The Draining of the Fens: Projectors, Popular Politics, and State Building in Early Modern England

by Eric H. Ash

Overview

How landowners, drainage projectors, and investors worked with the Crown to transform England's waterlogged Fens.

2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

The draining of the Fens in eastern England was one of the largest engineering projects in seventeenth-century Europe. A series of Dutch and English "projectors," working over several decades and with the full support of the Crown, transformed hundreds of thousands of acres of putatively barren wetlands into dry, arable farmland. The drainage project was also supposed to reform the sickly, backward fenlanders into civilized, healthy farmers, to the benefit of the entire commonwealth. As projectors reconstructed entire river systems, these new, artificial channels profoundly altered both the landscape and the lives of those who lived on it.

In this definitive account, historian Eric H. Ash provides a detailed history of this ambitious undertaking. Ash traces the endeavor from the 1570s, when draining the whole of the Fens became an imaginable goal for the Crown, through several failed efforts in the early 1600s. The book closes in the 1650s, when, in spite of the project's enormous difficulty and expense, the draining of the Great Level of the Fens was finally completed. Ash ultimately concludes that the transformation of the Fens into fertile farmland had unintended ecological consequences that created at least as many problems as it solved.

Drawing on painstaking archival research, Ash explores the drainage from the perspectives of political, social, and environmental history. He argues that the efficient management and exploitation of fenland natural resources in the rising nation-state of early modern England was a crucial problem for the Crown, one that provoked violent confrontations with fenland inhabitants, who viewed the drainage (and accompanying land seizure) as a grave threat to their local landscape, economy, and way of life. The drainage also reveals much about the political flash points that roiled England during the mid–seventeenth century, leading up to the violence of the English Civil War. This is compelling reading for British historians, environmental scholars, historians of technology, and anyone interested in state formation in early modern Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421422008
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	05/29/2017
Series:	Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Eric H. Ash (GROSSE POINTE WOODS, MI) is a professor of history at Wayne State University. He is the author of Power, Knowledge, and Expertise in Elizabethan England.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Introduction. The Unrecovered Country: Draining the Land, Building the State

Part I: Popular Politics, Crown Authority, and the Rise of the Projector

Chapter 1: Land and Life in the Pre-Drainage Fens

Chapter 2: State Building in the Fens, 1570-1607

Chapter 3: The Crisis of Local Governance, 1609-1616

Chapter 4: The Struggle to Forge Consensus, 1617-1621

Part II: Drainage Projects, Violent Resistance, and State Building

Chapter 5: Draining the Hatfield Level, 1625-1636

Chapter 6: The First Great Level Drainage, 1630-1642

Chapter 7: Riot, Civil War, and Popular Politics in the Hatfield Level, 1640-1656

Chapter 8: The Second Great Level drainage, 1649-1656

Epilogue. The Once and Future Fens: Unintended Consequences in an Artificial Landscape

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Pamela O. Long

Combining environmental history with a history of the relationships of engineering projects to political power and state-building, The Draining of the Fens deftly and lucidly crosses disciplinary boundaries. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this astute book is a gripping and highly original work of scholarship.

From the Publisher

Combining environmental history with a history of the relationships of engineering projects to political power and state-building, The Draining of the Fens deftly and lucidly crosses disciplinary boundaries. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this astute book is a gripping and highly original work of scholarship.
—Pamela O. Long, author of Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400–1600

Editorial Reviews

Ash's work will long remain an essential account of these important events.

Journal of British Studies

This comprehensive account is likely to become the standard textbook for the history of the Fens. It is thoroughly researched, drawing on a wide range of printed material in addition to archival sources including court records, petitions, correspondence, and state papers.

Renaissance Quarterly

Ash supplies a rousing narrative of 'improvement' schemes in the wetlands of eastern England, written in an engaging Whiggish style that imbues the early Stuart dynastic state.

Journal of Modern History

"An excellent contribution to the history of engineering projects, particularly from an environmental and political point of view."

Metascience - Leslie Tomory

"The book is certainly the account for our generation."

American Historical Review - R. W. Hoyle

"Ash's work will long remain an essential account of these important events."

Journal of British Studies - Paul Warde

"This comprehensive account is likely to become the standard textbook for the history of the Fens. It is thoroughly researched, drawing on a wide range of printed material in addition to archival sources including court records, petitions, correspondence, and state papers. The text is illustrated with original maps and plans, as well as with photos of the Fenlands today. Ash has managed to transform a potentially specialist subject into a story of protest, resistance, and political wrangling that will appeal to a broad spectrumof readers: from those interested in the history of environment, technology, and projects, to students of the political, economic, and social history of early modern England."

Renaissance Quarterly - Jennifer Bishop

"Eric H. Ash brings the perspectives of environmental history and the history of science and technology to bear on the attempts to drain the English fens during the first half of the seventeenth century in a provocative and stimulating account of a major natural and engineering challenge usually examined for the political impact of its various projects on local communities, a subject not neglected here. Ash supplies a rousing narrative of "improvement" schemes in the wetlands of eastern England, written in an engaging Whiggish style that imbues the early Stuart dynastic state."

Journal of Modern History - Dan Beaver

"This history is stunningly relevant and beautifully written... This remarkable book is about nation building, economics, and environmental and social history. It is thoroughly researched, and historian Ash (Wayne State Univ.) tells his story in a compelling way that is accessible to any reader. Essential. All levels/libraries."

Choice

Stunningly relevant and beautifully written . . . This remarkable book is about nation building, economics, and environmental and social history. It is thoroughly researched, and historian Ash tells his story in a compelling way that is accessible to any reader. Essential. All levels/libraries.
—Choice

Ash's book is a sound study of the drainage of one part of the southern fens over a period of less than a century that was without doubt the most formative era in its taming. It is well-written, informative, assiduously referenced with copious endnotes, and an excellent testimony to the wealth of documentation that survives in the archives.
—Environment and History

An excellent contribution to the history of engineering projects, particularly from an environmental and political point of view.
—Metascience

This comprehensive account is likely to become the standard textbook for the history of the Fens. It is thoroughly researched, drawing on a wide range of printed material in addition to archival sources including court records, petitions, correspondence, and state papers.
—Renaissance Quarterly

The book is certainly the account for our generation.
—American Historical Review

Ash's work will long remain an essential account of these important events.
—Journal of British Studies

Ash supplies a rousing narrative of 'improvement' schemes in the wetlands of eastern England, written in an engaging Whiggish style that imbues the early Stuart dynastic state.
—Journal of Modern History

From the Publisher

The book is certainly the account for our generation.

American Historical Review

An excellent contribution to the history of engineering projects, particularly from an environmental and political point of view.

Metascience

Ash's book is a sound study of the drainage of one part of the southern fens over a period of less than a century that was without doubt the most formative era in its taming. It is well-written, informative, assiduously referenced with copious endnotes, and an excellent testimony to the wealth of documentation that survives in the archives.

Environment and History