Robert Bakewell

1725-1795. Involved in the Agricultural Revolution, experimenting with intensive farming and breeding of cattle.

His Private Life

Robert Bakewell was born on 23 May 1725. He was the eldest of two brothers and sisters and died at the age of 70 in 1795 (Sea.ca "Innovations of the Industrial Revolution"). Robert was a very big man. He had a height of 5ft 10in and a weight of 16 stone. Thus, he appeared very dominant and self-assertive.

Dishley Grange

Dishley Grange is situated in the north-west of England and was taken over by Robert Bakewell in 1760. It was here that Bakewell started his changes, which today are interpreted as the beginning of modern agriculture and as part of the British Agricultural Revolution. His achievements were deemed so helpful for argriculture that the Royal Agricultural Society's London office, the New Walk Museum in Leicester and the Brooksby Agricultural College in Melton Mowbray have portraits of him.

British Agricultural Revolution

When Robert Bakewell took over the grange, agriculture was in flux because of both an increasing population and the Industrial Revolution opened new markets. Bakewell formulated his plan to improve the quality and quantity of the crops and animals' standard of living. To achieve this, he had to consider the hedges, dykes and roads as well (de Squire, 57).

Bakewell improved 330 acres of his 440 acres of land through irrigation. He built an artificial brook that could reach the house and the farm. In addition to this, the horses and cattle benefited from the water supply as well (de Squire, 57/58). Due to its situation in low lying land in the Soar Valley, Bakewell built dykes to prevent the land to be flooded (de Squire, 58). Approriate roads were erected to improve drainage (de Squire, 59).

Bakewell went abroad to purchase breeding stock to increase the number of his cattle to make it more productive (de Squire, 59, Sea.ca "Innovations of the Industrial Revolutions"). Moreover, he experimented with selective breeding. Robert Bakewell owned the grange until it went bankrupt in 1789 (de Squire, 61).

Sources

• MediaWiki.org. "Agricultutal Revolution", RitchieWiki, ed. MediaWiki.org. http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Agricultural_Revolution. [This page was last modified on 18 December 2009]
• Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1975. Robert Bakewell. In: Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England Stoneleigh Park: Soc.
• Sea.ca. "Innovations of the Industrial Revolution", The Industrial Revolution, ed. Sea.org, 1998-2006. http://industrialrevolution.sea.ca/innovations.html.