Response to John Holt "School Is Bad for Children"

An example of earlier change:
English Agriculture: 1500-1850 taken from:
Agricultural Revolution in England the transformation of the agrarian economy
1500-1850
by
Mark Overton
Cambridge University Press, 1996

c B.J. Heinzen 1998 p. 1

Estimates of English Agricultural Output
1520--1850
18
16

Output - population method

250

Output - volume method - value of total ag. output
(crops, meat, dairy) in £million at 1850 prices

12

200

10
150
8
100

6

Output Index 1700=100

14
Population (millions)

300

Population - in millions (previous limit 5-6 mln people)

4
50
2
0
1851

1831

1801

1791

1781

1761

1751

1741

1701

1661

1651

1601

1551

80% of pop. in agric. for own family

1520

0

20% of pop. in agric. for markets c B.J. Heinzen 1998 p. 2
Mark Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England … 1500-1850, 1996, p.75& p.8

A Rising Demand for Food 1520-1851
100
Agricultural population 90
% of total population

80
70

Rural non-agric’l population 60
50
40

Towns >5000, excl London

30
20
10

London

0
1520

1600

1670

1700

1750

1801

1851

“…the impact of London on the demand for food was greater than these figures indicate because average consumption per head in London was at least double the national average.” c B.J. Heinzen 1998 p. 3
Mark Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England … 1500-1850, 1996, p138

A Changing Social Structure
England & Wales 1436-1973
% of ownership

120

Crown

100

Black
Plague

80

1348, 1350s,
1370x

Church
Yeomen
freeholders

Dissolution

60

of

Gentry

Monasteries

40

1530

20

Civil War
Great owners

1640s

0
1436
(Eng)

c.1690 range of estimates for 1690

c.1790

1873
(Eng.)

“The pioneers of new methods in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries … were not the great landowners but smaller farmers … the most dramatic