Farming to Halves

ELIZABETH GRIFFITHS  spent four years sharefarming in New Zealand, before completing a PhD at the University of East Anglia in 1987. From 2003 to 2005 she worked with Dr Jane Whittle at Exeter on the household accounts of Lady Alice Le Strange, and then persuaded Prof. Mark Overton of the need for a research project on sharefarming in England. This book is the result.MARK OVERTON is Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Exeter, UK. He has published widely on the economic and social history of early modern England, and on agrarian history, including Agricultural Revolution in England: the Transformation of the Agrarian Economy, 1500-1800.

• Preface Introduction Sharefarming in England: Theory and Practice Sharefarming Before 1500: a Hidden Practice Sharefarming Comes to Light: Early Modern Evidence Seventeenth-Century Case Studies: Farming to Halves on Four Norfolk Estates Sharefarming Disappears from the Documents in the Eighteenth Century Profit Sharing and Land Reform in the Nineteenth Century A Return to Halves in the Twentieth Century Sharefarming at the Turn of the 21st Century Conclusions Appendix I: A Survey of Sharefarming and its Variants in England Appendix II: Letting to Halves at East and West Rudham in 1693 Notes Bibliography Index

'Most refreshing and instructive, this book is quite special in drawing together past history with present-day discussions about agricultural policy. A most original book, historical at the outset but not confined to the historical past.' - Joan Thirsk, author of Alternative Agriculture. A History: From the Black Death to the Present Day