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Nutrition in the English agricultural labourer's household over the course of the long nineteenth century
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 12:34 authored by Ian Gazeley, Sara HorrellThe welfare of agricultural labourers has recently received renewed interest in both establishing living standards for a baseline group over the long term, and assessing the energy available for increased physical labour in the eighteenth century. Disagreement persists. This article examines a key aspect of agricultural labourers' families' welfare: nutrient consumption. We utilize datasets of the diets of agricultural labourers' households for 1787–96, 1835–46, 1863, 1893, and 1912, to analyse the availability of calories and 11 key nutrients. Self-provisioned foodstuffs are incorporated and adjustments are made for beer consumption. Deficiency is computed against household needs. The results corroborate the general levels of calorie availability identified in agricultural production accounts for the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and assess these as sufficient for productive agricultural labour. However, no improvement is found in the nutritional aspect of household welfare between 1787–96 and 1835–46, thus endorsing pessimistic views of living standards for this group over this time period. Gains were evident in the next half-century, but these improvements were neither consistent nor dramatic and left a large minority of these households with nutrient deficiencies even in the twentieth century.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Economic History ReviewISSN
0013-0117Publisher
Blackwell PublishingExternal DOI
Issue
3Volume
66Page range
757-784Department affiliated with
- History Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2013-03-06Usage metrics
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