author
W. H. R. (William Henry Ricketts) Curtler
1862–1925
An early 20th-century historian of English farming, remembered for writing clear, wide-ranging accounts of how agriculture shaped rural life and land use. His best-known books trace the long story of English agriculture and enclosure in an accessible, practical way.
1 Audiobook
A Short History of English Agriculture
by W. H. R. (William Henry Ricketts) Curtler
About the author
Born in 1862, W. H. R. Curtler was an English writer and historian whose full name was William Henry Ricketts Curtler. Records from Alumni Oxonienses show that he matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, in January 1881, linking him to the academic world that helped shape his historical work.
Curtler is best known for A Short History of English Agriculture (1909), a survey of farming in England from early periods into the modern era. He also wrote The Enclosure and Redistribution of Our Land (1920), showing a strong interest in how land ownership, cultivation, and rural change affected English society over time.
He died in 1925. Although not a household name today, his books have endured through major library collections and public-domain archives, and they remain of interest to readers curious about the history of the countryside, farming, and land reform.