Warwickshire, Ratley, History, Village life, Wartime, Reverend A. Child, 19th century, Rural life, Social history, Agricultural Labourers' Union, Clergy 

This book, though a history of the parish in its broadest sense, focuses on the second half of the 19th century, a period when the timeless hierarchies of rural society were being challenged by Joseph Archer's Agricultural Labourers' Union. Some of the tensions of those times are to be found here - the farm arson attacks that signalled an increasingly fractious relationship between the village working folk and their employers, the periodic flashpoints between parishioners and their so-called betters, the local clergy.
But in other aspects, this was a place where the modern world intruded only very recently. Mains water arrived in Ratley as late as 1957 an the colourful parade of great local characters has not entirely vanished, even now. The story of Ratley has many features that set it apart from that of a hundred other Warwickshire villages, but in its broad sweep it stands for a rural way of life in this country that is now slipping away into distant memory.