THE CORN LAWS

The Corn Laws of 1815 to 1846 were introduced by the idolised Tory Duke of Wellington to place a high tariff on imported cereals. This protected home cereal producers, like Matthew Woodley in Stansted, but was devastating for consumers, like our newly-landless town-dwelling families, and especially those in the brewing industry that depended on low-cost supplies of barley. James Woodley, a skilled maltster, found himself unemployed with a wife and five children to feed, not to mention an ageing mother and mother-in-law. Even the opposition free-trade Whigs didn't see any problem with the Corn Laws at this stage, but it was causing severe hardship in the brewing industry and amongst the poor who depended on beer as a safe and cheap alternative to dubious urban water supplies