Great depression of British agriculture

The great depression of British agriculture occurred during the late nineteenth century and is usually dated from 1873 to 1896.[1] Contemporaneous with the global Long Depression, Britain's agricultural depression was caused by the dramatic fall in grain prices that followed the opening up of the American prairies to cultivation in the 1870s and the advent of cheap transportation with the rise of steamships. British agriculture did not recover from this depression until after the Second World War.[2][3] Other countries in Western Europe such as the Netherlands experienced the same agricultural crisis (1878–1895) as a result of the market being flooded by cheap grain from the United States and Canada.[4]

  1. ^ T. W. Fletcher, ‘The Great Depression of English Agriculture 1873-1896’, in P. J. Perry (ed.), British Agriculture 1875-1914 (London: Methuen, 1973), p. 31.
  2. ^ Alun Howkins, Reshaping Rural England. A Social History 1850-1925 (London: HarperCollins Academic, 1991), p. 138.
  3. ^ David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (London: Pan, 1992), p. 92.
  4. ^ Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "landbouwpolitiek § geschiedenis", "Leeuwarden §3. geschiedenis". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum.