From In For The Long Haul: First Fleet Voyage & Colonial Australia: The Convicts' Perspective, by Annegret Hall (ESH Publication, 2018), Kindle pp. 15-17:
The rapid increase in national prosperity and liberal attitudes did not reward everyone in Britain. The upper echelon of society – the landed gentry and mercantile classes – profited but there were far fewer benefits for the rest. The prospects for rural workers were further damaged by legally enforceable changes to land-management practices. At the start of the 18th century, tenant farmers had small leaseholds to grow cereal crops and those with sheep and cattle were allowed to graze on the common land. This provided a basic subsistence living that supported many rural families: freehold and tenant farmers, cottagers, squatters and farm labourers. In effect, the traditional communal sharing of land allowed the ‘humblest and poorest labourer to rise in the village’. This basic agrarian lifestyle had existed since feudal times, and it was how most of England’s country population survived. The mostly illiterate rural poor were largely unaware of the changes that were soon to disrupt their traditional livelihood.
Agricultural land practices altered dramatically in 1710 when laws permitting major landholders to fence off farming lands were enacted, thus restricting their communal use. Successive changes to the Enclosure Act (Inclosure Act) led to the consolidation of small farms into larger estates. This encouraged more efficient farming practices but seriously reduced the earnings of rural villages and small freehold farmers. It also meant that there was much less need for agricultural labour. The new laws reduced the income and food-producing capacity of farmers who did not own land. Large numbers of rural labourers and their families, most of whom had for many generations scrounged a meagre living as small tenant farmers became destitute. Some moved to towns hoping for work in the industrialised textile factories, but they usually discovered that the machine-based industries offered little opportunity for unskilled labourers. As a consequence, unemployment, poverty and hunger became commonplace in many parts of rural and urban Britain by the mid-18th century.
Although the full impact of the Enclosure Act was not felt until the 19th century, by 1760 up to 40% land in Norfolk County had been enclosed. By the 1780s life for the poor in rural Norfolk, where both Anthony and Elizabeth lived, became a bleak struggle for survival. There was little or no social assistance for the unemployed, and many poor people stole to feed their families. The disparity between the rich and poor at that time was seen in the spending by the wealthy on “fad foods” such as tea and sugar. It was claimed that ‘as much superfluous money is expended on tea, sugar, etc as would maintain four millions more of subjects in BREAD’.
It is difficult today to fully appreciate the gulf that existed between the gentry and the working classes in Britain up until the 20th century. The famous author Jane Austen (1775-1817) lived in England at the same time as Elizabeth and Anthony. Jane’s father was a country pastor, and this meant that the Austen family was of ‘modest means’ and were even considered poor by their relatives. But because they were educated and well connected, all of the Austen family members were able to forge successful careers. Nevertheless, for this enlightened Christian family their social separation from the lower classes ‘remained absolute and unquestioned; both sides believed that God had arranged the system’. The stark reality of the 18th century was that the upper and lower classes lived in separate worlds – one full of privilege, education, smart clothing, witty theatre, coaches, glamorous balls, parties and opportunity – the other full of deprivation, hard work, poor housing, illiteracy, poverty and frequent hunger. These two worlds rarely intersected, and when they did it was only if advantageous to the gentry; usually when cheap labour or rent income was needed. To the majority of the privileged classes the poor remained nameless beings invisible in their daily lives, even when present in their houses as servants. Consequently, the wealthy had scant concern for their wellbeing. The common belief was that the working classes existed because it was God’s Will, and they deserved to be where they were. This was an unrelentingly hard and miserable time to be poor.
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