23 ENGLISH FARMERS

What makes a good farmer? How have farmers changed across the last 80 years? 

FIELD is a research project that has been working with present day farmers, vets and farming advisors to better understand their responses to animal health and welfare.

You can read some of the recent research published in the Vet Record.

A partner in the research is the Museum of English Rural Life, who hold an extensive archive documenting the history of English farming. It is a powerful record of changing farming practices, and the lives lived in farming communities.

This is a selection of 23 portraits of English farmers. They worked across Surrey, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Hampshire and other areas in England between 1934 and 1962.

The portraits were taken for articles in Farmer & Stockbreeder journal, many of the names of the people in the photographs are unknown.

Farmer & Stockbreeder began as a weekly publication in 1889. Its forerunner, The Farmer, had been established in 1865 from Scottish Farmer and Horticulturalist, and had gained importance during the 1870s. Farmer & Stockbreeder went on to become the leading agricultural periodical, incorporating first the Chamber of Agriculture Journal, and then the Agricultural Gazette in July 1925. At about this time photographs from staff photographers begin to appear in the magazine. In 1971 the magazine merged with British Farmer, the official organ of the National Farmers Union to become British Farmer and Stockbreeder (by this time it was fortnightly), until loss of advertising revenue forced its closure in March 1984.

The Farmer & Stockbreeder photograph library collection was deposited in the Museum of English Rural Life in 1969. It covers the period 1924-1984.

Museum of English Rural Life / MERL is based in Reading.

merl.reading.ac.uk

You can view reproductions of these photographs as part of the FIELDS exhibition at the museum until 31 January 2022.