Peculiar privilege

Hunting the fox was the favourite pastime of England's upper classes, and it stood at the heart of rural life. Its devotees saw it as a link to a traditional, pre-industrial world, and for much of the period it helped bind the nation together in a shared sense of harmony. Through this sport, the book examines how the countryside's landowning society operated, which unspoken principles guided it, what its institutions did, and how deference shaped the relationships between classes.

The author argues that older pre-industrial habits and expectations survived long after industry began to press upon them. That endurance lasted until a prolonged agricultural depression weakened the economic grip of the landed classes and removed many of the props that had sustained a deferential order.

The study starts at the point when fox-hunting took the form it would keep for generations. Fashionable society and local rural communities across most of the country embraced it as both the most aristocratic and the most widely followed of the field sports. The narrative moves from this version of "old England" through the age of the railways and closes with the Great Depression, when hunting was transformed for good.