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William Amos (''c.''1745–1825) was a farmer, bailiff and estate steward who contributed through his inventions and published writings to the British Agricultural Revolution. He designed a number of improved agricultural machines and implements, and actively promoted more efficient farming techniques. His experiments and publications were widely discussed during his lifetime and continued to attract attention in the years following his death. == Biography == Amos was born around 1745 though his geographical origins are unknown. One nineteenth-century source claimed that he was Scottish by birth but no confirmation of this has been found.〔''The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge'' vol. ii, part ii, p. 25. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1843.〕 According to his own brief remarks, he was raised in the countryside and was 'strongly attached to rural pursuits' from an early age.〔Amos, William (1794). ''The Theory and Practice of the Drill Husbandry'', p. vi.〕 The earliest record of him is of his marriage in Grove, Nottinghamshire on 25 February 1781 to Sarah Freeman, the daughter of a Nottinghamshire farmer.〔Bishop's Transcripts of Marriages for Grove Parish, Nottinghamshire, 1601–1836.〕 He was employed at this time as estate steward to Anthony Eyre, owner of several estates in the English Midlands. Over the years that followed Amos and Sarah were to have five sons and three daughters, many of whom died at an early age: only his second son (Thomas Amos, who became a farmer in the Spalding area of Lincolnshire) is known to have had issue. Amos’s interest in new agricultural practices led him to undertake a series of crop trials from 1783 onwards, and these convinced him of the superiority of seed-drilling over the traditional broadcast method of sowing. As early as 1787 he was developing his own version of a drill-plough and he announced plans in that year for a book describing it;〔''Bath Chronicle'', 27 September 1787 (Issue 1400), p. 2.〕 but his employer’s death in 1788 and his subsequent move to Brothertoft in Lincolnshire as bailiff to Major John Cartwright (political reformer) delayed this project. While acting as bailiff and later as estate steward to Cartwright, Amos conducted further trials on his own farm as well as Cartwright's. Cartwright combined an active political career with a keen interest in agricultural improvement, and the collaboration between the two men over a period of fifteen years or so proved beneficial to both. It also brought Amos into contact with their close neighbour Sir Joseph Banks, who later described Amos as 'an honest man and an ingenious one',〔Annotation in Banks's hand on letter from Amos to Banks dated 28 January 1797, held by Yale University Library (unreferenced)〕 and with the agriculturist Arthur Young, who visited Cartwright's farm, saw some of Amos's inventions and remained in correspondence with him, obtaining a number of submissions from Amos for publication in his ''Annals of Agriculture''.〔Young, Arthur (1813). ''General View of the Agriculture of Lincolnshire'', 2nd edn, pp. 76–77. London. Facsimile reprint by Augustus M Kelley, New York, 1970〕〔Young, Arthur (ed.), ''Annals of Agriculture'', vols 33 (1798), 35 (1800), 40 (1803) and 45 (1808).〕 It was during this period of his life that Amos published his two books, ''The Theory and Practice of the Drill Husbandry'' and ''Minutes in Agriculture''. When Cartwright sold his estate in the mid-1800s Amos moved to take up a tenancy of his own on the recently drained Lincolnshire West Fen, residing first in Stickney and subsequently in the newly established township of Carrington, where he ran a predominantly arable farm. A series of family bereavements (including in late 1816 his wife Sarah) combined with the agricultural recession that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars brought about a marked decline in his fortunes. He appears never to have tried to patent any of his inventions and it seems unlikely that he earned much if anything from his published works. There is some indication from his final work (see below) that he may also have lost money when several Boston banks collapsed during 1814 and 1815. His final published work was something of a departure from his usual topics: a polemical pamphlet that appeared in 1816 (''A Dissertation on the Real Cause and Effectual Cure of the Present National Distress'') in which he strongly criticised the political establishment of his day and set out his proposals for reforms to the public finances and the banking system. The ''Dissertation'' is, however, above all a plea for proper recognition of working farmers, the ‘miserable drudges of agriculture’ who (Amos asserts) are ‘the very basis of national prosperity’, in contrast to what he saw as the vested interest of the landowning class.〔Amos, William (1816). ''A Dissertation on the Real Cause and Effectual Cure of the Present National Distress'', p. 25. Printed in Boston, Lincolnshire.〕 In 1821, at the age of 75 and close to retirement, Amos married a 22-year-old widow (Elizabeth Scargal née Dowse). They had a son and a daughter, both of whom died as children. Amos died at his home in Boston on 8 April 1825 and was buried at Stickney Parish Church in Lincolnshire. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「William Amos (agriculturist)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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