John Saville 
Rural Depopulation in England and Wales, 1851-1951 [PDF ebook] 

First Published in 1998. This book aims to accommodate for the little attention paid to the needs of the people living in rural Britain. The author argues that there has hardly been an attempt to describe the impact of new machines and of new wage-levels on farm and village. The title sets out to answer two key questions: can the traditional pattern of settlement survive, and has depopulation in the truly rural areas gone so far as to undermine the viability of the small villages and hamlets?