Agricultural History Review, Volume 70 Part 1 (2022), p. 139

The primary focus of this book is Richard Westbrook Baker who from 1829 to 1861 was steward of the Exton estate in the county of Rutland. His primary concerns were the improvement of agricultural practices on the estate and the wider county and the well-being of farm labourers. Born in Hertfordshire in 1797, he moved to Rutland in 1808: by 1814, he was working on the Exton estate but it was not for another fifteen years that his employer Sir Gerard Noel Noel appointed him as steward of the estate.

After a review of Baker’s early years and education, chapter 1 examines Sir Gerard’s connections to the family followed by a description of his acquisition of the Exton estate. Prior to Baker’s appointment as steward, he also involved himself in parish affairs being a member of the select vestry and he was appointed Overseer of the Poor in 1821. From this came an understanding of the plight of rural labourers which led him to establish the Rutland Association with the intention to raise a petition to parliament on the state of agriculture and the related rural distress.

With enclosure of the parish came the need for new farms to be built away from the existing farms which were located in the villages: however, there was some reluctance by tenants to accept these farms in that there was a well-developed pecking order in the local communities, whereby the closer you lived to the centre of the community, the more respected a farmer you would be. By 1828, Baker was farming 249 acres, as well as running a coal wharf on the Melton to Oakham canal. It is noted that a model farm was built at Cottesmore in 1853 with livestock housed around a square courtyard with a central water trough.

Chapter 3 then examines his role as estate steward and his influences on the agricultural practices of the estate. He clearly recognized the need for improvements to be made: a lack of progress with drainage, poor livestock management and a lack of attention to the value of manure. Farm buildings were in poor order and there was still continued use of the village centre farms, rather than farms being located near the centre of the new land allocations which arose from the enclosure process. With regard to livestock, Baker was a breeder of Shorthorn cattle and, in this way, he was able to demonstrate at first hand what could be achieved: he also organized ploughing matches, agricultural shows and estate inter-farm competitions. He did not use leases to instruct farmers to undertake improvements: rather, he engendered a spirit of emulation to achieve his aims.

As well as the estate in Rutland, Sir Gerard also owned an estate in Gloucestershire at Chipping Campden extending to around 3000 acres, managed by a second steward. This book adds to scholarly knowledge by revealing the reason why some 16 small plots of land on the Exton estate were owned by residents of Chipping Campden. Although distant from the Rutland constituency which Sir Gerard represented in parliament, individuals on the Campden estate wished to support him in his political activity and as a result of their purchase of land were able to acquire voting rights in Rutland, a practice known as faggot voting which was abolished in 1884.

Chapter 4 looks at improvement in land management. A Farmers and Graziers Club was established in 1838 which considered drainage methods and farm mechanization: part of the latter included the development of the Rutland plough designed by Baker and manufactured by Ransomes of Ipswich, given that in the 1820s, Baker had described ploughing in the estate villages as akin to ‘the disturbance made by grubbing pigs’. Other implements trialled included harrows, chaff cutters and flour mills, as well as steam ploughing.

Livestock improvement is then examined starting with livestock improvers elsewhere who may have influenced Baker in his endeavours. Baker won many medals both locally and at the annual Smithfield fatstock shows: he was also involved in the setting up of the Rutland Agricultural Society which exists to this day.

In Chapter 6 aspects of rural society are examined, in particular, poverty amongst farm labourers. To address this issue, Baker established cow pastures in some of the estate villages, to enable labourers to graze the cows which would previously have grazed the wastes and open fields before enclosure. Some of these pastures included a ‘hovel’: this was a building sub-divided to provide both fodder storage and winter housing for stock owned by a number of labourers. He also introduced a spade allotment system whereby small plots of land under ¾ acre had to be cropped in three equal areas of grain, potatoes and vegetables, and worked only by hand, outside of normal farm labouring hours. The final chapter concludes by reviewing his successes and achievements, noting that he had been described as a ‘foremost agriculturalist of his day’. A series of appendices follow, mainly containing transcribed material from archive sources and newspapers, along with a useful bibliography.

The book is well produced with few minor typographical errors: the only distraction comes in the introduction where there are numerous examples of repetition. Overall, this book provides an insightful exposition of the role of the estate steward in the mid-nineteenth century.