ag labs

[coombs]

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.

[Andrew Tarr]

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.

[Gillg]

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.

[youngtug]

https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hasbach/AgrLab.pdf

[Gadget]

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)

[Rena]

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