John Reader, a writer and photojournalist with more than forty years’ experience is author to The Untold History of the Potato (2009). His factual novel details the chronological history of the tuber throughout its known history describing its progression around the globe and its meaning for society along the way.
‘The spud now has the biograpghy it deserves’ The Economist.
'The most nourishing book of the month' Guardian
Within his chapter ‘Woe the Sons of Adam!’ Reader gives a detailed account of the progression and importance of the potato in the 1800s: The age of England’s industrial revolution. Over two thirds of London’s 2.5 million inhabitants were employed in trade industries, slaves to tough labour. Reader argues that “the population growth which the potato fuelled in England and across Europe in the late 18th century was expressively intended to make the wheels of industry and make them turning” (Reader, 2009 p. 171). As the potato was in abundance at the time and being rich in nutrition, London’s population grew which was brilliant for employers within large industries.
Reader also notes a theory of Redcliffe Salaman, another historian who has specialised in the social influence of the potato. Salaman believed the potato “came as a heaven-sent gift to the leaders of industry; its use was argued not only by employers, but by many well-intentioned persons who failed to appreciate its implications” (Salaman, 1985 p. 342). These implications of course fell upon the worker. The potato made people plentiful opening cruel opportunities for industry owners to employ people for less, earning more money for their own businesses, enabling them to grow and trade further and further around the globe.
It got to the stage in the mid-1800s where the population was in surplus; there were more people than jobs. Manufactures could easily employ less people for the same amount of work for less money so to keep up with competitors. The public knowingly worked under exploited circumstances because they knew they could be easily replaced. Reader explains: “If a manufacturer customarily employed ten workers for nine hours daily, for instance, he could employ just nine by requiring each to work ten hours daily for the same wages. … Costs were reduced, the workforce shrank and the pool of available labour grew larger” (Reader, 2009 p. 172). Although the potato brought about a growth in population, it also betrayed the people with a ‘catch-22’ situation. “The threat of being the one thrown out of work was enough to ensure that all agreed to work for less” (Reader, 2009 p. 172).
England wasn’t the only country who experienced a boom in population during the 1800s. Author Young, and 18th century writer describes within his book ‘Tour in Ireland’ (1780), how “six people, a man, his wife and four children, will eat eighteen stone of potatoes a week or 252 lb” (Young, 1897). That is a lot of potatoes! According to The Oxford Companion to Food (1999) written by Alan Davidson, Ireland’s population “between 1780 and 1845,…rose from four and a half million to eight and a half” (Davidson, 1999 p. 406).
As Ireland’s landscape was covered in a vast amount of bog and marsh land and jobs were extremely limited, the Irish population had to spill over into England as beggars. Unwanted and loathed the Irish were a ‘blight upon England’. I could enlighten you with sordid and shocking opinions of the Irish from the likes of Friedrich Engels and Thomas Carlyle who witnessed the Irishman’s presence in England at the time, but for the purpose if this blog and to save face I will not.
Davidson, A. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Reader, J. The Untold History of the Potato: ‘Woe the Sons of Adam!’. London: Vintage Books, 2009.
Salaman, R. The History and Social Influence of the Potato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Young, A. Tour in Ireland. London: Cassell & Company LTD, 1897.
There is literature of all sorts on the Irish Potato Famine both factional and fictional, as well as many documentaries. I recommend reading the The Great Hunger (1991) by Cecil Woodham-Smith which I read in high school. It describes the effect the potato famine had upon Ireland and England, and it also takes a look at emigration to America. For the younger reader I highly recommend Marita Conlon-McKenna’s trilogy: Under the Hawthorn Tree: Children of the Great Famine (1997-1998), which I couldn’t get enough of as a child. The collection proved so popular in Ireland during the 90s that they were made into a film. Check it out if you can!
It is estimated that the Irish potato crop failures of 1845 - 1849 accounted for a population loss of about two and an half million people!
The worlds biggest potato weighed in at at 18 pounds, 4 ounces according to the Guinness book of world records. That’s enough for 73 medium fries at macdonalds.
