1. Introduction
The Board of Trade started an annual collection of agricultural returns in 1866, although there had been earlier experiments in the compilation of such statistics. See, for example, W E Minchinton's article 'Agricultural returns and the government during the Napoleonic Wars' in Agricultural history review, vol I (1953) p29, and sources there cited. Some returns for the 1790s are in HO 42 and those for 1801 are in HO 67. A complete transcript of the 1801 returns together with references to the 1790s returns is in Home Office acreage returns lists and analysis, List and Index Society volumes 189, 190 and 195. The National Archives has a full holding of the List and Index Society Standard and Special Series.
The returns of acreage and livestock were made by proprietors under the provisions of various Acts of Parliament, including the Agriculture Act of 1889. This act also set up a Board of Agriculture and transferred to it, and its successors, responsibility for the direction of the agricultural census.
Until 1917 the returns were collected on a purely voluntary basis, the Government departments concerned having no statutory powers to compel proprietors to make returns or to exact penalties for the giving of false information. Defects in the returns were supplied by estimation. It later became compulsory for returns to be made, and proprietors were given assurances of confidentiality. It may reasonably be assumed that there is greater accuracy in the post-1917 figures.
The returns have been exploited collectively in the production of annual volumes of Agricultural Statistics, England and Wales, from 1866, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. An extra volume, Century of Agricultural Statistics, 1866-1966, appeared in 1967.
2. Records at The National Archives
All original returns have been destroyed, and the lowest units of consolidation are the summaries compiled officially from them, parish by parish. During the 20th century the 'parish' was often replaced by other local administrative units but the returns continued to be called 'parish summaries'. The Parish Summaries for England and Wales between 1866 and 1988 are in MAF 68. Post-1989 summaries are at UKNDAD (see below). Summaries for Scottish parishes are held by the National Archives of Scotland, HM General Register House, Edinburgh, EH1 3YY.
The summaries give the numbers of livestock and the acreage of crops in each parish but not the names of owners or other details of individual holdings. They are arranged and listed year by year and then by counties. A key to the parish numbers for the more modern returns is available at The National Archives. Summaries for years up to 1917 are available without restriction, but readers desiring access to later ones are required (because of a provision of the 1947 Agriculture Act bearing on the confidentiality of information taken from individual returns) to complete a Form of Undertaking not to extract any details which relate to an area comprising less than a group of three holdings.
From 1989, statistics compiled from the census are available at county level and can be seen without restriction in MAF 410. After 1993 the country summaries are preserved electronically by UKNDAD (see below).
Between 1940 and 1943 a national farm survey was conducted. Every farm and holding of five acres and more was to be surveyed, including those of market gardeners, horticulturists, and poultry-keepers. Holdings of one to five acres representing less than one per cent of the total area of crops and grass, were subject to a separate survey of the horticultural sub-committees of the County War Agricultural Executive Committees.
3. Records held in the National Digital Archive of Datasets (NDAD)
From 1989, the parish summaries (MAF 408), and from 1993, the county summaries (MAF 410), are preserved electronically on NDAD under their reference CRDA/4. The County Summaries datasets are open. However, the Parish Summaries datasets are closed for 30 years; the Parishes and Counties lookup tables are closed until 2020 (when the first of the Parish Summaries datasets will become available).
