included allotments, small-holdings, and the reform of land ownership. Extracts from his articles from the Warwickshire Advertiser were later published as Joseph Ashby's Victorian Warwickshire. Joseph married his cousin Hannah Ashby in 1885: they had two sons of whom one was Arthur Ashby, agricultural economist, and five daughters. In 1880s Joseph made contact again with Lord William Compton; Lord William was at the time residing at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire, and Joseph working nearby. Joseph had “stood in the road, waylaying his carriage. He met with recognition and welcome; an interview was arranged”. He persuaded Lord William (now a Liberal MP) to let a farm to the Tysoe Allotments Association for division into allotments and small-holdings, himself becoming one of the first tenants. From 1886 until 1910 he was an active and important figure in Warwickshire Liberalism, and from 1883 to 1906 he acted as Liberal agent for the southern part of the Rugby constituency. He spent the summer of 1893 as a traveling lecturer in one of the English Land Restoration League's “red vans”, arguing for allotments, small-holdings, and the restoration of the land to the people through land nationalization. By the 1890s, Joseph’s various activities brought him a number of suggestions for gaining work outside Tysoe. Earl Compton (Lord William Compton until 1887) wrote offering to find him a place on the Northampton estates. Later the Earl was to contact Joseph again, asking him to be a Liberal candidate for the parliamentary division of Stratford. With a legacy from Hannah’s aunt, the family were able to move, in 1895, into Church Cottage, Tysoe. In 1900, they moved into the Orchards, a little farmstead in Lower Tysoe. In the 1900s he became a parish and district councillor and a justice of the peace. Early in 1914 Joseph's scattered in Tysoe were exchanged for a holding, Coldstone Farm, at Ascott under Wychwood in Oxfordshire, where he died on 4 March 1919. Writings Joseph Ashby wrote a number of contributions to newspapers (the majority to the Warwickshire Advertiser) (M. K. Ashby gives some details in her preface, 1960). References External links The Ashbys of Tysoe Sources Ashby, M. K. (1961) Joseph Ashby of Tysoe, 1859-1919: a study of English village life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press It was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography in that year. However, the accolade most gratifying to the author was the tribute paid