1. 1The literature of the land reform debate is considerable, but for examples of the point made here see Arthur Arnold, Free Land (1880 ), p.287 , and David Martin,John Stuart Mill and the Land Question(Hull, 1981), pp. 16-17. For a modern account of the land debate see David Martin, ‘Land Reform’, in Patricia Hollis, ed.Pressure from Without in Early Victorian England(1974), pp. 131-58.
2. 2Arnold , Free Land, pp.1 -10 . John Bateman,The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland(Leicester, 1971 edn.). According to the 1851 census there were then 35,000 landed proprietors: Barrington Moore,Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy(1967), p. 516.
3. 4Caird James , The Landed Interest and the Supply of Food (5th edn. 1967), p.40 . John Rae, ‘Why Have the Yeomanry Perished?’,Contemporary Review, 44 (1883), p. 548.
4. 5C. Brodrick George , English Land and English Landlords (1881 ), p.152 ; G. Shaw-Lefevre,Agrarian Tenures(1893), pp. 5-9; P. M. Laurence,The Law and Custom of Primogeniture(1878); T. E. Scrutton,Land in Fetters(Cambridge, 1886); Evelyn Cecil,Primogeniture(1895). These were just some of the books which argued the significance of strict settlements and primogeniture for estate accumulation.