ABSTRACT
The importance of the agricultural sector in the British economy declined irreversibly between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the beginning of the twentieth century 1 . About 1820, agriculture was outstripped by the industrial sector both as regards its contribution to national product and as a source of employment. However, compared with individual industries, agriculture remained, as Clapham wrote, ‘the first British industry’. Only at the end of the nineteenth century did the decline of British agriculture reach a point where it came to occupy a minor position. Furthermore, this decline was only relative, and up to the crisis that struck agriculture in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, its production had gone on increasing-admittedly more slowly than the output of other sectors, but fast enough for its contribution to overall growth to be far from negligible 2 . From a purely economic point of view, agriculture remained therefore an important activity for a long time, while the political and social influence of the great landowners continued to be enormous.
