This essay attempts to answer the question as to the extent to which a peasantry survived in nineteenth-century Melbourn and the factors involved in its survival. The evidence used relates to the occupations of the families concerned, as well as to land, kinship and inheritance. Occupations are important because the definition of ‘peasantry’ used in this chapter embraces many kinds of rural entrepreneurs, who usually also had some kind of interest in the land. A peasant is regarded as any self-employed man below the rank of the large tenant farmers and the yeomen (i.e. the large owner-occupier farmers). Unlike the labourer, he did not rely entirely on wages and, unlike the higher groups, he did not rely mainly on directing the work of others. His living was obtained by virtue of a combination of a modest amount of capital with family labour and, in some instances, hired help. The typical Melbourn peasant was a dual-occupationist, and this also helped to distinguish him from the full-time farmers, whether they were tenants or yeomen, and from the very few professional men who lived in the village.

Melbourn in 1839–41

Melbourn is situated on the lower parts of the chalk plain about ten miles south of Cambridge where corn farming had been traditional for several centuries. By local standards it was both a large parish and a large village.