Abstract

This article examines farm service in the East Riding of Yorkshire, an area strongly associated with the retention of this labour system in the nineteenth century. It argues that the transformation of East Riding agriculture in the nineteenth century, and particularly a precocious development of High Farming, involved a symbiotic relationship with farm service. This correlation between High Farming and farm service caused frustration for Anglican clergy and laity seeking to revive the fortunes of the Established Church in the rural East Riding. An examination of these frustrations argues that they shared many of the characteristics of discourses directed at other agrarian labour systems and had parallels with urban critiques of working-class youth.