Markets, politics and profits

The hop may seem a modest plant, but events in the hop yards and kilns had an impact on local and national politics, on the clergy, the tax collector and of course the farming community. The profile of hops was such that in the 1850s the then Chancellor of the Exchequer spent several days attending meetings of a Parliamentary Select Committee on Hop Duties, despite his responsibilities for Britain and a world-wide empire. As is already clear, volatility and insecurity were part of hop growing. Hops are a specialist product, subject to natural disasters and disease, with only one market: