| Warter...living in an estate village |
LandownerUnit 3: The Landowner and the villager
The estate village of Warter, East Riding of Yorkshire
A century ago the whole parish of Warter and all the houses in the village were owned by Charles Wilson, later Lord Nunburnholme (see Unit 1 )
In the past if you owned the whole of a village then you had great power over the lives of the villagers.
Many landowners used their power both to control the villagers and to care for them.
It was the opinion of the Duke of Bedford in 1850 that it was the duty and ‘ought to be amongst the truest pleasures of every landlord' to:
Improve the dwellings of the labouring class, and afford them the means of greater cleanliness, health, and comfort in their own homes; to extend education, and thus raise the social and moral habits of those most valuable members of the community.
The Duke acknowledged that there were ‘undeniable advantages of making the rural population content with their condition'.
Activities : In this Unit the various ways that the Muncaster and Wilson families cared for and controlled the lives of the villagers at Warter are described. At the end of the Unit you will be asked to list the advantages and disadvantages of living in an estate village and to decide whether or not you would have liked to have lived in an estate village, such as Warter, a century ago.
