Aristocratic Indebtedness in the Nineteenth Century: The Case Re-opened
D URING the I 950's, while the "storm over the gentry" raged and blew, there took place another debate on the subject of aristocratic finance and landownership, more genteel and less well known. Its chief protagonists were Profs. David Spring and F. M. L. Thompson, and the subject of their disagreement concerned the origins, extent, and consequences of aristocratic indebtedness in nineteenth-century England. In a seminal article published a quarter of a century ago, Prof. Spring drew attention to the "widespread financial embarrassment", the "heavy indebtedness", which he believed was "often to be found among the older landed families" in the first half of the nineteenth century, resulting from heavy and accumulated family charges, electoral extravagance, the expense of house-building, and the high living of the Regency period. But, he argued, by mid-Victorian times, the aristocracy-who by now combined "abstinence and thrift mixed with Evangelical earnestness"-had become more restrained, more sober, and more aware of their obligations. Gambling, housebuilding, and excessive spending on high politics were curtailed or reduced, and retrenchment and recovery were successfully accomplished: the spendthrifts of one era were replaced by a "generation more careful about how its money was spent, and more informed about how it was earned". One major consequence of this awakened sense of responsibility was that many aristocrats sought to exploit the non-agricultural resources of their estates, so as to augment income and reduce encumbrances, a process which might, in the short run, actually serve to increase indebtedness before the golden harvest of dividends, urban rentals, mineral royalties, or market dues was garnered. Thus the threat of "imminent disaster" was averted. By i 88o, "many of the big estates saw their encumbrances