Cover	Contents	Page 56	Previous <	Next >
The Birtwhistles of Craven and Galloway
Figure 39 Wm Slingsby’s Airedale Heifer
The survey carried out in 1823 for the Birtwhistle vs Vardill inhertance law suit shows Abraham England as the largest of the Birtwhistle tenants in Carleton, with 137 acres of pasture but no meadow, consistent with his description in Robert Birtwhistle’s will as a drover. William Slingsby, on the other hand, held meadow as well as pasture in 1823, which would have enabled him to be a dairy farmer. A later member of the Slingsby family, another William Slingby, bred the celebrated Airedale Heifer, whose picture may be seen on the wall in the Skipton Museum, adjacent to the Craven Heifer. Both of these celebrated heifers have public houses named after them. Concluding remarks A question often posed by economic historians is whether the Agricultural Revolution in the middle of the 18^th century financed the world’s first Industrial Revolution later in the century and, if so, how? Was it the landowning classes who provided the finance, or the self made entrepreneurs who made their money during the Agricultural Revolution? The surviving records of the Birtwhistle family would suggest that, in northern Britain at least, it was the self made families such as the Birtwhistles who made most of the investment which powered the Industrial Revolution. From humble origins as small yeomen tenants of the Lords of Skipton, over two generations the Birtwhistles took every opportunity presented to them to build one of the biggest cattle businesses in Britain, later investing in the Industrial Revolution. John Birtwhistle may have been lucky in being Scotland in the middle of the 18^th century, when there was a massive increase in the droving trade, but it was his business acumen which recognised the opportunity of renting land from the Listers to establish massive cattle fairs on Malham’s Great Close. He later ploughed back the profits from his cattle fairs into his business, buying substantial estates so that his cattle could be taken to market in
Cover	Contents	Page 56	Previous <	Next >