Agriculture in Lincolnshire

Phd about Agricultural in Lincolnshire

Around 50 interviews have been conducted with people across Lincolnshire as part of a Phd project at the University of Lincoln which focuses on agricultural change in Lincolnshire during the mid-to-late 20th century, effects on rural culture and the representation of these causes and effects in the County's museums. The following list of key themes and areas gives an idea of what subjects were covered in the research:

Key Themes and areas

Subjects will not be asked about all areas. These are guides for interviewing.

Childhood Memories

• Where you grew up 
• Schools and education and relationship to agriculture
• Rites of passage
• Leisure time
• Going to work and learning skills
• Parents jobs and roles

Community 

• What does the term ‘community’ mean to you
• How have communities changed
• Exit and influx of people and the effect it has had on communities
• Where did people go and where have they come from
• Is there still a ‘Lincolnshire’ dialect?  
• Tensions and divisions in society
• Difference between classes in society and how this has changed
• Community activities, festivals celebration
• Leisure
• Rural housing – prices, reuse/conversion of farm buildings
• Role of religion in community
• Relationships between landowner and labourer

Employment

• Changing levels of labour needed
• Key roles on the farm
• Multi employment
• Women and children on the farm
• Domestic Service
• Migrant workers – have the groups of people changed and are they settling, what they bring with them
• Gang workers and labour
• Traditional crafts and trades and their disappearance and the link to agriculture 
• Politics/wages/unions
• Government and Europe

Folk life and Customs

• Particular customs related to agriculture
• Are there customs and traditions you know of that have died out
• Dialect – words or terms no longer used
• Holidays
• Leisure time
• Distinctions of culture

Skills and Knowledge

• How did you learn about farming and trades 
• Apprenticeships
• How did you pass knowledge on

Practice

• Horses on the farm
• Steam, threshing contractors
• Tractors on the farm and difference they made
• Innovations in technology and the difference they have made
• Organics
• Relationships with the processing industries and meeting demands of this
• Competing in a global market
• Marketing products
• Diversification

Further information from Andrew Walker The Faculty of Media and Humanities, Department of Humanities, The University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln LN6 7TS, 01522 882000.  http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/lishpa/staff/407.asp

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