ABSTRACT
Modern economic historians have striven mightily to convince later generations that what has become known as the Great Depression of the late nineteenth century was, in reality, a minor recession during a period of generalised prosperity. 1 Yet any historian who seriously examines the writings and politics of the period cannot help but be struck by the profound effect which this supposedly minor economic blip had on those who lived through it. This was particularly true of the impact of the depression on British agriculture. From the novels of Thomas Hardy to the proceedings of Parliament, the ‘agricultural question’ was a prevailing theme from the 1870s to the eve of the First World War. 2
