This evening’s talk was rescheduled from February due to the Committee having to cancel the meeting because of a severe weather warning. Despite it also being the night of our branch AGM, members and friends filled the Red Cross Hall to bursting point to listen to Peter Ewart's talk, as he is our most popular speaker.
Peter recalled the first time he found an Ag Lab and wondering what he did for a living. After finding several in a row he began to realise that apart from families in central London or from the upper classes there are going to be very few families that would not have a rural worker in their tree. The vast majority of these men would have been poor and are often written off as uninteresting. However, Peter said that his research has proved quite the opposite as there is often more written about them and more records for them than for any other occupation.
Living and working conditions: Peter advised us to put away the mouse and read and provided a Bibliography (see below) for that purpose and said it was most important to do the reading. Many titles from the 18th & 19th and even the 17th c are available in Libraries, Family History shops, etc. Narrow the book to an area you are researching and the aspect, say arable, fruit, hopping etc and you can find out the tough times and the working conditions for many trades covered by the term Ag Lab. such as ploughboy, wagoner etc.
Parish Collection: once kept in the Parish Chest are the documents and registers kept by the parish officers. We are all familiar with CMD records but also they contain documents for Settlement/Removal/Bastardy. Many changes to the laws but before 1795 the church issued certificates establishing which parish was legally responsible for a person in hard times. People were ‘examined’ by parish officers and two JPs, at Petty Sessions often held at the local inn; where amongst other cases they decided and issued Settlement certificates Removal and Bastardy Orders. As an example Peter related a humorous account of his wife’s ancestor who conceived ‘out of wedlock’ in a ditch. Sometimes a parish boundary would dissect a house and it then mattered in which room you were born to resolve in which parish you belonged. In many parishes families lived in slums which were damp and cold in winter and summer and worked long hours. Some places even stipulated where men worshipped and if they could get married. In many respect the parish ‘governed’ people’s lives hindered some and controlled others.
Registers of the Overseer of the Poor and Church Wardens (voluntary parish officials elected annually) are worth investigating. Assessment Records: rates paid by the more affluent in the parish. Disbursement Records: who received the rates, for what and in what manner. Ag Labs being the poorest in the community were most likely to need parish relief. Disbursements showed who benefited from the rates collected. It might be for clothing, shoes, tools, basic shopping and even assistance for burials etc. The Surveyor Accounts were records of the parish officer in charge of the up keep of roads. He would record the ‘couple of days’ work each Labourer gave to the parish annually for road mending and payment for the same. Peter than gave instances from local parishes of work undertaken such as stone breaking in 1770 at Kingston and at Patrixbourne in 1772 payment for 3 days’ work = 4s 6d. This was a useful addition to the normal pay of 2s 6d for a married man, and 2s 3d for an unmarried man.
Newspapers: from about 1830, ploughing matches were frequently reported. Also Agricultural Associations held mini county shows with the names of entrants, winners and prizes for various events. These were often long reports with loads of personal information which would not be found elsewhere.
TNA: in both World Wars there were surveys of farms and premises with descriptions of buildings.
Wills: Farmers and farm owners carry a great deal of detail what was owned and who it passed to.
Peter finished his helpful and humorous talk by answering some member’s questions.
Peter Ewarts’s Biblography
A short list of published works, likely to be useful background reading for those interested in rural and agricultural history in Kent particularly and in England generally.
Hasted's History & Topographical Survey of Kent (publ. 1790s etc.- a contemporary multi-volumed work covering each parish in the county of Kent's most well-known historian). Later editions of the collection are available in most larger libraries in Kent and in major Kentish record offices. Nature of the agriculture in most parishes is described briefly.
F. W. Jessup: A History of Kent (Phillimore 1974, 1978 etc).
C. W. Chalklin: 17th Century Kent - A Social & Economic History (Longmans, 1965, J Hallewell publns 1978)
E. Melling (ed.) The Poor Vol IV in Kent Sources series (KCC 1964)
E. Melling (ed.) Aspects of Agriculture & Industry. Vol III in Kent Sources series (KCC, 1961)
M. Lawrence: The Encircling Hop- A History of Hops & Brewing (SAWD publns, 1990)
R. Filmer: Hops & Hop Picking (Shire publns, 1982)
There are many others on the Kentish hop industry & hopping in Kent generally, especially covering the 19th and early 20th century.
B. Keith-Lucas: Parish Affairs- the Government of Kent under George III (Kent Co Libraries, 1986)
A. Darby - Journey through the Weald. (Robert Hale 1986)
M. Winstanley: Life in Kent at the Turn of the Century (Dawson & son, Folkestone 1978)
R. K. I. Quested: The Isle of Thanet Farming Community- an Agrarian History of easternmost Kent: outlines from early times to 1993. (Wye College Press, 1996) This work has since been updated and republished.
Hobsbawn & Rude: Captain Swing (Lawrence & Wishart 1969). Reprinted more recently in paperback, and is probably still in print. (Origins of the "Swing" Riots were in Kent).
The Kent Archives Service also sells its own info pack on the Swing disturbances, available from CKS, CCA, EKAC etc and perhaps larger libraries.
B. Reay: The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers - Rural Life & Protest in 19th Century England (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990). Despite its title, this book is primarily about the "Sir William Courtney affair" of 1838 and is the best & most scholarly offering on the so-called "Battle of Bossenden Wood", including research on some of the families involved in the rural areas between Canterbury & Faversham and the conditions in which they lived.
Howitt: Rural Life in England (London 1838, Irish Univ press 1971).
A. Armstrong: Farmworker - A Social & Economic History, 1770-1980 (Batsford 1988)
J & B Hammond: The Village Labourer (Longmans 1911). Continually reprinted, probably still in print in paperback Contains large section on the "Swing" disturbances of 1830. Authors were early socialists.
G & K Fussell: The English Countryman-His Life & Work from Tudor Times to the Victorian Age. (1955, Orbis 1981).
J. Clarke: The Price of Progress- Cobbett's England 1780-1835 (Granada 1977)
Chambers & Mingay: The Agricultural Revolution 1750-1880 (Batsford 1966, etc etc).
W. Cobbett: Rural Rides (1830 Penguin paperbacks etc., always in print). Includes Kentish part of his travels.
W. Cobbett: The English Gardener (1829. OUP 1980). Probably still in print.
F. Huggett: A Day in the Life of a Victorian Farmworker (Allen & Unwin 1972, several reprints). Unwin's Victorian Day series. Basic reconstruction of a farmworker's day, originally intended for schools and local history students but a very good introduction & a popular publication.
R. Jeffries: Landscape & Labour (Moonraker 1979)
R. Jeffries: The Toilers of the Field ( Longmans 1892, Future 1981). Jeffries' work tends to remain in print. Most books by him appear to be compilations of individual essays he published in late Victorian times about contemporary rural life as he saw it. Compelling descriptions from first hand knowledge. Mostly involving Sussex and further west.
Report by Tricia Baxter