Son ofawell-known newspaper editor, Massingham was a journalist, author, and one of England’s leading natural historians and ruralists. A declared Distributist, he was involved in a number of bodies which propounded his view of the world, and was also heavily involved in the Kinship in Husbandry group, which was composed of agriculturalists and writers who together attempted to formulate and propagate a vision of organic farming and a philosophy of husbandry.