Inter-war land drainage and policy in England and Wales

Agricultural History Review

Volumn 46, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 64-80

  Bowers, John ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 11544269292     PISSN: 00021490     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (68)

1. I am grateful to my colleague Katrina Honeyman for her helpful comments on this paper. Responsibility for what remains rests of course with me.
2. A D M Phillips The Underdrawing of Farmland in England during the Nineteenth Century, 1989, chapter 3.
3. Ibid, p 120.
4. Unpublished figures by J J MacGregor quoted in C S Orwin and E H Whetham, History of British Agriculture 1846-1914, 2nd ed, Newton Abbott, 1971, p 196; see also Phillips, Underdraining, pp 122-6.
5. Unpublished figures by J J MacGregor quoted in C S Orwin and E H Whetham, History of British Agriculture 1846-1914, 2nd ed, Newton Abbott, 1971, p 196; see also Phillips, Underdraining, pp 122-6.
6. Thus agricultural tenants were encouraged to drain their land at the expense of their landlords by the Agricultural Holdings Act 1883.
7. B W Adkins Land Drainage in Britain, 1933, pp 228-9.
8. Ibid, p 229.
9. Ibid.
10. J K Bowers, 'Cost benefit analysis of wetland drainage', Environment and Planning A, 15, 1983, pp 227- 35.
11. Data from Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, A Century of Agricultural Statistics. Great Britain 1866-1966, 1968.
12. A G Street, Farming England, 1937.
13. J Bowers, 'British agricultural policy since the Second World War, AHR, 33, 1983, pp 60-67.
14. Edith H Whetham The Agrarian History of England and Wales. Volume VIII, 1914-39, 1978.
15. CH Feinstein Domestic Capital Formation in the United Kingdom 1920-1938, 1965.
16. Adkins, Land Drainage, p 194.
17. Cmd 2993, Royal Commission on Land Drainage, 1927, para 7.
18. Ibid, para 143.
19. Cmd 2572, Report to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Commission appointed by him in connection with the Ouse Drainage District, 1926.
20. A T A Dobson, 'State-aided land drainage works in the Middle Level District of the Great Ouse Catchment Basin', Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture (JMA), 36, 1929, pp 620-3; Anon, 'Land drainage works in the Middle Level District of the Great Ouse Catchment Basin', JMA, 38, 1931, pp 893-4; Anon, 'New sluice and pumping station at St Germans', JMA, 41, 1934, pp 729-32.
21. A T A Dobson, 'State-aided land drainage works in the Middle Level District of the Great Ouse Catchment Basin', Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture (JMA), 36, 1929, pp 620-3; Anon, 'Land drainage works in the Middle Level District of the Great Ouse Catchment Basin', JMA, 38, 1931, pp 893-4; Anon, 'New sluice and pumping station at St Germans', JMA, 41, 1934, pp 729-32.
22. A T A Dobson, 'State-aided land drainage works in the Middle Level District of the Great Ouse Catchment Basin', Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture (JMA), 36, 1929, pp 620-3; Anon, 'Land drainage works in the Middle Level District of the Great Ouse Catchment Basin', JMA, 38, 1931, pp 893-4; Anon, 'New sluice and pumping station at St Germans', JMA, 41, 1934, pp 729-32.
23. Anon, 'Land drainage: an account of works of improvement in the Medway Area of the Kent Rivers Catchment Board', JMA, 45, 1938, pp 132-9.
24. Anon, 'Land drainage improvement works carried out by the Rother and Jury's Gut Catchment Board', JMA, 45, 1938, pp 1147-54.
25. 22JMA, 26, 1919, pp 729-31.
26. JMA, 26, 1920, pp 1172-3.
27. MA, 27, 1920, pp 767-8.
28. JMA, 33, 1925, pp 102-3.
29. JMA, 26, 1919, pp 729-31.
30. 27JMA, 30, 1923, p 523.
31. JMA, 26, 1920, p 1089.
32. Estimated from Anon, 'Drainage operations in Norfolk', JAM, 26, 1919, pp 381-7.
33. A questionable assumption since topography is the main determinant of the area of benefit per unit length of water course. It perhaps suffices for a ball-park figure.
34. Annual reports of the programme are published in the JMA as follows: 29, 1922, pp 488-9; 30, 1923, pp 519-25; 31, 1924, pp 610-7; 32, 1925, pp 588-94; 33, 1926, pp 201-11.
35. Annual reports of the programme are published in the JMA as follows: 29, 1922, pp 488-9; 30, 1923, pp 519-25; 31, 1924, pp 610-7; 32, 1925, pp 588-94; 33, 1926, pp 201-11.
36. Annual reports of the programme are published in the JMA as follows: 29, 1922, pp 488-9; 30, 1923, pp 519-25; 31, 1924, pp 610-7; 32, 1925, pp 588-94; 33, 1926, pp 201-11.
37. Annual reports of the programme are published in the JMA as follows: 29, 1922, pp 488-9; 30, 1923, pp 519-25; 31, 1924, pp 610-7; 32, 1925, pp 588-94; 33, 1926, pp 201-11.
38. Annual reports of the programme are published in the JMA as follows: 29, 1922, pp 488-9; 30, 1923, pp 519-25; 31, 1924, pp 610-7; 32, 1925, pp 588-94; 33, 1926, pp 201-11.
39. Cmd 2993, paras 38 and 39.
40. JMA, 33, 1926, p 496.
41. H V Garner. 'The "Buckeye" Ditcher for land drainage: trial in Cambridgeshire', JMA, 28, 1921, pp 306-20.
42. Major J G Merrison, 'Farm drainage machinery', JMA, 45, 1920, pp 1080-88.
43. Gamer, 'The "Buckeye" Ditcher'.
44. H H Nicholson, 'The importance of mole draining in present circumstances', JMA, 46, 1940, pp 671-6.
45. Anon, 'Mole drainage demonstrations', JMA, 33, 1926, pp 587-91.
46. With some types of mole plough it is, at least theoretically, possible to vary the depth of the cartridge as the mole plough travels along ... but the operation requires considerable skill, and ... has not proved satisfactory': Thompson Close 'Mole draining by direct haulage', JMA, 32, 1925, pp 303-6.
47. Ibid.
48. Mole draining of 87 acres in 1925 with a single steam engine took four days at a total cost of £I 6s 8d per acre: A D Imper, T Lewis and V Liversage, 'A note on the cost of mole draining' JRASE, 86, 1925, pp 43-8; Adkins suggests £3-£5 per acre as being more typical: Land Drainage, p 289.
49. Mole draining of 87 acres in 1925 with a single steam engine took four days at a total cost of £I 6s 8d per acre: A D Imper, T Lewis and V Liversage, 'A note on the cost of mole draining' JRASE, 86, 1925, pp 43-8; Adkins suggests £3-£5 per acre as being more typical: Land Drainage, p 289.
50. J H Blackaby, 'Mole drainage demonstrations, 1924-32', JMA, 42, 1935, pp 1244-55.
51. Including the problems created by (real) moles. The little gentlemen in black velvet seem to have taken the name of the process literally and assumed that the demonstrations were for their benefit.
52. 'At the first demonstrations in 1924, direct haulage was represented by one tractor and one make of mole plough, whereas in 1932, it was demonstrated by no fewer than 8 tractors ... and 9 mole ploughs': Blackaby, 'Mole drainage', pp 1244-55.
53. Nicholson, 'Mole draining', p 671.
54. Cmd 2815, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, The Agricultural Output of England and Wales 1925, 1927, p 7.
55. Ibid, p 8.
56. Anon, 'The need for land drainage', JMA, 33, 1927, pp 1010-14.
57. Cmd 2993, para 57.
58. Anon, 'The need for land drainage', p 1013.
59. John Sheail and J Owen Mountford 'Changes in the perception and impact of agricultural land-improvement: the post-war trends in the Romney Marsh', JRASE, 145, 1984, pp 43-55.
60. Anon, 'Government assistance to land drainage', JMA, 33, 1926, pp 280-1.
61. Cmd 2815.
62. This calculation assumes that the 1,200,000 acres in need of drainage produced nothing but were included in the census acreage, an unlikely contingency since such land would in all probability either appear as rough grazing or escape enumeration.
63. E M Ojala, Agriculture and Economic Progress, 1952.
64. Using net/gross output ratios calculated from Ojala, Agriculture and Economic Progress, of 0.51 for livestock and 0.70 for crops.
65. The absence of public loans or grants for field drainage in the inter-war period means that there is no hard evidence to support this contention. One possible source of evidence is the administration of field drainage grants after 1939 where MAFF drainage advisors were required to note the presence of old drains. These data were analysed by F W H Green, 'Field under-drainage before and after 1940', AHR, 28, 1980, pp 120-23, who treats them as evidence of nineteenth-century drainage since 'it is known that little was done between 1880 and 1939'. A later analysis by M Robinson, 'The extent of farm underdrainage in England and Wales, prior to 1939', AHR, 34, 1986, pp 79-85, concurs except that 'some short lived twentieth-century drainage schemes might have been counted in error'.
66. The absence of public loans or grants for field drainage in the inter-war period means that there is no hard evidence to support this contention. One possible source of evidence is the administration of field drainage grants after 1939 where MAFF drainage advisors were required to note the presence of old drains. These data were analysed by F W H Green, 'Field under-drainage before and after 1940', AHR, 28, 1980, pp 120-23, who treats them as evidence of nineteenth-century drainage since 'it is known that little was done between 1880 and 1939'. A later analysis by M Robinson, 'The extent of farm underdrainage in England and Wales, prior to 1939', AHR, 34, 1986, pp 79-85, concurs except that 'some short lived twentieth-century drainage schemes might have been counted in error'.
67. For a summary see J Bowers and P Cheshire Agriculture, the Countryside and Land Use: An Economic Critique, 1983.
68. J Bowers 'Cost-benefit analysis in theory and practice: the case of land drainage', in R K Turner, ed, Sustainable Environmental Management Principles and Practice, 1988, pp 265-89.