"The Agricultural Labourer” by Peter Talbot-Ashby

(Copied from “Family Tree Magazine” July 1995)

As family historians we should not just be looking for dates, names and places, but also for the occupations of our ancestors, which can help us more fully understand the type of people they were and the conditions under which they lived and worked. However, when the occupation is readily recognisable, as for instance "agricultural labourer" (Ag Lab) or "labourer" (Lab) it helps if we understand the conditions and customs of the period. The chances are that many of your ancestors found employment on the land and followed these occupations.

Today, agricultural labourers are highly mechanised with tractors, harvesters and all the labour saving machines available to assist with the work. Indeed, due to the very nature of these modern tools, the agricultural workforce has now been reduced to a minimum. However, in England in the 1700s, 75% of the total workforce were labourers. Then the farm worker had, for the most part, to rely on the strength of his body and perhaps a horse if he was fortunate enough to have access to one. Ploughing, sowing, weeding or harvesting, or tending to sheep, cattle or other livestock were all labour intensive.

Let us take a look at a typical family at the beginning of the 18th century in England. In most households it was necessary for the whole family to contribute to the production of an adequate subsistence and not simply rely on the efforts of a single breadwinner. The labourer's wife was usually a working woman, and children too were put to work at an early age. The children would be plaiting straw for several hours in the early morning, scaring crows, or weeding and picking stones from the fields. The girls were expected to work alongside their mother in a variety of handicrafts and household chores, including sewing, weaving and feeding hens. The boys, from about the age of seven, as they became stronger, would be working beside their father 10 or 12 hours a day, doing a full day's hard work contributing to the family budget. Schooling was almost unheard of for the labouring classes, and the few who were fortunate enough to receive any formal learning through charity schools and Sunday schools would only receive, at the most, three or four years education in elementary reading. It was not until 1870 that compulsory education for five to 13 year-olds became law in England. However, as the children worked beside their parents, they would learn about the weather, the seasons, the names of the animals and birds, and they could recognise the varieties of hedgerow berries and which were good food and which were poisonous. They also learned how to tend and take care of the farm animals and the land.

To be employed in fulltime work was certainly not the normal practice, however. A few, usually unmarried and under the age of 25, might be engaged for a year as farm servants at a Mop Fair or hiring fair. They might be lucky and live in a barn or other outbuilding on the farm, ready to start work at first light of dawn in the summer months and well before the light in the wintertime. The majority of labourers were hired on a day to day basis as "wage labourers", earning about one shilling a day (5p) in the 1700s, rising to about eight shillings (40p) by the 1830s. At harvest time work was plentiful and they could earn a little extra cash, but their day was not eight hours, as we know it today, but 12 to 15 hours of hard physical work. At that season, work was available to all and the whole family would turn out. However, subsistence from such work was erratic, certainly not regular, and was generally insufficient to provide the simple necessities of life.

So how did the agricultural labourer manage to survive when times were hard and paid employment on the farm was scarce? Most families lived in small villages or hamlets, much smaller than we know today, and they depended on the land to support them. Their dependence was mainly due to their rights of access to common land where they could raise a cow or two, or some pigs or sheep at no cost at all. They also enjoyed the privilege of gathering fuel, by cutting bracken, turf, peat or brushwood. The hedgerows provided berries that could be eaten or turned into wine or pies, and nuts that could be gathered and stored. Rabbits, fish and birds could be taken, sometimes by poaching, all of which added to the limited resources of the agricultural labourer.

Even where common land rights did not exist, most people had a small garden where they could grow potatoes, beans and cabbages, or keep a pig, or a few chickens or geese which could be fed on almost anything. After the harvest was gathered in, gleaning the fields was another right, going back to Biblical times, providing enough for a few loaves of homemade bread and some straw for bedding.

Self sufficiency was the order of the day. Nothing was wasted. We hear much today about recycling but, to the agricultural labourer, right up to the 19th century, everything was used until it was finally completely worn out, after many attempts to repair and rejuvenate it. Old pieces of leather were saved to repair shoes, harnesses, etc. Old nails were put to one side and straightened to be used a second or third time. Rugs were made from old pieces of clothing - preferably from wool, which was more hard-wearing than cotton - which were cut into strips and hooked into pieces of sacking. In fact anything that could perhaps find a use in the future was put to one side and saved. It was a hard existence and not the idyllic life that some romantic novels might suggest.

The family home would probably be a small rented cottage, with no water tap, sink or washing machine - indeed, no water supply at all, other than a single pump situated in the village and serving the whole community. Washing clothes was a communal activity for the wives and daughters of the village, but hygiene and cleanliness were little understood, so illness and injury took their toll. Many children died before they reached the age of five. Slight injuries became infected and often crippling, simply because medicine and cures were, largely, unknown. Epidemics spread like wildfire and devastated whole communities.

In the 18th century, travel as we know it today was usually neither desired nor under- taken by the labouring classes, isolated in their village communities except for an occasional journey of a few miles to a nearby village or market town. Parish records show that many would be born, married and die within the confines of their small world, and our labourer would not have the level of national and world news that we enjoy today. He would have scant knowledge of the events of the time that moulded the destiny of Britain and the world outside. Such things as the American and French Revolutions and the Scottish Jacobite risings in the mid-1700s would pass him by, unless he was personally involved. It might be months or years later that news of these events would filter through to him. Yes, there were newspapers, but few agricultural workers could read or write.

Religion played an important role in the life of almost everyone in Britain, especially those who worked close to the land and the wonders of nature. There was a strong feeling of fellowship with God and his creation although, due to their lack of education, there were few who could read the Bible. The Authorised Version, commonly called the King James Bible, was first published in 1611 and the familiar Bible stories were frequently quoted and retold in family and church gatherings. As we search for records of our ancestors, we should be thankful for their Christian beliefs and for the clergy who so faithfully kept records of baptisms. marriages and burials long before civil registration became law in 1837.

In England from the Middle Ages, there was an enormous amount of common land but, gradually, following the passing of the Enclosure Acts, much of it was enclosed by the lords of the manor. For example, in 1716 the Lord of the Manor of Stockport, John Warren, took the law into his own hands and sold off common land to build factories and houses, resulting in the loss of the grazing rights of those who depended on this land for their living. The poaching of fish and game followed in increasing numbers. Many formerly honest labourers were forced to poach in order to sustain their families. Those who were caught were usually brought before the courts and sometimes treated harshly. Transportation occurred in Britain as early as the Civil War period but records were not kept before an Act of Parliament was passed in 1717. These early convicts were not sent to Australia, but to the American colonies (where they often worked on the plantations) and to the West Indies. It was not until after the American Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 that this ceased and, from 1787 a new penal settlement was created in Botany Bay in New South Wales.

In the village of Flintham in Nottinghamshire, 450 acres of unfenced common land were enclosed in 1760, resulting in the more productive use of the land by enterprising local landowners. A run of bad harvests from 1795 prompted further large-scale enclosures. This was typical of the period, with common land disappearing through enclosure (often in order that sheep could be kept), causing considerable hardship upon rural workers, so that, by 1800, the Enclosure Acts all but eliminated the open-field system of agriculture and changed the face of the English countryside for ever. However, in 1845, Commissioners were appointed and further enclosures were few and small. By this time. some 5,000,000 acres had been enclosed, mainly with hawthorn hedges which grew quickly to replace the open strip field system. Many of the hawthorn hedges seen today can be traced back to the days of enclosure. Many areas that had previously been common land, wild heathlands and woods, were enclosed. For the labourer, our ancestor, it meant the end of a lifestyle stretching back centuries, and often the loss of a major part of his livelihood.

Jethro Tull revolutionised farming from about 1701 when he advocated the use of manure and invented a mechanical seed drill that replaced the wasteful method of haphazardly scattering the seed, much of which was wasted. In 1736 he invented a horse-drawn drilling machine. Also at this time, Viscount "Turnip" Townshend devised a four year crop rotation system that eliminated the previous practice of allowing a field to lie fallow every fourth year. Consequently, yields increased to feed the ever-growing population. Despite the increased yields, there were years of crop failure when the price of wheat and potatoes became prohibitive, resulting in food riots from time to time. As an illustration, in 1766 the market town of Barnstaple in Devon was the scene of outbreaks of violence during a protest against the price of food.

The emerging power of the trade unions during the early part of the 19th century is worthy of mention. In 1833, some 40 agricultural labourers in Tolpuddle in Dorset formed a branch of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. This was opposed by local landowners and, with the support of the Home Secretary, Viscount Melbourne, six of the men were singled out and charged with "taking secret and unlawful oaths". They were found guilty, sentenced and deported for seven years to Australia. These "Tolpuddle Martyrs" symbolise the growing struggle between working men and their capitalist employers.

Bringing up a large family in these hard times forced many labourers to seek assistance from the parish, while others took employment in the growing towns and cities as miners or factory workers, but that is another story. Next time you read "Ag Lab", "Lab" or "servant in husbandry" on a parish record or census return (or "farm servant", which meant the same but living in), remember that these ancestors led a very hard life in order to survive. Incidentally. we are facing new challenges and opportunities to-day, but let us not forget that many of us owe our very existence to the agricultural labourers of the past.

Back to Top