Joys of the Cottage: Labourers’ Houses, Hovels and Huts in Britain and the British Colonies, 1770–1830

Lloyd, Sarah

doi:10.1057/9780230304703_5

Cited by 3 publications

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“…11 In the same Accommodating Poverty collection, Sarah Lloyd quotes early nineteenth-century claims of home comfort being conducive to 'industrious, sober and good' behaviour, based on 'domestic happiness in evenings before the fire'. 12 After long hours of field labour, the labourer's home should be a place he (or she) wanted to return to rather than seeking warmth and comfort in the ale-house. Kent, Davis, and Loudon directed their arguments for improving rural worker housing at the landed proprietor classtheir view of where power to generate change was to be found.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cottages for farm labouring families: plans, exhortations and realities (1825–50)

Agnew

2022

Rural History

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Loudon’s 1825 Encyclopedia of Agriculture set out why and how ‘comfortable’ family cottages should be built for the farm labouring workforce. Over the next quarter-century, published ‘prize essays’ on cottage-design appeared alongside articles advocating ‘high farming’. Low labourer wages and insecure farm tenancies handicapped investment in both, though a parliamentary inquiry showed improvement projects could enhance labourer employment. The 1834 ‘new’ Poor Law – an ‘administrative’ law – restricted ‘poor relief’, but left many ‘settlement’ issues to continue as perceived obstacles to building cottages (the occupants might become a burden on the poor rates). This paper illustrates ideal contemporary cottage designs – relative to contrasting exposures of poor people’s home lives. Landowners, patchily, promoted some cottage-building, but labouring families mostly remained poorly housed. Along with recent scholarship on families’ work, income, possessions (often very few) and survival strategies, this work augments ideas of real housing conditions in rural areas.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%