Agricultural Revolution? England, 1540–1850

Abstract

The story of an agricultural revolution introduced by aristocratic heroes in the century after 1750 has proved a surprisingly enduring myth. Like early accounts of the industrial revolution it is a late Victorian tale that captured the popular imagination with its emphasis on particular innovations (turnips, the Norfolk four-course rotation, and mechanical gadgets such as the seed drill), and the Great Men associated with them (‘Turnip’ Townshend, Coke of Holkham, and Jethro Tull). Although subsequent research in agrarian history has shown this traditional account to be a grossly misleading caricature there is no consensus among agricultural historians about an alternative view of the nature or the timing of a decisive transformation in agriculture.