Arthur Young

Arthur Young FRS (11 September 1741 – 12 April 1820) was an English agriculturist. Not himself successful as a farmer, he built on connections and activities as a publicist a substantial reputation as an expert on agricultural improvement. After the French Revolution of 1789, his views on its politics carried weight as an informed observer, and he became an important opponent of British reformers. Young is considered a major English writer on agriculture, although he is best known as a social and political observer. Also read widely were his Tour in Ireland (1780) and Travels in France (1792). Early life Young was born in 1741 at Whitehall, London, the second son of Anna Lucretia Coussmaker, and her husband Arthur Young, who was rector of Bradfield Combust in Suffolk and chaplain to Arthur Onslow. After attending school at Lavenham from 1748, he was in 1758 placed at Messrs Robertson, a mercantile house in King's Lynn. His sister Elizabeth Mary, who married John Thomlinson in 1758, died the next year, which disrupted the plan for Young to work at Messrs Thomlinson in London, under his sisters in-law. Young's father also died in 1759. In 1761 Young went to London and the following year started a magazine entitled The Universal Museum. It ran to five numbers, edited by Young, who recruited William Kenrick, just out of King's Bench Prison. It was then sold to a consortium of booksellers, according to initial advice from Samuel Johnson, who wanted no part of it. Young suffered from lung disease from 1761 to 1763, and turned down the offer of a post as a cavalry officer from Sir Charles Howard. Young's mother then put him in charge of the family estate at Bradfield Hall, a small property encumbered with debt. Between 1763 and 1766 he concentrated on farming there. In 1764–1765 Young met and became a friend of Walter Harte, who published his Essays on Husbandry in 1764. Harte advised him to give up writing for periodicals. He then collected works by Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, Samuel Hartlib and Jethro Tull, as well as reading Harte. He was a contributor to the Museum Rusticum.