John Billingsley

John Billingsley (1747–1811) was an agricultural pioneer in 18th-century Somerset, England.

The writer of the 1794 Survey of Somerset, Billingsley, was a leading agriculturalist who was one of the founders of the Bath and West Society, known today as the Royal Bath and West of England Society. He lived all his life at Ashwick Grove.

Family life

John Billingsley was born in 1747, the grandson of Nicholas Billingsley, a Presbyterian dissenter who was minister at Ashwick from 1699 to 1729. Little is known about his early life. But by 1782, he was listed as Brewer along with James Jordan of the Oakhill Brewery in the neighbouring village of Oakhill, and may have been involved in the wool trade before that.

General View of the Agriculture of the County of Somerset Cover of the book: General view of the agriculture in the county of Somerset with observations on the means of its improvement by John Billingsley ... Drawn up for the consideration of the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement. Published 1794. Printed by W. Smith in London. The 18th century was largely one of peace in Somerset, but the Industrial Revolution in the Midlands and Northern England spelled the end for most of Somerset's cottage industries. Farming continued to flourish however, with Billingsley farming about , and the Bath and West of England Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures and Commerce was founded in 1777 to improve farming methods. Despite this, 20 years later John Billingsley conducted a survey, for the Board of Agriculture, of the county's agriculture in 1795 and found that agricultural methods could still be improved. He provided estimates, based on his local knowledge, of the land use of the one million acres (4,000 km2) in the county. He suggested that 584,500 were enclosed meadow and pasture land, 260,000 were enclosed arable and convertible land, with smaller areas for other purposes. were considered uncultivated wastes.

It advocated ways of modernising farming practices, particularly through mechanisation, which included instructions for hedge building and crop rotation (also how to treat sick animals with hay tea and improve cucumber production with horse dung!). It also includes a chapter on political economy related to the narrow margin of British food supplies, in view of the outbreak of war with France in 1793, and mentions developments on the Somerset coalfield.

In 1798, he wrote about the water-meadows of the Brendon and Quantock Hills, describing them as the best in the country.

Other activities

Billingsley was also actively involved in turnpike trusts, and canal building, including the Kennet and Avon Canal, Somerset Coal Canal and the Dorset and Somerset Canal. One eulogy by Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, President of the Bath and West Society, exaggerates considerably, referring to him as having "drained Sedgemoor and enclosed Mendip"!

Soon after his death the Bath and West Society commissioned Samuel Woodforde (the nephew of James Woodforde) to copy in oils a crayon portrait of Billingsly. Another portrait by Joseph Hutchinson now hangs in the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath.