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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Wulfsige on Saturday 06 May 23 08:23 BST (UK)
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I am amazed at how often, and how far, my ag lab forebears, and those of my friend and of my wife, moved - not to join the new iron and coal industry in Wales, but simply to work as ag labs on different farms, often in different counties. Can anyone on the forum (a) offer an explanation, and/or (b) suggest a good book on the life of ag labs from, say 1500-1850?
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Hi,
This book might be of interest to you.
My Ancestor Was An Agricultural Labourer by Ian Waller.
It's had a couple of good reviews.
Fisherman
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Google....."hiring fairs".....might find something of use to you.
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Thank you. Good suggestions, to be followed up
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One of my Berkshire ag lab ancestors moved from West Berkshire to East Berkshire in about 1745. His ancestors came from Wiltshire. Shows how you may have to consider such movements when trying to trace ag lab ancestors or any ones as people were very mobile.
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...and mine went from Wiltshire to Somerset. Interesting.
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"from West Berkshire to East Berkshire"
That's what? 50 miles?
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"from West Berkshire to East Berkshire"
That's what? 50 miles?
Still a fair distance, you cannot compare the duration of travelling in 1750 to today. People were more mobile than you think as I said, but it was still a journey, on land on dusty roads by horse and cart.
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There are two types of farming :
(a) pastoral (rearing animals for food such as cattle, sheep and pigs ,
(b) arable (growing crops, including cereals such as wheat, and barley, oilseed rape, peas and beans, sugar beet and potatoes. )
If an ancestor worked on a Duke's estate (for example) he might have travelled quite some distances to work on his employer's farms, especially moving when needed for spring lambing, or moving in autumn for harvesting before the rains came.
When I was young I lived in a farming village and remember one year when my then boyfriend had been working long hours through the night for his farmer employer gathering in the crops and then was sent forty miles northward, where he stayed for three weeks, to assist another farmer gather in his crops.
When my late OH was young in the 1950s he knew two old Irish farmhands in their 70s, who lived in Ireland with their families during the winter months and then travelled to England travelling across the land assisting with seasonal work.
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During lambing times and spring harvests, a single ag lab may have met a single woman while working 40 or 50 miles from where he usually worked, and took her back to where he usually lived.
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It would seem then, from some of the above, that a comparison of the actual date of the decennial census with the time of the farming year might be required to enable a sensible guess.
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By the 1840s trains were becoming more popular so some ag labs probably travelled on trains to help out at other farms a distance away. Not sure how expensive they were though back then.
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Hiring fairs -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiring_and_mop_fairs
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I was also told by a historian that indoor staff were recruited a good distance from the location where they would be working - so they couldn't just "up and leave". The attached is the 1871 census entry for Oulton Hall staff in Little Budworth, Cheshire. The only local person was the Usher who was born in Tarporley, just a few miles away.
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And the 1901 for the same property -
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During lambing times and spring harvests, a single ag lab may have met a single woman while working 40 or 50 miles from where he usually worked, and took her back to where he usually lived.
I have found when that happens, the bride will return to her mother's home for the birth of her first baby. The babies that follow are usually born in the area where the father works.
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I was also told by a historian that indoor staff were recruited a good distance from the location where they would be working - so they couldn't just "up and leave". The attached is the 1871 census entry for Oulton Hall staff in Little Budworth, Cheshire. The only local person was the Usher who was born in Tarporley, just a few miles away.
Yes that was true, my great gran from Oxford worked in service in Bexhill, Sussex in the 1911 census. Several train rides from Oxford away. Although she lived in a Hackney convent for a while beforehand as she train for domestic service.
My ag lab ancestor was had up in 1886 for not providing enough for his wife and children and he said he had to "go away to find work".
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I can understand the long moves of people 'in service', like my grandmother from Perthshire being employed in Kensington, and my grandfather, from Norfolk, a groom with horses, being in Cornwall in one census; it's the ag labs that puzzle me, that is, ones who continue as ag labs but miles away - though there are clues to follow up in what is written above.
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I think it was hiring fairs, and some ag labs just went where there was more work available or better wages. Or word of mouth, a friend or relative knew of labouring work in another county.
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By the 1840s trains were becoming more popular so some ag labs probably travelled on trains to help out at other farms a distance away. Not sure how expensive they were though back then.
Many ag-labs were hired every autumn and didn't move far, but those that had to travel most likely went on the tramp. The railway network was still fairly sparse in 1841, and I would guess that any ag-lab with a family would prefer to avoid buying several tickets when looking for employment.
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There are two types of farming :
(a) pastoral (rearing animals for food such as cattle, sheep and pigs ,
(b) arable (growing crops, including cereals such as wheat, and barley, oilseed rape, peas and beans, sugar beet and potatoes. )
If an ancestor worked on a Duke's estate (for example) he might have travelled quite some distances to work on his employer's farms, especially moving when needed for spring lambing, or moving in autumn for harvesting before the rains came.
When I was young I lived in a farming village and remember one year when my then boyfriend had been working long hours through the night for his farmer employer gathering in the crops and then was sent forty miles northward, where he stayed for three weeks, to assist another farmer gather in his crops.
When my late OH was young in the 1950s he knew two old Irish farmhands in their 70s, who lived in Ireland with their families during the winter months and then travelled to England travelling across the land assisting with seasonal work.
If you've read Alison Uttley's semi-autobiographical novel "The Country Child" about a Derbyshire farmer's young daughter, it records the different workmen/labourers visiting the farm throughout the year - hedgers and ditchers in the Spring, the "Moldy Warp" man (mole catcher) and the Irishmen who came across to England to bring in the harvest every year. Ag Labs with a special skill moved around all the time. Even those not so skilled were moved around as required by their employers.
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https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hasbach/AgrLab.pdf
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Tracing Your Rural Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians by Jonathan Brown (comes up on many sites)
https://www.countryfile.com/how-to/family-tree/ (came up on Google and looks as if it could help)
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My maternal grandmother's line worked in the pottery industry and resided in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It became noticeable from later West Riding Yorkshire census that many men had been born in Derbyshire.
The reason for the movement was that coal had been found in the area where my ancestors lived and the wages in Yorkshire were far higher than the wages that the Derbyshire miners received - hence the move over the county boundaries..
As regards a Hereford family being found in London - Hereford cattle are quite famous and would have brought a good price in the London cattle market. This was held in the Smithfield Market but later removed to Islington