THE 19TH-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, m ost importantly, rural unrest need to be examined in order to understa nd the conflicting attitudes of labourers, farmers, and landlords.