Social Conflict and Protest in the English Countryside in the early Nineteenth Century: A Rejoinder

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Abstract
In response to Charlesworth's critique (Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 8, no. 1 October, 1980) of his 1979 Journal of Peasant Studies article, (vol. 6, no. 2, January) Wells adduces further evidence in support of his argument that covert rather than overt protest was more significant in the English countryside in the early nineteenth century. Implicit in Wells’ original postulating of the enduring nature of covert protest was a plea for astudy of everyday life rather than concentration on so‐called historical landmarks. Here he offers some preliminary findings concerning Burwash, a large, ‘open’ village in the East Sussex Weald. He finishes by stressing that the identical experiences of counties like Essex, Suffolk and Sussex, with important differences between their rural economies, prove the significance of covert protest in general and arson in particular.

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