Second Year Module
Module Leader: Dr Harvey Osborne
Rationale and Content:
This module will examine rural society in Britain from 1780 to 1914 and offers an opportunity to further develop knowledge and interests accrued in earlier modules of the History programme. It examines a period which although for a long time was perceived as one largely of improvement, began and terminated with well-founded concern over the condition of those whose fortunes were tied to the land. It will adopt a comparative approach to the experience of locality, region and nation across England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, in a period associated with the transformation of Britain's rural economy and society; including the further advance of capitalistic and individualistic modes of land ownership and exploitation and the sharpening of social divisions in the countryside. How and to what extent was change experienced in different parts of rural Britain during this period? How were agricultural and social structures variously interconnected, experienced and transformed? Who were the 'country people' and how did those who variously worked, owned and lived on the land relate to each other? Why did this period, for a long time regarded as progressive, and from which archetypal images idealising British or more commonly 'English' rural life were derived, witness so many people from rural areas voting with their feet and leaving the land.
Learning and Teaching Strategies:
This module will be delivered through weekly lectures and seminars plus tutorial support. Where appropriate supporting resources will also be made available online. Seminar sessions will be designed to encourage student participation and will support students in strengthening their skills of presentation, discussion,argument and debate,and in evaluating,interpreting and using secondary and primary sources.
Assessment:
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Module
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Mode
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Weighting %
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Length
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Submission date
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British Rural Society, 1780-1914
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Assessed seminar discussion
Essay
Exam
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10
40
50
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2,000 words
2 hours
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N/A
Week 8
End of semester
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Recommended introductory reading:
B.Reay, Rural Englands, (Basingstoke, 2004)
A.Howkins, Reshaping Rural England: A Social History 1850-1925, (London, 1981)
J.Burchardt, Paradise lost: rural idyll and social change in England since 1800, (London, 2002).
M.Winstanley, 'Agriculture and Rural Life', in C.Williams (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain, (Oxford, 2004).
Further Reading:
A.Armstrong, Farmworkers: a social and economic history, 1770-1980, (London, 1988).
J.C.Beckett, The making of modern Ireland 1603-192, New edn., (London: Faber, 1981).
E.J.T.Collins, (ed.). The agrarian history of England and Wales, Vol. VII : 1850-1914, Pts. I & II, (Cambridge, 2000).
B.Campbell & M.Overton, (ed.), Land, labour and livestock : historical studies in European agricultural productivity, (Manchester, 1991).
T.Devine, Clearance and Improvement, Land, Power and People in Scotland, 1700-1900, (London, 2006).
T.Devine, Clanship to Crofter's War: The Social Transformation of the Scottish Highlands, (London, 1994).
T.Devine, Exploring the Scottish past: themes in the history of Scottish society, (East Linton, 1995).
J.S.Donnelly, The Great Irish Potato Famine, (London, 2002).
C. O.Grada, The Great Irish Famine, (Cambridge, 1995).
C.O. Grada, Ireland's Great Famine, Interdisciplinary Essays, (Dublin, 2005).
P.Gray, Famine, Land and Politics: British Government and Irish Society, 1843-50, (London, 2001).
D.Howell, Land and People in Nineteenth Century Wales, (London, 1977).
G.E.Mingay, Rural Life in Victorian England, (London, 1998).
G.E.Mingay, (ed.), The Victorian Countryside, (2 Vols.) (London, 1981).
G.E.Mingay, (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales Vol. VI: 1750-1850, (Cambridge, 1989).
M.Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500-1850, (Cambridge, 1996).
C.Póirtéir, (ed.), The Great Irish famine, (Cork, 1995).
R.Perren, Agriculture in Depression, 1870-1940, (London, 2005).
E. Richards, Debating the Highland Clearances, (Edinburgh, 2007).
B.Short, (ed.), The English rural community: image and analysis, (Cambridge, 1992).
T.Smout, A history of the Scottish people, 1560-1830, (London, 1998).
F.M.L.Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century, London, 2006).
N.Verdon, Rural women workers in nineteenth-century England: gender, work and wages (Woodbridge, 2002).