William Marshall

Who was William Marshall?

William Marshall was a 18th-century English writer on contemporary agriculture. He was an early proponent of the establishment of a state-sponsored body to promote improved farming standards and agricultural colleges. He was born the younger son of William and Alice, yeoman farmers, in Sinnington, in North Yorkshire, England. Marshall left home at the age of 14 and worked in commerce in London and the West Indies for fourteen years. At the age of 28 he had what he thought was a miraculous recovery from illness, and determined to devote himself in future to the study of agriculture. He had already been pursuing the study in his spare time and he thought that the proper area for analysis should be the natural agricultural district rather than the regions demarcated by county boundaries. He also thought that no less than twelve months' personal observation and practical experience of farming in an area was needed before a realistic assessment could be made. This method of research differed from his contemporaries in that others, notably Arthur Young, his great rival, investigated farming practices by cursorily touring a county and interviewing the inhabitants.