Herefordshire Through Time
Herefordshire Through Time
One of the most useful sources for the study of child labour in agriculture is the Parliamentary Report of 1843, British Parliamentary Papers, Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture. Unfortunately the County of Herefordshire was not covered in this enquiry, however the practices and conditions reported are very similar across the different regions of England and probably hold true for Herefordshire as well.
The format of the report is by and large one of question and answer. Similar questions are asked of witnesses in each area selected. The evidence of Rev. John Lister and Mr. George Streake, churchwarden in Stanley, is a good example of the kind of information you can find in these parliamentary papers:
At what ages do the children here go to work? - From six years.
What do they learn before going to work; do they keep it up, or is it forgotten? - Forgotten: but very little learnt before going out. (This question refers to education.)
What sorts of work are boys and girls employed in? - Girls in weeding and factories, boys in coal-pits and in working for farmers.
Do they work separately or together? - Separately.
What are their hours of work? - Those employed in out-door labour from seven in the morning to six in the evening.
What is the usual diet and meal hours? - Bread and milk chiefly: dinner from twelve to one.
What are the effects of employment on health? - They are generally healthy.
What wages do children earn? - 4d. to 1s.
Are they taken from school to earn something by work, or kept there though they might earn something by work? - Always taken from school when they can earn anything.
(This evidence is taken from British Parliamentary Papers: Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture: Counties of Yorkshire and Northumberland, Irish University Press Series, 1968, pp. 319-320)
Another witness was the Rev. D. Dixen, Incumbent of Thornes, who was interviewed with regard to children in his vicinity:
At what ages do the children go out to work? - Generally from 10-12 years of age.
What do they learn before going out to work - if kept up or forgotten? - The boys learn but little before they go out to work, and from my experience at an adult school, I should say forget that little, except the reading, very soon.
What sort of work are boys and girls employed in? - Boys and girls employed alike, in weeding, setting potatoes, and light garden-work.
Do they work separately, or together in gangs; if the latter, do any bad consequences result from it? - They generally work together in gangs; and where this is so the effect is decidedly bad. I know one master who employs children, who always separates the boys and girls, and keeps a most careful watch over them, thereby preventing bad consequences... (By bad consequences the vicar is referring to an unwanted pregnancy or extramarital sex. The morals of agricultural workers were always a grave concern to the Victorians. In fact, if it was known that a woman had worked in the fields, she was often not accepted for jobs in a household. Farm workers had a reputation for using bad language and for lewd behaviour.)
What are the effects of employment on health? - Very healthy.
What are their wages? - From 6d. to 1s. per day, according to age, ability, and kind of work.
Are they taken from school to earn anything by work, or kept at school though they might earn something by work? - They are seldom taken from school to out-door work; but this may arise from the fact that there is very little demand for children in out-door work...
The interview continues with regard to parish apprentices (poor children who were dependent on out-relief by the parishes or orphans who lived in the workhouse). Rev. Dixen said that in his area parish apprentices were not sent to work on farms or in factories, but handed over to artisans of different kinds. This did not cost the parish anything by way of fees, neither was there provision for the children to get paid anything other than room and board. Finally, he was asked how the children were generally treated by their masters. - "Their treatment depends upon the master they are bound to; sometimes they are well treated, sometimes the very reverse, and this perhaps more frequently than the former."
(This evidence is taken from British Parliamentary Papers..., Irish University Press Series, 1968, p. 319)
The chapter on the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex in the same Reports of Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, 1843, (pp. 178-182) gives a good idea of the sorts of jobs children were expected to do and what they were paid. Note that with some jobs children are expected to help their parents and with regard to other jobs they work independently and receive their own wage.
General - Stone picking, potato planting, potato picking, bean dropping, hay making. Age 9 -14. Wages: 4d to 6d a day.
In the hop-gardens - Assist parents at clearing chogs, poling (fixing the hop poles in the ground), and tying (binding the hops to the pole). Branching, paid 6d per day. Stacking, age 10 -12, wages 6d. Shaving Poles, paid by the 100 according to the size.
On the corn-lands - Tending birds, couching, spudding and weeding, hand-weeding, hay-making. Age: 10 years. Hours of work, 8-5, and at hay-making 8-6. Wages: for 8-10 hours 4d per day, from 10-12 hours 6d per day, and from 12-15 hours per day 6d to 8d. Reaping, assist their father, age 9 or 10, hours of work, 8am-6pm. Attending at the Threshing-machine, not much used, age 10, general wages, from 8-10 hours per day, 4d, from 10-12 hours 6d, from 12-15 hours 6d to 8d.
General - Help father with threshing, often as early as 8 or 9. The father is paid his wage according to how much he threshes, 3s 4d to 4s per quarter. Hedging and ditching, 10 -12 years, again it is the father's task and the father who is paid. Cow-keeping, turnip-getting, stone-picking, potato-picking, potato-planting at age 8. Wages: 4d and 6d.
In the hop-gardens - Assist men at opening (levelling of the hills which have been placed round the plants in the preceding summer) and poling (fixing the hop poles in the ground). Shimming, stacking poles and pole shaving, as early as 9 years old. Hop-digging , where the boys assist their fathers, at age 10 or 11.
On the corn-land - Couching, age 8-10, wages 3d. Pulling weeds, age 10-12, wages 4d and 6d. Bird-scaring, age 8-12, 4d and 6d and beer.
Near Tunbridge Wells: Cutting faggots for kilns, hours: daylight, wages: 2s per one hundred (a boy can cut about 50 in one day). Pole shaving.
Near Maidstone: Faggot-cutting and pole-shaving, age 12, daylight hours, wages: 6d - 1s per hundred, a boy of 12 may earn 6d a day.
In the Weald of Surrey: Wood-cutting, at age 9 or 10 wages are 6d, at age 12 wages are 8d, at age 15, wages are 14d. Hours of work: daylight. A handy boy of 11 may get 6d a day at wood cutting.
Mr. James Lansdell, relieving officer and assistant overseer of the first district of the Tunbridge Union, and retired farmer, gave the following deposition:
"Boys are often employed, if strong, in opening the hops. They get about 6d a day. They are often made use of to lead the horse in 'shimming' the hops, as it is called, i.e. in weeding them with a brake between the hills, which are six feet apart... In addition to occasional hirings, most farmers keep a boy about the house as servant of all-work. They will take boys for this purpose at 12 or 13 years old; they board them less frequently than they were accustomed to do, but more commonly they take them at wages by the day, - 3d., 4d., or 6d., according to their age and strength. If they board them at that age, they require usually something with them, 6d., 9d., or 1s. a week; in either case they require their whole services for the year. Parents commonly send their children to the free schools at 1d. a week, but take them away when they can get work for them. At some schools in this town this custom is prohibited; but in the small villages they are not so particular. Most boys go to Sunday schools; there are Sunday schools in most villages. I certainly have heard some farmers say that education injures the labourer... The New Poor Law has decidedly had the effect of sending out children earlier than formerly to work and to service." (Evidence taken from British Parliamentary Papers..., pp. 183-184)
Information regarding diet and dress is given for the Northiam area of Sussex:
"The common diet of this district is bread and cheese (which is much eaten), butter, potatoes, and in some places hard pudding. Bacon is commonly eaten by those who are in better circumstances, and fish in some localities. The proportion of animal food varies with the state of the family, the amount of work and the earnings, and is commonly slight. The diet is increased in labour, and where the day's work is long, a 'bait' or additional meal is taken."
"The boy's general dress is cotton shirt, round frock or fustian jacket, trousers, high shoes and leather gaiters, worsted stocking: where shoes and gaiters are worn, it is not uncommon in some parts to go without stockings. Flannel is not commonly worn." (Evidence taken from British Parliamentary Papers..., p. 182)
Deposition of Mr. John Cogger, fruit farmer, of Maidstone, Kent:
"Boys are employed, and women and girls, in picking up wood and stones from orchard-ground in January and February. Men are hired to do this by the acre, and to dig it, and then they get their family to clear it. Sometimes women and children are employed to clear it before it is ready for the men to dig. A woman is paid for this 1s. a-day; she generally begins at eight o'clock and leaves off at five. Children are employed, chiefly boys, and sometimes girls between 12 and 14 or later, to do this. The girls are seldom hired for it, but are sometimes employed by their fathers. Boys get about 6d. a-day. Boys work 12 hours if there is light; half an hour is allowed for breakfast, and an hour for dinner.
"Boys are also employed about the same time of year by the fathers who contract to dig by the acre to dig with them. The men get 1l. (£) per acre; a man and a boy of between 12 and 14, will dig an acre in a week. A man will do rather more than three-quarters of an acre in such time. This work a man can obtain for about two months; women are not employed at this.
"Hoeing in the gardens begins about the beginning of June. Boys are employed to do this in same way as they are to dig. A man gets 5s. an acre for hoeing at this season; a man and boy together can hoe three acres and a-half in a week. The man can do three times as much as a boy of 12 or 14: women never do this work. A boy will work at this 12 hours; but they can work longer if they please, as they work by the piece. This is not common, as the 12 hours' work is hard enough. A man may get about a fortnight of this work.
"Fruit-gathering begins in the beginning of June. Boys, women, and girls gather the fruit. The boys and girls are not under 12; they gather goose-berries and currants at 6d. a-day. Women gather cherries as well, and older boys do the same. The women will get 1s.3d. a-day, and the older boys 1s.; a woman and boy may be gathering summer fruit for more than two months. The boys work 12 hours per day; the women an hour less.
"The gathering the autumn fruit begins at the latter end of August. Women get about 1s. per day for gathering filberts and plums. Children of both sexes gather filberts, and get 6d. a-day; boys gather plums also, and get about 6d. a-day. A boy or woman may get employment during a month in this way." (British Parliamentary Papers, p. 187)
Children's involvement in agricultural work depended to a large extent on the type of farming practised in the locality. According to one witness, James Lansdell, there was little work for women and children in pasture-lands or on grass-land intended for hay:
"In pasture-lands there is little either for boys or women to do; occasionally, but seldom, boys watch the sheep. On grass-land, intended for hay, boys and women commonly clear the land of stones and sticks, at the time the stock (the animals) is shut out from it. This work lasts but a short time. In the hay harvest both boys and women work from about eight to six; a good strong boy may get 6d. or 8d. a-day; a women gets about 10d. or 1s. In a moderate-sized farm this lasts about three weeks."
In Herefordshire, children were also employed in hop-picking. Families picked hops together, so the children worked alongside their parents. This was a seasonal activity, and even though the children were expected to help, by the early 20th century they did not have to work all year round, but were expected to attend school. Going to work in the hopfields was considered an exciting holiday for many city children, whose families took the train to the chosen farm and then camped on site for the duration of the harvest.
As mentioned before, the British Parliamentary Papers on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture do not include Herefordshire. However, there is other evidence we can consider to help shed some light on children's work in farming.
The Herefordshire Record Office holds a letter written in 1801 by Mr. Edward Wallwyn, owner of the Hellens Estate in Much Marcle, to the Overseers of the Poor concerning the parish apprentices (Herefordshire Record Office, RC/IV/E/322). It appears that the farmers in Much Marcle were being very choosy regarding the pauper children they were prepared to take on, although it is obvious that a strapping young lad would seem more useful than a sickly, weak one. Nevertheless, any child refused by the farmers would remain a burden on the parish. Mr. Wallwyn suggested that a ballot system, whereby farmers would have to draw lots for the children, would be more fair and assure that all children found places.
Unfortunately there is no record of the response and we shall never know if the suggested ballot system was ever put in place. Edward Wallwyn's letter does however show that poor children were a financial burden on the parish and that the accepted solution in Much Marcle was to find them employment with farmers who would be expected to house and feed the children.
According to Elisabeth Taylor, some farmers were actually paid to take in undersized, mentally disabled or otherwise undesirable children (Elisabeth Taylor,King's Caple in Archenfield, Logaston Press, 1997, p. 267). She records the ballot for the year 1830 in the parish of King's Caple, in which eight children were drawn. For one boy a weekly supplement was paid to the farmer (Taylor, p. 268).
School attendance was another area affected by child labour in farming. In the Kingstone area during the early part of the 1870s, for example, attendance was particularly patchy for a variety of reasons. Inclement weather and long walks to school were difficult for young children, especially if they did not have shoes. Chilblains and illness kept many away during the winter and during agricultural peak times it was work that made children miss lessons. Excuses given included: the potato harvest; reaping; gleaning; field work; thinning turnips; carrying bark; minding house for parents to attend May Fair in Hereford; gardening; minding pigs; ploughing matches; bird-scaring; setting potatoes; hay making; and gathering apples. (Delphine Coleman, Kingstone: The story of a Herefordshire Village from Domesday to the present time, Lapridge Publications, 1996, p. 183)
Poverty and deprivation led some children to commit crimes. Some people at the time thought that parents encouraged their children to steal, thinking that the magistrates would be more lenient if the culprit was a child. However, we know this was not necessarily the case. There are several incidents of Herefordshire children being sent to prison because of crop theft. Timothy Shakesheff discusses a number of such cases. Mary Lines, aged 6, and Sarah Moss, aged 12, for example, were found guilty before the Bromyard magistrates in 1846, of "picking two handfuls of pease [sic] in a field". Only the parents of Mary could pay the fine, so Sarah was sent to gaol for fourteen days (Timothy Shakesheff, Rural Conflict, Crime and Protest, Herefordshire, 1800-1860, The Boydell Press, 2003, p, 133). A twelve-year-old boy from Brampton Abbotts, George Stevens, was sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment for stealing a few walnuts (Shakesheff, p. 134).
When one girl was charged with breaking a farmer's fence to collect firewood, her mother told the magistrates:
"She certainly ought not to have done it, but I did not know anything of it. If any of the farmers in the parish will take her and clothe her, they may have her. I have seven of them at home, and they may have them all. If they won't I will take them all to the workhouse. My husband gets but seven shillings a week, and it is impossible we can support them." (Hereford Times, 5 March 1853, quoted in Shakesheff, p. 132)
In the Bromyard News of September 17th 1885, it was reported that a 14-year-old boy by the name of James Cook stole a lamp and a burner. His sentence was "12 strokes of birch" and a warning that if he was ever brought before the magistrates again he could expect to get a sentence of five years in a reformatory.
1885 must have been a hard year for many, because the Bromyard News commented on the unusually large number of vagrants and tramps admitted to the workhouse in September: 287 men, 128 women, and 101 children. For a two-week period that indeed seems like a very large number. [It has been argued that Herefordshire in fact did undergo an agricultural depression during the mid to late 1880s: see Agricultural Depression 1870-1900.]
Did poverty or mischief drive James Cook and the other children mentioned to theft? Establishing the motives for this kind of rural crime committed by children is difficult. But the question must be asked: can you abolish child labour without first abolishing the need for children to work?
[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2004]