To Whom Belongs the Land: Change and Reform on a North Riding Estate, 1889 to 1914

Abstract

Hugh Charles Fairfax-Cholmeley inherited the Brandsby estate in April 1889. He was squire for 51 years. This is a case study of the social reforms he implemented against the background of the political debate on Land Reform and the increasing economic difficulties experienced by landowners. During Fairfax-Cholmeley’s lifetime the traditional order of landed aristocracy and gentry, which had made good economic, political and social sense for several centuries, was breaking down. For agriculture, the years 1888 to 1914 were mainly years of depression, with falling incomes for farmers, falling rents for landlords and agricultural labour draining to the towns. Income from land declined dramatically. But during that time the sleepy village of Brandsby became a beacon of progress in the locality and around the country, due to its cooperative ventures, instigated and supported by this unusual squire. After the first World War Fairfax-Cholmeley continued to work in the service of agricultural reform in Brandsby and district up to his death in 1940 at the age of 76, through times of increasing hardship.

Keywords:

• Land reform
• cooperation
• cooperative
• agricultural depression
• rural reform

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Notes

1 The National Archives, E 31/2/2/6235; http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/northriding.html.

2 North Yorkshire County Record Office [hereafter NYCRO], ZQC, Cholmeley of Brandsby, Map of Brandsby Estate, 1746.

3 C.P. Hill, British Economic and Social History 1700-1975 (Edward Arnold, 1977), 94–8.

4 F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971).

5 He was referred to as such by Arthur Young (1741-1820) in Six Months Tour through the North of England (1770); HCFC Memoirs.

6 Own words, HCFC Memoirs.

7 V.A. McClelland, Cardinal Manning: His Public Life and Influence 1865-92 (Oxford U.P., 1962). Ch. 1 has a good discussion on how Roman Catholic society in Britain was particularly unprepared and closed to ideas of social reform.

8 HCFC Diary.

9 Briggs, Toynbee Hall, 2–27; S. Meacham, Toynbee Hall and Social Reform, 1880-1914 (Yale U.P., 1987).

10 HCFC Memoirs.

11 The history of the Catholic Church in England casts further light on why Fairfax-Cholmeley did not feel able to exercise his reforming career within his own faith. That he acted outside of it made for difficulties within his own family, but he felt that hitching his cause to the church would impede his ability to carry out the work he intended to do. Accounts of his life in London are from his own papers.

12 HCFC Memoirs.

13 HCFC Memoirs.

14 HCFC Memoirs.

15 Pratt, Organisation of Agriculture, 9–10.

16 Readman, Land and Nation in England, 1.

17 Packer, Lloyd George, Liberalism and the Land, 2.

18 Readman, Land and Nation in England.

19 Tichelar, Failure of Land Reform.

20 Newby, Country Life, 138–9.

21 Packer, Lloyd George, Liberalism and the Land.

22 Yorkshire Gazette, ‘Mr H. Fairfax-Cholmeley on the “Squirearchy”’, 9 Dec. 1893.

23 York Herald, ‘Easingwold Agricultural Club Meeting’, 12 Dec. 1896.

24 Tichelar, Failure of Land Reform.

25 Fairfax-Cholmeley personal papers. There is a considerable amount about his negotiations in accounts of his work with the Agricultural Organisation Society from 1901. By his own account he appears to have been successful in achieving this.

26 Hull History Centre, Sykes Estate papers, 58 letters to Mark Sykes from Hugh Fairfax-Cholmeley, 1908-11.

27 HCFC Memoirs.

28 HCFC Memoirs.

29 Readman, Land and Nation in England, 72-158, 210.

30 Fairfax-Cholmeley’s involvement with the emerging Arts and Crafts movement is discussed in M. Drury, The Wandering Architects: In Pursuit of an Arts and Crafts Ideal (1988); and B. and W. Armstrong, The Arts and Crafts Movement in Yorkshire - a Handbook (1913).

31 Towards a Social Policy (Speaker Publishing, n.d. but pre-1905).

32 R.H.S.A. Pamphlet in HCFC papers.

33 HCFC Memoirs.

34 HCFC Memoirs; Pratt, Transition in Agriculture, chapter, ‘Brandsby Leads the Way’.

35 York Herald, ‘The Principles of Manuring’, 27 Apr. 1893.

36 Briggs, Toynbee Hall, 45–46, 48.

37 HCFC Memoirs.

38 HCFC Memoirs.

39 AOS Annual Report 1909.

40 Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 22 May 1911.

41 Pratt, Transition in Agriculture, 178–89.

42 BATA 100th Anniversary Booklet; AOS Annual Report 1915.

43 HCFC Memoirs.

44 AOS Annual Reports, 1911 & 1915.

45 D. Henley, Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle (Hogarth, 1958); C. Ridgway, ‘Rosalind Howard, the Contradictory Countess of Carlisle’, in Women and the Country House in Ireland and Britain, ed. T. Dooley et al (Four Courts Press, 2018); C.S. Sykes, The Big House, Harper Collins, 2004.

46 Digby, Agricultural Co-operation, 1949.

47 Oxfordshire Weekly News, 10 May 1905.

48 London Daily News, 11 Jan. 1907.

49 H.W. Wolff, Co-operation in Agriculture (King, 1914); Pratt, Agricultural Organization.

50 Digby, Agricultural Co-operation, 81.

51 HCFC Memoirs.

52 HCFC Memoirs; K.P. Poole and B. Keith-Lucas, Parish Government, 1894-1994 (National Association of Local Councils, 1994), 1–5.

53 Yorkshire Gazette, 13 Jan 1894.

54 B.K. Murray, The People’s Budget, 1909-10: Lloyd George and Liberal Politics (Oxford U.P., 1980), 299.

55 Yorkshire Post, 14 Apr. 1940.

56 HCFC Papers, Speech pamphlet.

57 Tichelar, Failure of Land Reform.

58 Readman, Land and Nation in England.

59 He summarised responses and wrote a briefing paper for the Commission, copies in his private papers.

60 Newby, Country Life, 180.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patricia Alice McCarthy

Patricia Alice McCarthy is a Former Course Manager, the Open University Business School; BA, Oxford Brookes and Open University; MA Art History, Oxford Brookes. Previous independent research in the history of Accounting Education, Management Education and Art History in collaboration with academic colleagues at the Open University. The author is the granddaughter of Hugh Fairfax-Cholmeley, who lies at the centre of this case study.