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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Suffolk => Topic started by: wardyfam on Tuesday 27 November 12 00:13 GMT (UK)
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Does anyone know what a Carlick is please.
I have tried Googling it, but it just comes up with peoples surnames and companies.
I have found an article in the Newspaper Archives relating to my great grandfather in Chedburgh Suffolk where it says he was taken to court regards "The Education Act" for neglecting to send his son to school. It states that the wife attended and it records that she said the boy had been to work "carlick pulling", as she thought she would be glad of the money. (lol)
My great grandfather was fined 5shillings including costs. So it seems sending a 9 year old to work to pull the said carlick, instead of educating him wasn't as rewarding as they thought.
Any help would be gratefully received as it's intriguing me...cheers me dears. :)
Copyright image removed
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Hi first thoughts would be Garlic?
Keyboard86
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Hi and thanks for your reply. :)
I was wondering if it could have been garlic too, and thought perhaps the reporter wasn't very good at spelling. My first thought was he was pulling a small cart or something of the sort, but I must say it sounded a bit cruel to send a 9 year old off to pull a cart. There again they did pretty odd things in those days....bad enough sending him off to earn money as it was, but it was hard in those days so I doubt if it was out of the norm to send your children out to earn some extra cash to put food on the table. :/
By the way...William Cockle was the father of the man in my avatar who was my grandfather.
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Google says garlic - so reckon you are correct Keyboard86 - but it was spelt 'carlick'
"occupational name for a seller of Garlic"
- so presumably the boy was pulling the garlic out of the ground?
Wiggy :)
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I found an old book online and it looks like the boy might have been picking a variety of the mustard family:-
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND
THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE - 1891
"Contribution to an Essex dialect diction "
Carlick (carlock) : charlock {Sinapis arvensis).
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Websters Dictionary: CHARLOCK: an Old World mustard (Brassica kaber syn. Sinapis arvensis) that is a common weed in grain fields —called also wild mustard .
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Carlick isn't listed in the OED. I deduce that it's definitely dialect, as in the previous posts.
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The person who would know about Suffolk dialect is Robert Malster, author of
The Mardler's Companion
A dictionary of East Anglian dialect -
Robert Malster
Malthouse Press 1999 GBP 10.50
ISBN 0 9522355 7 9
I will PM Bob's email address.
The School Log Books for the little parish of Chedburgh will be at the Bury St Edmunds branch of the Suffolk Record Office.
Many school log books note children absent at certain times of the year, for stone picking, weed pulling and of course at harvest time and after to help with gleaning.
Pat ...
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Possibly this stuff came up as a weed in cornfields and needed "rogueing", a bit like wild oats.
Skoosh.
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Possibly this stuff came up as a weed in cornfields and needed "rogueing", a bit like wild oats.
I'm sure Skoosh is right.
Charlock was also known as karlock and I suspect this is what was being referred to.
Formerly the most troublesome annual weed of arable land,
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/weed_information/weed.php?id=28
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From google books - Essex dialect (not so far away from Suffolk) charlock becomes carlick
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0sd7/
Added: I think this is the one that Rena referred to?
"Contribution to an Essex dialect diction "
Carlick (carlock) : charlock {Sinapis arvensis).
And from 'The Complete Farmer' 'carlick' = charlock http://www.rootschat.com/links/0sd8/
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Re' dialect words, in Caithness I believe they call this stuff "Scollags".
Skoosh.
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Wow...thank you so much for the information everyone. :)
So it seems the poor young lad might have been pulling some sort of plant instead of learning his 3 R's!!
Sad to think that children so young were put to work to bring in a few pennies to help out because of the poor living conditions of the family.
Williams first wife (who was my gt grandmother) had died of consumption in 1881 so this was his second marriage. In this second marriage, (in 1886) he and his wife had 8 children, 5 at the time of his fine. So I expect the cupboards were bare. Hence having to send a very young boy out to work instead of educating him!!
Thank you all again...it has opened a whole new insight into my families lives, and their misdemeanors. :o lol
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From google books - Essex dialect (not so far away from Suffolk) charlock becomes carlick
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0sd7/
Added: I think this is the one that Rena referred to?
"Contribution to an Essex dialect diction "
Carlick (carlock) : charlock {Sinapis arvensis).
And from 'The Complete Farmer' 'carlick' = charlock http://www.rootschat.com/links/0sd8/
You're quite right I was referring to the wild mustard which can contaminate grain if not weeded out before the seeds are formed. The weed severely reduces the crop yields of cereals such as barley and wheat, etc.
<<Flower heads were once knocked off by means of a switch or special machine to prevent seed production, hand pulling was also a common practice. Preventing charlock from seeding will reduce the soil seedbank by an order of magnitude after 10 years but allowing seeding to occur in just a single year will restore the population again. >>
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You should be able to resolve whether it was Charlock or Garlick from the time of the year when he was missing from school.
Garlick is harvested in late summer and early autumn while the weeding out of charlock should have taken place in the spring.
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The newspaper report was dated 25th July, and it was about the Petty Sessions held on 19th July. No detail is given of the date on which the 'crime' was committed.
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I can't think that Suffolk has ever been noted for its garlic harvests so I would say that the pulling of the wild mustard is much more likely.
Regards,
GS
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I farm land in Suffolk, and carlicks is the large wild mustard weed. I didn't realise it was called Charlock by everyone else until I just looked it up just now. We have had it particularly badly in the last few years contaminating the oil seed rape. You'll see it growing a foot or so higher than the rape, and it looks vaguely similar from a distance.
In my grandfather's day when there were many more folks working on the farm, they used to pull wild oats from the wheat crop by hand, so I'm sure it would have been common to pull carlicks too, because like wild oats they are taller, so they dominate the crop otherwise. When I was a kid (and this was only 1970s), truancy to earn cash for the family on farms was still fairly common, so I have no doubt kids were paid to hand weed.
I found carlicks as an alternative spelling of charlock here: http://www.finedictionary.com/charlock.html (http://www.finedictionary.com/charlock.html).
BTW, history buffs might also be interested the web pages I've created about Queen Mary's Lane that runs through our farm http://www.homefarmparham.co.uk/ (http://www.homefarmparham.co.uk/),
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Welcome to Rootschat, Bob, and thanks for that interesting information. I do hope the lad who was playing truant to pull the carlick earned more than the 5/- his father was fined! Truancy was always rife in agricultural areas when extra labour was needed on the farms, I am sure. I know from my own experience that we used to miss school to go pea-picking in the early 1960s, being paid the handsome sum of 2/6d (12p) per 28lb sack.
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I'm Suffolk born and bred and originally from a farming family. I have always seen it with the Charlock spelling but always pronounced it Carlick. Yes, it is definitely the common weed wild mustard which grows about 1-2ft when mature.
Before sprays were used to eradicate the unwanted weeds which competed with the grain etc. many smallish seeds such as corn cockle, wild oats and mustard would ripen and fall before harvest. In the days of cheap labour on farms it was common for agricultural labourer's wives and children to be hired to pull weeds in corn fields whilst men would hoe crops like sugar beet. I remember watching this in the 60s and even very young children of 3 or 4 would be left on the field's headlands to play, whilst the mums walked in line abreast across the field and back, pulling taller weeds.
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Hi Hookleg - I see you have Grimwoods from the Bury St Edmunds area in your tree. I have Grimwoods from Brettenham in mine. Any possible connection?
Regards,
GS
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Hi Greensleeves, I know this is not about Carlick but in reply to your enquiry about Grimwood/wades, have you looked at the website :- http://www.grimwoodons.webspace.virginmedia.com/trees.html
My tree is tree 19. Yours may be tree 4.
All the best.
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When I was a kid (and this was only 1970s),
BTW, history buffs might also be interested the web pages I've created about Queen Mary's Lane that runs through our farm http://www.homefarmparham.co.uk/ (http://www.homefarmparham.co.uk/),
Welcome to rootschat Bob.
Thanks for the invite to visit your web site. A very interesting history lesson regarding the Lane and I especially enjoyed reading the potted history of your father's life in Germany and England.