glass-making industry in Newcastle, she illustrates how the fine balance was achieved between undertaking economic and social business and yet maintaining the Quaker way of life.

Peter Wright takes the reader away from coal to the development of the more general trades, focusing on shipping on the Tyne. Using Newcastle port books for 1702–03 and 1756, he concludes that whilst coal was the major export, there was an extensive range and volume of other commodities and products leaving and arriving at the port, along with some re-exporting activity. In chapter 8, Matthew Greenhall investigates the nature and extent of Scottish trade with north-east England, both cross-border and coastal, over the period of regal, and later, political union between the two countries. He identifies step changes in trade after each of the years 1603, 1654 and 1707, in terms of both commodities traded and transportation logistics.

In the final two chapters, Barbara Crosbie looks at the role of the print trade in Newcastle, whilst Morgan and Rushton move the focus to Sunderland and the River Wear – ‘the other coal exporting river’. Whilst Sunderland had no formal civic identity until Victorian times, it was able to operate and develop prior to this with the focal point being the river and its trade.

The book concludes with a combined bibliography for all the book chapters. This reader found only one typographical error (Stokesely cf. Stokesley, p. 218). A table of weights and measures would assist the understanding of the extent of a chaldron of coal, a wey of salt and a fother of lead, which can also have regional variations. The overriding conclusions from the diverse aspects considered in this book are that the economic and cultural development in the north-east cannot be seen in geographic isolation and that there is much work to do using untapped source material.