The Nineteenth‐Century Allotment: Half an Acre and a Row

By taking East Anglia as a regional case study this article places the allotment in a social and parochial context. It therefore challenges some of Moselle’s assumptions and economic reductionist conclusions by arguing that landlords and clergymen were the main providers and, as a consequence, this created farmer antipathy. It maintains that issues relating to paternalism, social control, the gift relationship and, most importantly, rural unrest need to be examined in order to understand the conflicting attitudes of labourers, farmers, and landlords.