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Life in the Eighteenth Century.

In the villages of the Otter Valley life appears to be quite stable, the Duke family continue to administer their manors in much the same way as they have done for the past two hundred years - but by mid century it was obvious that there was not going to be any direct heir to inherit the estate. John Duke was still living in Otterton but as a Vicar of Harpford noted, usually the worse for drink. (1) 

Farms were being run in the same way has they had done for centuries, with evidence of the Saxon strip farming still being used in some of the larger fields in the parish. The Agricultural revolution that was taking place elsewhere in England had little effect on East Devon, the Enclosures Act barely touched the West Country – our fields had already been enclosed ages ago and the moor and heath land remained virtually untouched until the introduction of wire fences.  Times were good for the farmers, in the early years of the reign of George II, Walpole had reduced Land Tax from 4/- in the pound to 1/-, directly to relieve land owners and the demand for increased food production was the order of the day.  

There was an increasing population to feed, which had doubled during the course of this century, mainly due to improved Medical Science. We had also been at war every few years, blockading imports of food and grain from Europe and there was the Army and Navy to feed as well.  

In our parishes, all the farms were part of the estate of the Duke family, owned by individuals on long leases - 99 years or three lives, the leaseholders were not all farmers, they included businessmen, clergymen and investors in property, they paid a sum of money to buy the lease initially, then a small annual rent thereafter.  We find people that owned several of the farms in the neighbourhood even becoming tenants of other farms to increase their landholdings. The farms were then rented out to the tenant farmers, some of whom, with insufficient capital, had stretched themselves to the limit to pay the first year’s rent, borrowing money from friends and family.   

With the Land Tax Assessment of 1781 – when incidentally Land Tax is back up again to 4/- in the pound, we have the first complete picture of how the land was distributed.  In Otterton there were 68 leaseholders, many had multiple holdings, of which only 17 farmed their own land, the rest were sublet.  In Harpford there were 42 leaseholders of which 10 were owner/occupiers. 

During the 1770’s the Duke family with no heirs to take over the manor decided to sell, a detailed survey was drawn up and in 1779 the Manor was put up for sale.  A buyer was interested at the going price of £90.000, but the sale did not go through, it was eventually sold in 1785 for £72,000 to Mr Denys Rolle from North Devon, who had inherited the Manor of Bicton a neighbouring parish from his brother a few years earlier, and as we shall see had plenty of money to spend. 

Denys was the youngest son of 9 children born to John Rolle of Stevenstone, born in 1725, he was educated at Oxford. He inherited Hudscott nr. Chittlehampton when he was 22 years old and other estates both in and out of the county followed. When he married Anne Chichester in 1750 at Barnstaple he was already a very wealthy man in his own right.  In the same year he inherited Bicton and Stevenstone Estates on the death of his eldest brother, Baron Henry Rolle. Their son John was born in the following year, he also had three daughters

We can assume he spent some time staying on all his estates, including the house he owned in Upper Grosvenor Street, Mayfair London 

The Lower Otter Valley under the Rolle Family 

During the early years there was possibly little outward change in the life in the Otter Valley, the Land Tax Assessment of 1788 (three years after the sale) shows nine Farms in Otterton that in 1781 had been leasehold, were now occupied by tenant farmers under Denys Rolle.  We can assume that the rents would have been increased under new ownership. 

In 1793 Britain became involved in the French Wars, imports of foodstuffs from the continent, grain in particular, ceased, causing the price of bread to rise rapidly, there were also shortages here in England because of several poor harvests.  This would have a drastic effect on all the population.  In many counties the poor were starving because of the high price of bread, which was their staple diet.  Farmers however were delighted as not only would their corn maintain a high price (43 shillings a quarter in 1792) but there would be a need for more of it, many small farmers borrowed heavily to be able to rent just one more field.  The Landowners were encouraged by the government to persuade more of their Farmers to put land under the plough for corn and all the corn had to be ground at the Lords Mill, then there was the Tithe share due to the Lord of the Manor.(2) 

In 1797 Denys Rolle died whilst out walking in north Devon, his son John inherited  his estates, giving up his position as an MP to run them, he had been elevated to the peerage on his retirement from the commons.  Upon his father’s death he became one of the wealthiest landowners in Devon, having married the heiress Judith Waldron in 1778, it was from this marriage that the Beer Estates came.  

He could afford the best possible advice from his land agents and set about implementing some of the more modern ideas of land management and farming. 

He joined the South Devon Militia, in command of which he went to Ireland in 1798 to suppress the Rebellion.  When he returned it is said he used his influence and wealth to raise troops. 

He wrote endless letters to the Lord Lieutenant and the Secretary of War with proposals of how the Militia should be run, making himself quite unpopular.  He was however very concerned for the welfare of his regiments – buying them new uniforms and equipment and even paying their wages in one instance.  In 1803 he arranged for the Militia to stage a mock battle on Woodbury Common the details of which survive.  He maintained close links with the Militia all his life and at the age of 90 rode at the head of his regiment at an inspection. (3) 

Whilst John Rolle was engaged with his Militia his land-agents were busy re-organising the estate. Times were good for the landowners, wheat prices had trebled and there was still the Army and Navy to feed. 

The early years of the new century saw the beginnings of radical changes in our villages.  Farming methods had changed in the eastern counties of England during the latter half of the 18th century.with the introduction of machinery and more importantly a scientific approach to crop and land management.   

One of the first changes that we have record of in Otterton is the division of Otterton Barton Farm. A new farm was built in 1802 on the southern most tip of the parish –South Farm, and the Barton’s 750 acres divided up. This was let on a tenancy of 14 years – the days of 99-year leases were over. 

Other farms were enlarged by grouping together land holdings thus creating a new estate and by converting the old long leases to short tenancy.  Some of the smaller farms in Otterton had been only a few acres, barely enough to support the family – but when these were amalgamated it created a viable holding.  What became of the small farmer who had “lost” his farm?  Our parish registers give the answer, many men whose occupation had been entered in the baptism registers as Farmer and Husbandman became Labourer, now having to find employment to feed his ever-increasing family.  Others left the village to seek employment elsewhere – but only if they had a little capital and a settlement certificate, because of the restraints of the existing Poor Laws. 

The population in Otterton at that time was about 900, the largest proportion of which were labourers, there is no recorded history of what their living conditions were like at this time.  Nothing remains of the homes they lived in, the pretty cottages that you can see now, up and down the road, were farmhouses or shops.  There are no record of farm wages until the middle of the century, we can assume they were meagre, the farm worker was also paid part in cider, a practice that continued well in to late 1800’s, usually cider so sour one could hardly drink it.  Some of you will have heard of the “Devon cider slaves”. 

In Devon, unlike some other counties, labourers did not rent their cottages, they were tied to the job, the tenant farmers rented cottages from the landlord for his workers to live in, leaving them little better off than the serfs of medieval times, unable to leave their employers without making the family homeless. 

As early as 1790 Polwhele reported in his survey of Devon that the females of the village are all engaged in producing a course type of thread lace, or Honiton Lace, as we know it. However the lace was not commanding the high prices that it used to since the invention of the Heathcote machine for the manufacture of lace.  Shopkeepers in the villages set themselves up as lace buyers, collecting the finished pieces to sell to the manufacturer when he visited.  The women exchanged the pieces for more thread and patterns and other goods from the shop, there are no prices recorded for the lace at this time.  One hundred years later in 1887, A.J. Coles, recorded that he paid 6d each for a spray of flowers in Otterton. (4)  

In 1815 peace was declared in Europe and heralded a crisis in agriculture like no other.  In 1812 the price of wheat had risen to 126 shillings a quarter compared to the 43 shillings in 1792.  With the coming of peace the price dropped, many farmers were ruined because they had put all their land to corn production.  In this parish annual rents went unpaid, if this situation continued the farmer lost his farm.  The protective Corn Law of 1815 was passed, designed to prevent entry of cheap grain from Europe and to restore agricultural prosperity at the expense of the consumer.  It encountered the most violent opposition from all classes of society. The poor thought the price of bread should drop dramatically, it was at this time 1 shilling a loaf, the weekly wage in Devon being about 7 shillings, the landlords thought the government should have no part in deciding such matters – free trade should ensue. (2) 

Further difficulties were encountered by the sudden arrival of some 250,000 members of the Army and Navy all returning home to compete for jobs in a market that was already collapsing.  In other southern counties of England there were reports of rioting and also machine breaking by the labourers.  Amid this crisis entered a journalist, one William Corbett, the new Corn Law seemed to him a challenge for political action.  He wrote and published a news sheet called the Political Register, which was read out to the illiterate in the alehouses and under the hedgerows.  It is recorded in 1816 he actively turned many of his readers from rioting and rick-burning to political discussion and organisation. He gave expression, as no one else had to the insufferable position that the poor found themselves.  They had nobody to speak for them at that time, no franchise in local government, no trade unions and the Church and State against them. (5) 

Parliament’s answer to this unrest was to try rioters for high treason, printers and authors for sedition and impose a tax of 4 pence on all periodical publications, which put not only radical propaganda, but all knowledge, out of the reach of the poor. Until 1836 5d was the minimum price for a newspaper worth 1d. (5)   

In our villages the Overseers of the Poor were stretched to the limit to give the little money they raised from the poor rate, to help the impoverished.  It is shown in their Account books that year after year the struggling tenant farmers were in arrears with the payment of the poor rates. Whole families of children were placed as parish apprentices when their fathers were forced to claim parish relief, a system disliked by all parties concerned.  In 1819 a law was passed for a maximum of a 12-hour working day for children.  

Agricultural England in these post war years was worse off than it had been three hundred years earlier, according to one contemporary writer.  The advance of the industrial revolution and the building of the large manufacturing towns of the midlands and the north of England only served to highlight the living conditions of the farmers and labourers of the West Country.  Unrest was growing rapidly, starting in the eastern counties around London and gradually creeping westwards. Gangs of unemployed men roamed about the countryside, gathering followers and inciting revolt, burning hay-ricks, destroying threshing machines and other appliances that were replacing their jobs. A march of several hundred labourers was recorded in Hampshire, demanding higher wages and food saying they had been starving for too long on potatoes and bread.  The end result of all these riots were 19 executed, 500 transported to Australia and six hundred imprisoned (6) but this was the beginnings of the struggle for a better standard of living for the small farmer and labourers, there were a few minor riots in the larger towns of Devon but it was largely unaffected by the unrest in the south of England. 

The government was not unaware of this unrest and thought that a good plan was to start to populate our colonies and to pass the Poor Law Amendment Act.  Much publicity was given in the farming counties of the south of England, on the advantages of starting a new life in Canada and Australia, and later New Zealand with the help of an assisted passage.  Talks were held in market places all over the West Country and it must have seemed like a dream to many to be able to leave behind the hard times and to start a new life, with land for the taking, all for a few pounds. 

At the same time many young men were taking themselves off to the nearest towns for work, having had enough of trying to make ends meet in the villages.  Sidmouth and Exmouth had grown into seaside resorts during the French Wars, as the English Gentry could not travel to Europe they headed to the warm climate of Devon. These towns were populated with people that had been born in the surrounding villages. Others were removing themselves to the industrial districts here in England, one family I noted moved from East Budleigh to Durham, to work down the mines.  It is recorded that farm workers in Lancashire and Cheshire were earning 12 or 13 shillings a week – twice as much as they did in Devon and living conditions were much better as well.  

There was a new wave of social awareness following the Poor Law Amendment in 1834.  This law basically took away the parish relief that thousands relied on to supplement their small wages, and introduced the workhouse. It was decided that the workhouse should be more unpleasant than the life of free labour outside, to encourage people not to apply for help. We are all familiar with the dreadful tales of life in the workhouse.  In our villages it appears from the 1841 census that kindly villagers took into their homes many aged paupers, who possibly still received some parish charity, the majority of whom were women, rather than have them sent to Honiton to the workhouse. We do not know how many were in the workhouse as no place of birth is given in the census of 1841.  

In 1837 a Gloucestershire banker called Thomas Russell came to stay at Sidmouth during the month of August. He hired a carriage and explored the locality, they travelled out of Sidmouth up over Peak Hill and he records: “we then passed through the poor village of Otterton and on to Budley” it doesn’t conjure up a very nice picture. 

The census return of 1841 tells up that there were 256 households in Otterton.  Farms numbered 45 of which four were run by women. By far the largest group of individuals are the agricultural Labourers at 126, 100 women are recorded as lace makers, interestingly in domestic service there are only 24 women but 59 men, most of the farms would have one girl working for them but two or three man servants, they cannot have all been working in the house.   

Many new cottages had been built in the villages since the turn of the century, which should have smartened the place up – but perhaps those old ones that were still standing were in a very bad state of repair, when times are hard, repairing houses is the last thing on a farmers mind. 

We have entered a time frame that is now well documented not only by various government reports but by the poplar writers of the day. Thomas Hardy’s novels of life in and around Dorchester describes a way of life that cannot be too dissimilar to that of East Devon, and Charles Dickens remains one of the great social commentators of the time. 

Lord John Rolle died in 1842, leaving no heir.  He left the estate in Trust for the benefit of his second wife Louisa Trefusis and then to her nephew Mark Trefusis, who subsequently changed his name to Rolle on inheriting the estate.  At the time of his death, aged 90 years old, Lord Rolle was the largest land owner in Devon, and apart from his estates in Devon his will also mentions estates in Dorset, Somerset and Cornwall as well as the house in Mayfair, London and the estates in the Bahamas.  

Schooling was not available to all – parents had to pay for children to attend, you can notice looking through the marriage registers, those who could not write their own names – although their parents and grandparents may have done.  This lack of education for the poorer classes was caused by parliamentary contention between the state and the established church.  Public money could not be obtained for education because the Church claimed it must be spent under the protection of the state religion and the Dissenters would not agree to the use of public funds on such terms, this continued until the passing of the Education Act in 1870.  Still most primary schools in rural areas were Church Schools after the act came into being. 

The village populations grew during the middle years of the 19th century, people were having larger families and more children survived to adulthood, which must indicate that people were better fed and healthier than they had been.  Many small farms that appear on the Tithe Map in 1846 are now just names in the archives, or if we are lucky, the nameplate on a front gate.   

Compiled and written © Roz Hickman, October 2005 

References 

(1)    Devon Transactions 1969

(2)    English Social History –GM Trevelyan)

(3)    The Devon Militia – WCSL

(4)    The History of the Honiton Lace Industry – HJ Yallop 

(5)    History of England – GMTrevalyan

(6)    Labouring life in the Victorian Countryside – Pamela Horn

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