Mackay c00 Introduction Pages1-3

1
INTRODUCTION
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EQUINE CULTURE
AND VETERINARY SURGERY
By describing the conditions and forces surrounding farrier practice over the long
eighteenth century (16801800), this book shows how the farriers surgical practices and
inclinations led to the creation of a surgeon within farriery. This book will examine the health
care of horses within eighteenth-century society, focusing particularly on the elite practice of
farriery. The ideas, practices and relationships that underpinned eighteenth-century equine
medicine and surgery led to new ways of viewing the horse body. They also diminished trade
power and networks, the specialization of farriers in urban environments and new medical
technologies, such as the horse hospital. All of these factors resulted in a single college
formed in London in the early 1790s, out of which emerged the veterinary surgeon.
The eighteenth-century horse
Veterinary surgery was not established to care for animals, in general. It formed
around the utter dependence of English society upon the horse. An understanding of both the
essential role of the horse and equine cultures influence on daily life in English society is
necessary before specifically addressing the care of horses in the eighteenth century. A
number of scholars have recognized pretwentieth-century England as a horse-drawn society
and emphasized its ubiquity throughout the social strata in both the country and the city.
1

This kind of scholarship has grown noticeably not only in cultural studies but also in

1
In the 1970s Joan Thirsk and F. M. L. Thompson began historical inquiry into the horses significance. J.
Thirsk, Horses in Early Modern England: for Service, for Pleasure, for Power (Reading: University of Reading
Press, 1978); F. M. L. Thompson, Victorian England: The Horse-Drawn Society (London: Bedford College,
1970).
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:23 PM
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Kayla Swan 10/18/13 9:30 AM
Deleted: landscape
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:52 PM
Comment [1]: Landscape" seemed a llLLle Loo
broad Lo me. Would Lhls phrase be an accuraLe
replacemenL?
Deleted: offarrier practice over the long - ... [1]
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:52 PM
Comment [2]: Conslder addlng a phrase or
senLence here Lo explaln your descrlpLlon of farrlery
as ellLe.
Deleted: ,it analyses the ideas, ... [2]
Katie Smith 10/29/13 10:31 AM
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Deleted: were diminished the specialization of ... [3]
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Deleted: Eghteenth-cCntury hH ... [4]
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:52 PM
Comment [3]: Conslder clarlfylng Lhls phrase.
uoes esLabllshed Lo care for anlmals" mean ouL of
concern for anlmals' wellbelng" or acLual healLh
care of anlmals?
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:31 PM
Deleted: Before specifically addressing the care ... [5]
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:52 PM
Comment [4]: 1he publlsher's sLyle gulde sLaLes
LhaL when boLh -lze and -lse words are ln use ln
Lngllsh, Lhey prefer Lhe -lze verslon.
Deleted: -twentieth-century England as a horse- ... [6]
Kayla Swan 10/23/13 2:43 PM
Comment [5]: l have edlLed down many of Lhe
noLes, as per Lhe publlsher's sLyle gulde, whlch
sLaLes,
"keep noLes brlef and focused on references dlrecLly
relevanL Lo Lhe maLerlal under dlscusslon. Assume
LhaL readers have a good general knowledge of Lhe
sub[ecL, and avold referrlng Lhem Lo general LlLles
unless you are quoLlng from Lhem. lf your
monograph has been adapLed from your hu, you
should remember LhaL Lhe level of annoLaLlon
requlred for a hu ls much hlgher and wlder Lhan
LhaL requlred for a monograph, and you should cuL
Lhe noLes accordlngly."
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:33 PM
Deleted: There has also been a noticeable growth
in this kind of scholarship has grown ... [7]
Deleted: ,
Kayla Swan 10/18/13 11:44 AM
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Deleted: oanThirsk, Horses in Early Modern ... [8]
2

economic histories.
2
One historian recently wrote, Many thousands of ordinary people
working in early modern England used the horse in a host of utilitarian tasks. They put loads
on their horses backs or hitched them to a vehicle On farms, horses helped prepare the
ground, pulling ploughs, harrows or rollers, and drew the wains, tumbrels, carts, wagons and
even sledges, that carried farm produce off the fields or to market.
3

The quantity of horses grew with Englands increasing dependence upon them. By the
eighteenth century, horses had almost completely replaced oxen for farm labour. Horse-
breeding practices ultimately produced certain kinds of horses by paying particular attention
to the sizes and kind of horses needed for farm labour.
4
By 1790 the British were using
around 1.2 million horses for agricultural labour. The horse population rose by a quarter
between 1695 and 1750, and trade in horses probably grew faster, reaching 1.5 million
horses.
5
Historian E. A. Wrigley argues, The single most remarkable feature of the economic
history of England between the later sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries was the rise
in output per head in agriculture.
6
He calculates there was a rise of 27 per cent in the horse
power available per man on the land in the course of the eighteenth century.
7
Wrigley bases
his conclusions upon the calculations of the political mathematicians Gregory King and

2
Recently Peter Edwards, Clay McShane and Joel Tarr have written thoroughly researched histories of horses in
seventeenth-century England and the United States in the nineteenth century.
P. Edwards, The Horse Trade of the Midlands in the Seventeenth Century, Agricultural History Review, 27
(1979), pp. 90100; P. Edwards, The Horse Trade of Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988); P. Edwards, The Supply of Horses to Parliamentarian and Royalist Armies in the
English Civil War, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 68 (1995), pp. 150168; P. Edwards, The
Horse Trade in Tudor and Stuart Staffordshire, Staffordshire Studies, 13 (2001), pp. 3154; P. Edwards, Horse
and Man in Early Modern England (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2007); C. McShane and J. Tarr, The
Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
2007).
3
Edwards, Horse and Man, p. 183.
4
Consequently, in Lincolnshire, Between 1636 and the mid-eighteenth century, the proportion of ratepayers
who had horses rose from three in five in 1636 (60.0 per cent) to just under three in four in 1701 (73.4 per cent),
to more than four in five in 1724 (81.1 per cent) and to six in seven at an unknown date between 1724 and 1742
(85.7 per cent). Edwards, Horse and Man, p. 3.
5
J. A. Chartres, The Marketing of Agricultural Produce, in J. Thirsk (ed.), The Agrarian History of England
and Wales, Volume V, 16401750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 446.
6
E. A. Wrigley, Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 35.
7
Wrigley, Continuity, Chance and Change, p. 42.
Deleted: :
Kayla Swan 10/18/13 11:45 AM
Deleted: . . . .
Deleted: o
Kayla Swan 10/18/13 11:47 AM
Deleted: horses only grew and number of horses in
England followed suithem. By the eighteenth ... [9]
Deleted: E. Graham, Reading, Writing, and
Riding Horses in Early Modern England: James
Shirleys Hyde Park (1632) and Gervase Markhams
Cavelarice (1607), in Erica Fudge (ed.),
Renaissance Beasts: Of Animals, Humans, and other
Wonderful Creatures (Chicago, 2004); A. Hyland,
The Horse in the Middle Ages (Thrupp, 1999); idem., ... [10]
Deleted: table Equipment at the Stuart Court: A ... [11]
Formatted: Font:Italic
Deleted: -100; idem. ... [12]
Deleted: idem.
Deleted: -68; P. Edwardsidem. ... [13]
Deleted: -4; P. Edwardsidem. ... [14]
Katie Smith 10/30/13 1:53 PM
Deleted: layMcShane and J.oel ... [15]
Deleted: ; See also, J. Edward Chamberlin, Horse: ... [16]
Deleted: ighteenth century, the proportion of ... [17]
Deleted: Ibid.
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Deleted: Ibid.
3

Arthur Young.
8
In 1695 King estimated that there were more than 500,000 cart-and-plough
horses and more than 550,000 draught horses in England, and in 1779 Young calculated that
there were 200,000 more draught horses than in Kings calculations. By combining these
calculations, it is easy to see not only the increase in the number of horses but also the
obvious increase in horsepower. Horses were also a major source of power in quasi-industrial
settings. Though Newcomen engines began to replace horses as the power source for draining
coal mines in the 1720s, horses remained an important power source for gins and other
machinery until after 1800. The need for horses shifted as these animals became the primary
force for transporting supplies and goods to and from these industrialized settings.
9

Improvements in the road systems and the significant growth of internal
transportation also contributed to increased demand for horses. Before the eighteenth century,
English roads were in a horrid state.
10
Turnpike trusts, however, improved many routes,
making travel easier by creating thousands of miles of new roads.
11
The first turnpike trusts
began in the 1690s, and by 1750, there were 143 trusts and 3,386 miles of road under their
care. By 1770 there were 519 trusts running 14,965 miles of road. When the government
abolished turnpike trusts in 1836, there were 942 trusts running 21,991 miles of road in
England and Wales.
12
Pack ponies and large draught horses were common, and horse-drawn
carts, wains, carriages and wagons filled the roads. Edwards argues, The trend towards
regional specialization in agriculture and the concentrations of industry ensured that the roads

8
G. King, The LCC Burns Journal, in P. Laslett (ed.), The Earliest Classics: John Graunt and Gregory King,
facsimile with introduction (Farnbourgh: Gregg Publishing, 1973); A. Young, Political Arithmetic: Containing
Observations on the Present State of Great Britain (London, 1779), pp. 4557, 133, 148, 156, 179.
9
Edwards, Horse and Man, pp. 2013; J. E. Ward, John Speddings Accounts of Horses Used in the
Whitehaven Colleries, etc., from 1715 Onwards, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland
Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 89 (1989).
10
D. Gerhold, Carriers and Coachmasters: Trade and Travel before the Turnpikes (Chichester: Phillimore &
Company, 2005).
11
There are a variety of examples of general and specific histories of turnpikes. T. Barker and D. Gerhold, The
Rise and Rise of Road Transport, 17001990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
12
E. Pawson, The Turnpike Trusts of the Eighteenth Century: A Study of Innovation and Diffusion (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1975), fig. 4 and 5, p. 17.
Comment [6]: Could you add Lhe publlsher Lo
Lhe clLaLlon for A. ?oung? l can'L flnd Lhe edlLlon you
clLe.
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:37 PM
Deleted: in England
Deleted: nd- ... [19]
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:38 PM
Deleted: had alculationsed ... [20]
Deleted: ,
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:52 PM
Comment [7]: WhaL does horsepower mean ln
Lhls conLexL? uoes saylng LhaL Lhere was an lncrease
ln horsepower say someLhlng dlfferenL Lhan LhaL
Lhere was an lncrease ln Lhe number of horses? ?ou
mlghL conslder clarlfylng Lhls polnL.
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:40 PM
Deleted: the orses as the power source of ... [21]
Deleted: y
Comment [8]: Cr are you saylng Lhey" ln
reference Lo Lhe sLeam englne?
Kayla Swan 10/18/13 12:21 PM
Deleted: industrialising
Comment [9]: Could you add page numbers Lo
Lhe Ward clLaLlon?
Kayla Swan 10/18/13 12:22 PM
Deleted: Demand for horses increased also
because of the improvements of n the road ... [22]
Kayla Swan 10/22/13 10:52 PM
Comment [10]: Slnce Lhls manuscrlpL ls ln Lhe
8rlLlsh sLyle, should we use Lhe meLrlc sysLem for
measuremenLs?
Deleted: s
Deleted: regoryKing, The LCC Burns Journal, ... [23]
Deleted: -20
Deleted: orianGerhold, Cara ... [24]
Deleted: heoBarker and D.orianGerhold, The ... [25]
Deleted: ric

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