ABSTRACT
At the Census of 1921, the largest number of ‘workers’ in the rural areas were those employed in agriculture, although as a group their primacy was already being threatened by other workers. It is with those who worked the land, usually held by or owned by others, that we shall begin. In 1921 there were 572,0001
men and women in England and Wales described as agricultural labourers or farm servants. They were already a declining group and had been since the 1850s, when agricultural employment was at its height. The inter-war years were to see the numbers decline still further.
