A Claim on the Countryside: A History of the British Outdoor Movement (review)

Rambling, hiking, and outdoor activism have attracted renewed interest in the last decade as a central aspect of popular culture during times otherwise known for commercialism and industrial modernity, in particular, the early-twentieth century. If the interwar rambling craze and holiday movement has not been left unnoticed by most general studies of the interwar years, Harvey Taylor now offers the first detailed, empirical account of the nineteenth-century evolution of the rambling movement. Giving particular attention to the local, social, and institutional dimensions of rambling and cycling clubs, collective action to gain rights of access, and popular nature study, the book will be of interest to historians of popular politics and social movements as well as to students of leisure and nature movements.

The book’s main contribution lies in exploding fashionable ideas about the sociology of the early- and mid-Victorian rambling movement. Rather than being originated by Romantic literati or growing out of Tory paternalism, the later mass phenomenon, the author shows persuasively, had deep and long-standing roots in a popular language of rights and a radical culture of the free-born Englishman. From a large number of local newspapers and primary sources, and with a keen eye for local detail, Taylor unearths a network of societies and a history of activism, such as when the people of Burnley cheered on two blacksmiths in 1856 as they demolished the heavy doors erected by the rector to obstruct a popular path. The book follows the network of local societies and protests to the late-Victorian birth of regional and national movements for preservation and access to footpaths. The level of debate and action among a wide range of artisans as well as industrial labourers, many of whom had migrated from the nearby countryside, shows not only the problems with older notions of social control from above, but, arguably, also sheds doubt on the recent view that the early-Victorian period saw the construction of a general consensus about the country and the national past. Rambling and the countryside appealed to a wide range of groups with different motivations, from radical artisans to a smaller set of Tory paternalists.

The language of rights remained tied to powerful notions of “improvement” well into the twentieth century. This linkage constructed a bridge between a variety of early socialist ideas and non-conformity; Christianity played a previously neglected role, as Taylor shows. The author also rightly reminds us of the important role of popular botany and natural science as a complement to rambling as such. Instead of finding romantic retreat, for many Victorians rambling and botany had emancipatory, educational, and, as they would have put it, “rational” potential.

What are the more general implications of this well-researched study for our understanding of modern British society and culture? The structure of the book is organised around its emphasis on the social and institutional history of rambling, leaving little room for a more rigorous cultural analysis of the phenomenon. Taylor persuasively shows that Victorian ramblers were neither completely atavistic, hoping to return to some pre-industrial past, nor entirely modernist, without some trace of Romantic vision or older radical ideals. Some ramblers embraced both pantheism and emancipatory ideals concerning dress and customs, others were Tories, and yet others were utopian socialists. A few years ago, I suggested that popular nature movements displayed ambiguous modern and anti-modern elements and that these might be understood more clearly with the help of comparative perspectives and by thinking less about the direct motivation of participants and their political affiliation and more about the cultural significance of their actions, their hikes, songs, memories, and engagements with nature (“Civilisation and Its Discontents” [1994]). The author is quite right to observe that British ramblers did not share the politics of their German counterparts, but his preference for institutional networks and local detail and his disdain for any social theory or cultural analysis blinds...