A Voice Clamouring in the Wilderness: H. J. Massingham (1888–1952) and Rural England

Abstract

H. J. Massingham was one of a group of writers flourishing between the wars who were concerned with recording the disappearing cultural traditions of an older rural world, describing the English countryside, and setting into motion a move to revitalise and regenerate that countryside from the desuetude and depression into which it had declined. Distrustful of reductionist science and mechanistic economics, Massingham championed what he perceived as the virtues of localism, organicism, the crafts and the culture of ‘peasant’ farming. In offering biographical details and in considering a range of his work, this article seeks to locate Massingham within the context of his times. Moreover, despite the criticism of his contemporary detractors who regarded his preaching of traditional values in husbandry, craft and land as escapist and antiquarian, the article concludes that many of Massingham's writings foreshadow twenty-first century concerns for organic holism, sustainability, food quality and environmental issues.