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Women Farmers of Snowdonia, 1750–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2014

FRANCES RICHARDSON
FRANCES RICHARDSON*
Affiliation:
Kellogg College, University of Oxford, Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN, [email protected]
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Abstract:

A considerable amount of research has been undertaken on the decline in women's agricultural employment during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but very little has been written about the position of women farmers. During this period, women farmers remained more common throughout Wales than in England. This study explores the part played by women farmers in the agricultural community of Nantconwy, a hundred in the eastern part of Snowdonia, Caernarvonshire, where women comprised up to twenty-two per cent of farmers during the period 1750 to 1900. It examines how and why women became farmers, and the role they played in running the farm. Four factors are suggested to account for the high proportion of women farmers in Snowdonia: a system of virtually hereditary tenancies, the inheritance of farm stock, the traditional nature of Welsh farming, and women's desire to continue farming.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , October 2014 , pp. 161 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

Notes

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58. Ibid., p. 281.

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63. See Evans, Tour, p. 351 for cooperation at harvest time; ‘Manor Court Book of Maen Homan’ for turf cutting on Moel Siabod, Dolwyddelan; National Archives MS. CRES 49/1632 concerning rights of common and agistement of cattle in Penmachno (1870); Colonel Sackville West's evidence to the Royal Commission on Land concerning cooperative sheep-shearing: ‘Evidence Vol. 1’, p. 546, minute 12,052.

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68. The longest period was forty-two years, NLW MSS. B/1755/61W, ‘Will of Griffith Williams, Bwlch Cynnyd, Dolwyddelan (1755), and B/1798/48 ‘Will of Margaret Hughes, Bwlch Cynnyd’ (1798).

69. NLW MS B1802/129I, ‘Inventory of Anne Cadwaladr, Tyddyn Bach, Penmachno’ (1802).

70. The Penrhyn agent, Colonel Sackville West, informed the Royal Commission on Land that although farm sub-letting was prevented as far as possible, it was sometimes practised, especially by widows: ‘Evidence Vol. 1’, p. 544, minute 12,010.

71. ‘Gwydir Letter Book, Letter of Mary Thomas’, (11th February 1842).

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