Land and Society in Edwardian Britain

by Brian Short

Overview

This revealing new book presents some of the first researches into a trove of hitherto inaccessible primary source material. A controversial component of Lloyd George's People's Budget of 1909-10 was the "New Domesday" of landownership and land values. This documentation, long locked away in the Inland Revenue's offices, became available to the public in the late 1970s. Dr. Short offers both a coherent overview and a standard source of reference to this valuable archive. Part I is concerned with the processes of assembling the material and its style of representation; Part II with suggested themes and locality studies. A final chapter places this new material in the context of discourses of state intervention in landed society prior to the Great War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521021777
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/24/2005
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography , #25
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.87(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. An introduction; Part I. Processes and Representations: 2. Lloyd George, the 1909 Budget and the land campaign; 3. The national structure of the valuation process; 4. The survey procedures and documents; 5. The 1910 documents and archival policies; Part II. Themes and Locality Studies: 6. Projects and problems; 7. Urban social area analysis 1909–14; 8. Rural society and economy 1909–14; 9. Rural industrial communities on the eve of the Great War; 10. Contrasts and comparisons; 11. The survey in Ireland; 12. The survey in Scotland; 13. A discourse of state power 1909–14; Bibliography; Appendices.

Editorial Reviews

...[A useful addition] to the body of literature on British agricultural history....[The book is] a reference book for those interested in the land valuation legislation and survey of 1910....uses documents concerned with landholding as a window into the society which produced them. -- Agricultural History

Kevin D. Hill

"...essential reading for any serius student of the land question and a necessary acquistion for schools with graduate programs programs in British history." F. Coetzee, Choice

"...succeeds in conveying a sense of the richness of the valuation material and will serve as a useful handbook for all who seek to tap into that richness." Bruce K. Murray, Albion

"...clearly written and loaded with charts and good references. It is an important study of recently available manuscripts and points us toward a comprehensive survey of land ownership in the early twentieth century." Phillip Thurmond Smith, History

"...informative in discussing the pitfalls encountered when researching agricultural history in the early modern and modern periods as they are in discussing their specific topics. ...a reference book for those interested in the land valuation legislation and survey of 1910. Short has provided a useful study. This volume should, as its author intends, serve as a stimulus and a reference point for further work on the 1910 land survey. ...provide a great deal of information which can be of use to scholars of English agricultural and rural history. ... findings should prove informative to specialists, and their discussions of research and methodology should be eye-opening to students and those with more general interests." kevin D. Hill, Agricultural History

"Brian Short ha brought this database into public view and now it is up to us, whether economic or agricultural historians, historical sociologists or historical geographers, to plunder it for all that it is worth." Michael Turner, Jrnl of Eco Hist

"...an essential reference book, and source guide, for a wide variety of researchers of the era." American Historical Review

From the Publisher