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Dr Leigh Shaw-Taylor M.Sc Ph.D.

Deputy Director of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure

Interests in English economic and social history 1500 to 1881 with a focus on: occupational structure; women's work; economic development; the development of agrarian capitalism; agricultural productivity; common land, common rights and enclosure.

Biography

My Ph.D. examined the extent to which the loss of common rights at parliamentary enclosure (c.1750- c. 1830) proletarianised the rural poor in England. I carried out further research during a junior research fellowship at Jesus College and hope to complete the resulting monograph in the medium term. Since 2006 I have held a lectureship in the Faculty of History. I am now working, as principal investigator, on an E.S.R.C. funded project (with E.A. Wrigley) entitled The Occupational Structure of Nineteenth Century Britain. I am director of the larger research program: The Occupational Structure of Britain c.1379-1881 and deputy director of The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (HPSS).

Career:

  • 1999-2002: Junior Research Fellow, Jesus College Cambridge
  • 2002: Temporary Lecturer, Department of History, Queen Mary College, University of London
  • 2002: Temporary Lecturer, Department of History, University of Oxford
  • 2003-2006: Senior Research Associate, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council).
  • 2006-present: University lecturer, Faculty of History.
  • 2008-present: Deputy Director of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
  • 2008-present: Senior Research Associate, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.

Qualifications

  • Ph.D. in History, University of Cambridge.
  • M.Sc in Economic and Social History, University of Oxford.
  • B.A. Open University.

Research

The Occupational Structure of Britain 1381-1911

The 1841 census provides the earliest adequate description we have of the male occupational structure of the English economy. Before 1801 we currently lack any hard data. In consequence for the period often described as the industrial revolution we lack adequate data on the evolution of the occupational structure of the economy. In particular we do not know what the economy looked like in the mid-eighteenth century and therefore cannot accurately specify the nature of economic change over the period.Together with E.A. Wrigley I hold an E.S.R.C. award entitled Male Occupational Change and Economic Growth in England 1750-1851. The primary aim of this project is to fill the above mentioned gap and chart the evolution of the male occupational structure of the English economy between c. 1750 and c. 1850 at local, regional and national levels. The secondary aim is to investigate sources of data which would allow us to go back to 1381 and to extend the data sets to include female and child workers. Further details and preliminary results for this project are available on the project website.

Parliamentary Enclosure, Common Rights and Proletarianisation 1700-1850

I am currently writing this book which will assess the nature, extent and value of the uses made of common land by agricultural labourers, rural artisans, village traders and small farmers before parliamentary enclosure. The broad argument is that the extent of such use was much less than has often been supposed and that the socio-economic structure of pre-enclosure villages was very sharply polarised. As such the changes wrought by enclosure must have been much less than has often been argued. More specifically parliamentary enclosure played only a minor role in the creation of an agricultural proletariat.

The Development of Agrarian Capitalism in England 1500-1851

Almost all published studies on this topic have used units of land ownership as a proxy for farm size. The scale of sub-tenancy ensures that this is not a reliable procedure. Given the failure, to date, to develop robust data sets on the evolution of farm size over time I have used occupational data to measure the chronology and geography of the development of agrarian capitalism. This has been done by comparing the numbers of those described as yeoman, husbandmen and farmers with the numbers of individuals described as agricultural labourers or farm servants. In this way it is possible to chart the development of agrarian capitalism both spatially and chronologically. An abstract and a working paper are available online.

Publications

Selected publications:

  • 'Diverse experiences: The geography of adult female employment in England and the 1851 census' in N. Goose, (ed.) Women's work in Industrial England: Regional and Local Perspectives (2007).
  • 'Family farms and capitalist farms in nineteenth century Engand', forthcoming, Agricultural History Review (2005).
  • 'Access to land in eighteenth century England' in P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers and E. Thoen (eds.), Access to Land and Markets, C.O.R.N. Publication No. 9, Brepols, 2004.
  • M. De Moor, L. Shaw-Taylor and P. Warde (eds.) The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, C.O.R.N. Publication No. 8, Brepols, 2002.
  • 'The Management of Common Land in the Lowlands of Southern England, c.1500 - c. 1850' in ibid.
  • 'Parliamentary Enclosure and the Emergence of an English Agricultural Proletariat', Journal of Economic History, 2001.
  • 'Labourers, Cows, Common Rights and Parliamentary Enclosure: the Evidence of Contemporary Comment c. 1760 - 1810', Past and Present 2001.

Teaching

  • Faculty of History: Paper 10 (British Economic and Social HIstory 1700-1914); Paper 9 (British Economic and Social History 1500-1750); M.Phil in Economic and Social History, Advanced Paper on British Industrialisation.

External activities

  • Joint organiser of the International Network for the Comparative History of Occupational Structure (INCHOS)
  • Editor of the Economic History Society Website
  • Member of Executive Committee of the Economic History Society
  • Member of British Agricultural History Society