Agricultural History Review, Volume 70 Part 1 (2022), p. 138

The merit of this book lies in reprinting the day-by-day husbandry activities of an early nineteenth-century Wiltshire farmer. He was Thomas Pinniger, who farmed at Little Bedwyn, then lived at leisure in a farmhouse near Chippenham, but spent most years on a farm he bought at Beckhampton in Avebury parish, west of Marlborough. He was a consistent diarist who wrote down minor details. This volume includes about 160 pages of introduction, arranged under various headings (labour, law and order, events beyond the farm and so forth), followed by 330 pages of daily entries starting in 1823 and ending in 1838, although Pinniger continued recording for three further years.

Pinniger is described as the principal representative of the Wiltshire yeoman class in his day. This is misleading: he was a gentleman farmer, involved in agricultural decisions about his 200 acres but able to buy a coaching inn, have family portraits painted, hold large sums in the bank, and invest in stocks. This was not typical of working farmers, although many may have shared his opinions. He was church-goer, turnpike commissioner, and a Protectionist, some of whose employees signed with him an appeal in favour of the Corn Laws. Coercion? They were unlikely to refuse, especially as Pinniger seems to have been a disagreeable employer who had no satisfactory workforce and fell out with several hands. Some had to travel many miles to work, particularly the specialists. Admittedly he hired a number of dishonest men – perhaps he was not a good judge of character. He was ‘tight’, sold the leazing and sometimes fed his labourers on ‘giddy’ sheep.

Pinniger also fell into disputes about boundaries and the management of water meadows in which he had a share. As the editor remarks, we hear only his side of all this, which does rather undermine the value of relying on a single diary source. Yet about Pinniger’s social standing and conventional views there can be little doubt. He joined a posse which rode over a wide area capturing men supposed to be ringleaders in the 1830 riots. Most farmers, petrified by fear of arson, probably agreed with him but few engaged so directly in putting the men down. He wrote a brief account of the riots, given in an Appendix.

The agricultural content of the diaries is in sum considerable. A handy Glossary and several Appendices are added to the editor’s comments on a number of topics. Little of the farming detail surprises in view of what is in general accounts. Statistical material is scarce and much of what is available most conveniently appears in the Appendices, set out as information on categories such as livestock, harvests and market prices. A prime interest was the weather, noted even on his wedding day, and he endlessly juggled farm operations to match its waywardness. Occasionally he had more grass than his flock could eat, and he took in sheep from other people whereas at different times drought put him at a disadvantage. Part of coping with fluctuations in workload involved exchanging teams of horses with his neighbours but he made sure to keep a record.

It is stated that no comparable diaries are available for Wiltshire. There are two problems with this. First, diary material overlaps with other types of farm records, notably account books, agent’s reports to landowners, and collections of letters. Among the imperfections of any single source, diaries have their own quirks. We may accept the reliability of what is being penned without being clear about the context or knowing what is excluded. Diarists take their own affairs and local arrangements for granted and even the most assiduous feels no need to commit absolutely everything to writing. Pinniger’s opinions are only indirectly ascertainable, and his private life is scarcely mentioned – his wife hardly gets a look-in. His love life is omitted, apart from enigmatic drawings of hearts in the margins during the period before his marriage. What else is left out?

Secondly, Wiltshire is not the most relevant unit of comparison. Counties are administrative units rather than agricultural ones. Beckhampton Farm was on the chalk and comparisons with ecologically similar farms beyond the county boundary might have been enlightening. Even on the Wiltshire chalk no comparison is made, for instance, with farming a dozen miles away at Aldbourne, for which ample documentation survives and where Pinniger knew the Browns whose descendants still farm there. Pinniger himself did not keep his affairs within the county boundary, visiting distant fairs and buying implements from Tasker’s, right down in Hampshire. The limitations of county studies are illustrated by the identification of George Castle of ‘Laten’ Down, from whom Pinniger bought sheep at Ilsley Fair. The editor states that Castle possibly, then probably, came from Latton, Wiltshire – but Latton is only half a mile from the Thames, has no down farms, and its farmers were Habgood and Cook. George Castle was surely the farmer of that name from Lattin Down, Berkshire, on the chalk seven or eight miles from Ilsley, and next to which Castle descendants farm to this day.

This book is heavier on documentation than interpretation. Many of the extensive footnotes are informative, though straying occasionally into common knowledge and at the other extreme into one or two abstruse scientific definitions. Pinniger was not a forthcoming diarist, being observational rather than thoughtful. His notes do consist of hard husbandry facts but, again, what is excluded is uncertain. A close-up diary may suffer from the eye-witness fallacy; it is unclear that outside reports are not more enlightening than a diary because the onlooker sees more of the game. Rather than transcribing so very much semi-repetitive material from these diaries, it might have been helpful to print sample pages and allot more space to comparative analysis.