ABSTRACT
The massive agricultural growth and specialisation of this period brought little benefit to the folk who tilled the soil, tended the animals and cut the hay. The lot of most rural labourers deteriorated from the 1780s at least until the 1850s. Agricultural labourers agitated for higher wages but their grievances went deeper. The plight of agricultural labourers varied substantially both across the country and within individual counties. By the 1780s, the trend towards short-term employment of labourers was well established. Northern labourers, even as late as 1850, were used to consuming a variety of coarser grains, particularly barley and oatcakes; they also baked their own bread. The most difficult years for labourers were those after 1815 when a market glutted by demobilised servicemen coincided with depressed arable prices. Poaching by rural labourers increased enormously as the vice of poverty tightened around their families. English agricultural labourers, therefore, were resentful but not inert.
