CHAPTER III

AGRICULTURE

Agriculture England’s leading Industry—Has provided the most vigorous

stock of English race—Division into three classes:—

(A) _Farmers._ Portraits of Farmers’ Wives—Fitzherbert’s

“Prologue for the Wyves Occupacyon.” Size of household—The Wife

who “doth not take the pains and charge upon her.” Financial

aptitude—Market—Occupation of gentlewomen with Dairy and

Poultry—Expectation of the wife’s ability to work and do service.

(B) _Husbandmen._ Economy of their Small Holding—The more they worked

for wages the greater their poverty—Strenuous but healthy life of the

women—Extent to which they worked for wages—Character of work—Best’s

account of Yorkshire Farms—other descriptions. Spinning—The wife’s

industry no less constant when not working for wages, but more

profitable to her family, whom she clothed and fed by domestic

industry.

(C) _Wage-earners._ Maximum rates of wages fixed at Assizes represent

generally those actually paid. Common labourers’ wage, winter and

summer—Women’s wages seasonal—Not expected when married to work week

in, week out. Cost of living—Cost of labourers’ diet—Pensions and

Allowances—Poor Relief—Cost of clothes and rent—Joint wages of father

and mother insufficient to rear three children—Recognised insolvency

of Labourers’ Family—Disputes concerning labourers’ settlements.

Farmers’ need for more labourers—Demoralisation—Demand for sureties

by the Parish. Infant mortality—Life history of labourers’

wives—Explanation for magistrates’ action in fixing maximum wages

below subsistence level—Proportion of wage-earning families.

ALTHOUGH the woollen trade loomed very large upon the political horizon

because it was a chief source of revenue to the Crown and because

rapidly acquired wealth gave an influence to clothiers and wool

merchants out of proportion to their numbers, agriculture was still

England’s chief industry in the seventeenth century.

The town population has had a tendency to wear out and must be recruited

from rural districts. The village communities which still persisted at

this period in England, provided a vigorous stock, from which the men

whose initiative, energy and courage have made England famous during the

last two centuries were largely descended. Not only were the farming

families prolific in numbers but they maintained a high standard of

mental and moral virtue. It must be supposed therefore that the

conditions in which they lived were upon the whole favourable to the

development of their women-folk, but investigation will show that this

was not the case for all members alike of the agricultural community,

who may be roughly divided into three classes:

(a) Farmers. (b) Husbandmen. (c) Wage-earners.

(a) _Farmers_ held sufficient land for the complete maintenance of the

family. Their household often included hired servants and their methods

on the larger farms were becoming capitalistic.

(b) _Husbandmen_ were possessed of holdings insufficient for the

complete maintenance of the family and their income was therefore

supplemented by working for wages.

(c) _Wage-earners_ had no land, not even a garden, and depended

therefore completely on wages for the maintenance of their families.

In addition to the above, for whom agriculture was their chief business,

the families of the gentry, professional men and tradesmen who lived in

the country and smaller towns, generally grew sufficient dairy and

garden produce for domestic consumption.

The above classification is arbitrary, for no hard-and-fast division

existed. Farmers merged imperceptibly into husbandmen, and husbandmen

into wage-earners and yet there was a wide gulf separating their

positions. As will be shown, it was the women of the first two classes

who bore and reared the children who were destined to be the makers of

England, while few children of the wage-earning class reached maturity.

A. _Farmers._

However important the women who were the mothers of the race may appear

to modern eyes, their history was unnoticed by their contemporaries and

no analysis was made of their development. The existence of vigorous,

able matrons was accepted as a matter of course. They embodied the

seventeenth century idea of the “eternal feminine” and no one suspected

that they might change with a changing environment. They themselves were

too busy, too much absorbed in the lives of others, to keep journals and

they were not sufficiently important to have their memoirs written by

other people.

Perhaps their most authentic portraits may be found in the writings of

the Quakers, who were largely drawn from this class of the community.

They depict women with an exalted devotion, supporting their families

and strengthening their husbands through the storms of persecution and

amidst the exacting claims of religion.

John Banks wrote from Carlisle Prison in 1648 to his wife, “No greater

Joy and Comfort I have in this world ... than to know that thou and all

thine are well both in Body and Mind ... though I could be glad to see

thee here, but do not straiten thyself in any wise, for I am truly

content to bear it, if it were much more, considering thy Concerns in

this Season of the Year, being Harvest time and the Journey so

long.”[71] After her death he writes, “We Lived Comfortably together

many Years, and she was a Careful Industrious Woman in bringing up of

her Children in good order, as did become the Truth, in Speech,

Behaviour and Habit; a Meet-Help and a good Support to me, upon the

account of my Travels, always ready and willing to fit me with

Necessaries, ... and was never known to murmur, tho’ I was often

Concerned, to leave her with a weak Family,... She was well beloved

amongst good Friends and of her Neighbours, as witness the several

hundreds that were at her Burial ... our Separation by Death, was the

greatest Trial that ever I met with, above anything here below. Now if

any shall ask, Why I have writ so many Letters at large to be Printed

... how can any think that I should do less than I have done, to use all

Endeavours what in me lay, to Strengthen and Encourage my Dear Wife,

whom I so often, and for so many Years was made to leave as aforesaid,

having pretty much concerns to look after.”[72]

Footnote 71:

Banks (John), _Journal_, p. 101, 1684.

Footnote 72:

Banks, (John), _Journal_, pp. 129-30.

Of another Quaker, Mary Batt, her father writes in her testimony that

she was “Married to _Phillip Tyler_ of _Waldon_ in the County of

_Somerset_ before she attained the age of twenty years.... The Lord

blessed her with Four Children, whereof two dyed in their Infancy, and

two yet remain alive: at the Burial of her Husband, for being present,

she had two Cows valued at Nine Pounds taken from her, which, with many

other Tryals during her Widowhood, she bore with much Patience,... After

she had remained a Widow about four Years, the Lord drew the affection

of _James Taylor_ ... to seek her to be his Wife, and there being an

answer in her, the Lord joyned them together. To her Husband her Love

and Subjection was suitable to that Relation, being greatly delighted in

his Company, and a Meet-Help, a faithful Yoak-fellow, ... and in his

Absence, not only carefully discharging the duty as her Place as a Wife,

but diligent to supply his Place in those affairs that more immediately

concerned him.”[73] And her husband adds in his testimony, “My outward

Affairs falling all under her charge (I, being absent, a Prisoner for my

Testimony against Tythes) she did manage the same in such care and

patience until the time she was grown big with Child, and as she thought

near the time of her Travail (a condition much to be born with and

pittyed) she then desired so much Liberty as to have my Company home two

Weeks, and went herself to request it, which small matter she could not

obtain, but was denyed; and as I understood by her, it might be one of

the greatest occasions of her grief which ever happened unto her, yet in

much Meekness and true Patience she stooped down, and quietly took up

this her last Cross also, and is gone with it and all the rest, out of

the reach of all her Enemies, ... Three Nights and Two Days before her

Death, I was admitted to come to her, though I may say (with grief) too

late, yet it was to her great joy to see me once more whom she so dearly

loved; and would not willingly suffer me any more to depart out of her

sight until she had finished her days, ... Her Sufferings (in the

condition she was in) although I was a Prisoner, were far greater then

mine, for the whole time that she became my Wife, which was some Weeks

above Three Years, notwithstanding there was never yet man, woman, nor

child, could justly say, she had given them any offence ... yet must ...

unreasonable men cleanse our Fields of Cattle, rummage our House of

Goods, and make such havock as that my Dear Wife had not wherewithal to

dress or set Food before me and her Children.”[74]

Footnote 73:

Batt (Mary), _Testimony of the Life and Death of_, pp. 1-3, 1683.

Footnote 74:

Batt (Mary), _Testimony to Life and Death of_, pp. 5-7, 1683.

The duties of a Farmer’s wife were described a hundred years earlier by

Fitzherbert in the “Boke of Husbandrie.” He begins the “Prologue for the

wyves occupacyon,” thus, “Now thou husbande that hast done thy diligence

and laboure that longeth to a husband to get thy liuing, thy wyues, thy

children, and thy seruauntes, yet is there other thynges to be doen that

nedes must be done, or els thou shalt not thryue. For there is an olde

common saying, that seldom doth ye husbande thriue without leue of his

wyf. By thys saying it shuld seem that ther be other occupaciõs and

labours that be most cõvenient for the wyfes to do, and how be it that I

haue not the experience of all their occupacyions and workes as I haue

of husbandry, yet a lytel wil I speake what they ought to do though I

tel thẽ not how they should do and excersyse their labour and

occupacions.

“_A lesson for the wyfe_ ... alway be doyng of some good workes that the

deuil may fynde the alway occupied, for as in a standyng water are

engendred wormes, right so in an idel body are engendered ydel

thoughtes. Here maie thou see yᵗ of idelnes commeth damnatiõ, & of good

workes and labour commeth saluacion. Now thou art at thy libertie to

chose whither waye thou wilte, wherein is great diversite. And he is an

unhappye man or woman that god hath given both wit & reason and putteth

him in choise & he to chose the worst part. Nowe thou wife I trust to

shewe unto the diuers occupacions, workes and labours that thou shalt

not nede to be ydel no tyme of yᵉ yere. What thinges the wife is bounde

of right to do. Firste and principally the wyfe is bound of right to

loue her husband aboue father and mother and al other men....

“What workes a wyfe should do in generall. First in the mornyng when

thou art wakéd and purpose to rise, lift up thy hãd & blis the & make a

signe of the holy crosse ... and remembre thy maker and thou shalte

spede muche the better, & when thou art up and readye, then firste swepe

thy house; dresse up thy dyscheborde, & set al thynges in good order

within thy house, milke yᵉ kie, socle thy calues, sile up thy milke,

take up thy children & aray thẽ, & provide for thy husbandes

breakefaste, diner, souper, & for thy children & seruauntes, & take thy

parte wyth them. And to ordeyne corne & malt to the myll, to bake and

brue withall whẽ nede is. And mete it to the myll and fro the myll, & se

that thou haue thy mesure agayne besides the tole or elles the mylner

dealeth not truly wyth the, or els thy corne is not drye as it should

be, thou must make butter and chese when thou may, serue thy swine both

mornyng and eueninge, and giue thy polen meate in the mornynge, and when

tyme of yeare cometh thou must take hede how thy henne, duckes, and

geese do ley, and to gather up their egges and when they waxe broudy to

set them there as no beastes, swyne, nor other vermyne hurte them, and

thou must know that all hole foted foule wil syt a moneth and al clouen

foted foule wyl syt but three wekes except a peyhen and suche other

great foules as craynes, bustardes, and suche other. And when they haue

brought forth theyr birdes to se that they be well kepte from the gleyd,

crowes, fully martes and other vermyn, and in the begynyng of March, of

a lytle before is time for a wife to make her garden and to get as manye

good sedes and herbes as she can, and specyally such as be good for the

pot and for to eate & as ofte as nede shall require it muste be weded,

for els the wede wyll ouer grow the herbes, and also in Marche is time

to sowe flaxe and hempe, for I haue heard olde huswyues say, that better

is Marche hurdes then Apryll flaxe, the reason appereth, but howe it

shoulde be sowen, weded, pulled, repealed, watred, washen, dried, beten,

braked, tawed, hecheled, spon, wounden, wrapped, & ouen. It nedeth not

for me to shewe for they be wyse ynough, and thereof may they make

shetes, bord clothes, towels, shertes, smockes, and suche other

necessaryes, and therfore lette thy dystaffe be alwaye redy for a

pastyme, that thou be not ydell. And undoubted a woman cannot get her

livinge honestly with spinning on the dystaffe, but it stoppeth a gap

and must nedes be had. The bolles of flaxe whan they be rypled of, muste

be rediled from the wedes and made dry with the sunne to get out the

seedes. How be it one maner of linsede called lokensede wyll not open by

the sunne, and therefore when they be drye they must be sore bruien and

broken the wyves know how, & then wynowed and kept dry til peretime cum

againe. Thy femell hempe must be pulled fro the chucle hẽpe for this

beareth no sede & thou muste doe by it as thou didest by the flaxe. The

chucle hempe doth beare seed & thou must beware that birdes eate it not

as it groweth, the hempe thereof is not so good as the femel hẽpe, but

yet it wil do good seruice. It may fortune sometime yᵗ thou shalte haue

so many thinges to do that thou shalte not wel know where is best to

begyn. Thẽ take hede whiche thinge should be the greatest losse if it

were not done & in what space it would be done, and then thinke what is

the greatest loss & there begin.... It is cõvenient for a husbande to

haue shepe of his owne for many causes, and then may his wife have part

of the wooll to make her husbande and her selfe sum clothes. And at the

least waye she may haue yᵉ lockes of the shepe therwith to make clothes

or blankets, and couerlets, or both. And if she haue no wol of her owne

she maye take woll to spynne of cloth makers, and by that meanes she may

have a conuenient liuing, and many tymes to do other workes. It is a

wiues occupacion to winow al maner of cornes, to make malte wash and

wring, to make hey, to shere corne, and in time of nede to helpe her

husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or donge carte, dryve the plough, to

lode hey, corne & such other. Also to go or ride to the market to sell

butter, chese, mylke, egges, chekens, kapons, hennes, pygges, gees, and

al maner of corne. And also to bye al maner of necessary thinges

belonging to a houshold, and to make a true rekening & accompt to her

husband what she hath receyued and what she hathe payed. And yf the

husband go to the market to bye or sell as they ofte do, he then to shew

his wife in lyke maner. For if one of them should use to disceiue the

other, he disceyveth him selfe, and he is not lyke to thryve, & therfore

they must be true ether to other.”[75]

Footnote 75:

Fitzherbert (Sir Anth.), _Boke of Husbandrye_.

Fitzherbert’s description of the wife’s occupation probably remained

true in many districts during the seventeenth century. The dairy,

poultry, garden and orchard were then regarded as peculiarly the domain

of the mistress, but upon the larger farms she did not herself undertake

the household drudgery. Her duty was to organise and train her servants,

both men and women.

The wages assessments of the period give some idea of the size of

farmers’ households, fixing wages for the woman-servant taking charge of

maulting in great farms, every other maulster, the best mayde servant

that can brewe, bake and dresse meate, the second mayd servant, the

youngest mayd servant, a woman being skilful in ordering a house, dayry

mayd, laundry mayd, and also for the men servants living in the house,

the bailiff of husbandry, the chief hinde, and the common man-servant,

the shepherd, and the carter.

That some women already aspired to a life of leisure is shown in an

assessment for the East Riding of Yorkshire, which provides a special

rate of wages for the woman-servant “that taketh charge of brewing,

baking, kitching, milk house or malting, that is hired with a gentleman

or rich yeoman, whose wife doth not take the pains and charge upon

her.”[76]

Footnote 76:

Rogers (J. E. Thorold), _Hist. Agric. and Prices_, Vol. VI., pp.

686-9, assess. for Yorks, East Riding, Ap. 26, 1593.

In addition to the management of the dairy, etc., the farmer’s wife

often undertook the financial side of the business. Thus Josselin notes

in his Diary: “This day was good wife Day with mee; I perceive she is

resolved to give mee my price for my farme of Mallories, and I intend to

lett it goe.” A few days later he enters “This day I surrendered

Mallories and the appurtenances to Day of Halsted and his daughter.”[77]

Footnote 77:

Josselin (R), _Diary_, p. 86, April 9th, and 30th, 1650.

The farmer’s wife attended market with great regularity, where she

became thoroughly expert in the art of buying and selling. The journey

to market often involved a long ride on horseback, not always free from

adventure as is shown by information given to the Justices by Maud, wife

of Thomas Collar of Woolavington, who stated that as she was returning

home by herself from Bridgwater market on or about 7th July, Adrian

Towes of Marke, overtook her and calling her ugly toad demanded her

name; he then knocked her down and demanded her purse, to which, hiding

her purse, she replied that she had bestowed all her money in the

market. He then said, ‘I think you are a Quaker,’ & she denied it, he

compelled her to kneel down on her bare knees and swear by the Lord’s

blood that she was not, which to save her life she did. Another woman

then came up and rebuked the said Towes, whereupon he struck her down

‘atwhart’ her saddle into one of her panniers.[78]

Footnote 78:

_Somerset Quarter Sessions Records_, Vol. III, pp. 370-1, 1659.

Market was doubtless the occasion of much gossip, but it may also have

been the opportunity for a wide interchange of views and opinions on

subjects important to the well-being of the community. While market was

frequented by all the women of the neighbourhood it must certainly have

favoured the formation of a feminine public opinion on current events,

which prevented individual women from relying exclusively upon their

husbands for information and advice.

The names of married women constantly appear in money transactions,

their receipt being valid for debts due to their husbands. Thus Sarah

Fell enters in her Household Book, “Pd. Bridget Pindʳ in full of her

Husband’s bills as appeares £3. 17s. 6d.”[79] by mᵒ pᵈ Anthony Towers

wife in pᵗ foʳ manneʳ wee are to have of heʳ 1.00[80] to mᵒ Recᵈ. of

Myles Gouth wife foʳ ploughing for her 1.04”[81]

Footnote 79:

_Fell (Sarah) Household Accounts_, p. 317, 1676.

Footnote 80:

_Fell (Sarah)_, _Household Accounts_, p. 339, 1676.

Footnote 81:

_Ibid._, p. 386, 1677.

Arithmetic was not considered a necessary item in the education of

girls, though as the following incident shows, women habitually acted in

financial matters.

Samuel Bownas had been sent to gaol for tithe, but the Parson could not

rest and let him out, when he went to Bristol on business and spent two

weeks visiting meetings in Wiltshire. After his return, while away from

home a distant relation called and asked his wife to lend him ten pounds

as he was going to a fair. She not thinking of tithe which was much

more, lent it and he gave her a note, which action was approved by her

husband on his return; but the relation returned again in Samuel

Bownas’s absence to repay, and tore the note as soon as he received it,

giving her a quittance for the tithe instead. She was indignant, saying

it would destroy her husband’s confidence in her. The relation assured

her that he would declare her innocence, but he could not have persuaded

her husband, for “he would have started so many questions that I could

not possibly have affected it any other way than by ploughing with his

heifer.”[82]

Footnote 82:

_Bownas (Samuel)_, _Life_, pp. 116-17.

Women’s names frequently occur in presentments at Quarter Sessions for

infringements of bye-laws. The Salford Portmote “p’sent Isabell the wyef

of Edmunde Howorthe for that she kept her swyne unlawfull, and did

trespas to the corn of the said Raphe Byrom.”[83]

Footnote 83:

_Salford Portmote Records_, Vol. I, p. 3, 1597.

Katharine Davie was presented “for not paving before her doore.” Mrs.

Elizabeth Parkhurst for “layinge a dunghill anenst her barne and not

makinge the street cleane.” Isabell Dawson and Edmund Cowper for the

like and Mrs. Byrom and some men “for letting swyne go unringed and

trespassinge into his neighbors corne & rescowinge them when they have

beene sent to the fould.”[84] “Charles Gregorie’s wife complained that

shee is distrained for 3s. for an amerciament for hoggs goeing in the

Streete whereupon, upon her tendring of 3s. xijd is restored with her

flaggon.”[85] The owner of the pig appears very often to be a married

woman. At Carlisle in 1619: “We amarye the wief of John Barwicke for

keping of swine troughes in the hye streyt contrary the paine and

therefore in amercyment according to the orders of this cyttie,

xiiid.”[86]

Footnote 84:

_Salford Portmote Records_, Vol. II., pp. 6-7, 1633.

Footnote 85:

Guilding, _Reading Records_, Vol. IV., p. 512, 1653.

Footnote 86:

Ferguson, _Municipal Records of Carlisle_, p. 278.

Such women may often not have been farmers in the full sense of the

word, but merely kept a few pigs to supplement the family income. Even

the gentry were not too proud to sell farm and garden produce not needed

for family consumption, and are alluded to as “... our Country Squires,

who sell Calves and Runts, and their Wives perhaps Cheese and

Apples.”[87]

Footnote 87:

Howell, _Familiar Letters_, p. 290, 1644.

Many gentlewomen were proficient in dairy management. Richard

Braithwaite writes of his wife:

“Oft have I seen her from her Dayrey come

Attended by her maids, and hasting home

To entertain some Guests of Quality

Shee would assume a state so modestly

Sance affectation, as she struck the eye

With admiration of the stander-by.”

The whole management of the milch cows belonged to the wife, not only

among farming people but also among the gentry. The proceeds were

regarded as her pin-money, and her husband generally handed over to her

all receipts on this account, Sir John Foulis for example entering in

his account book: “June 30 1693. To my wife yᵉ pryce of yᵉ gaird kowes

Hyde, £4 0 0.”[88]

Footnote 88:

Foulis (Sir John, of Ravelston), _Acct. Bk._, p. 158.

Sometimes when the husband devoted himself to good fellowship, the farm

depended almost entirely on his wife; this was the case with Adam Eyre,

a retired Captain, who enters in his Dyurnall, _Feb. 10, 1647_, “This

morning Godfrey Bright bought my horse of my wife, and gave her £5, and

promised to give her 20s. more, which I had all but 20s. and shee is to

take in the corne sale £4.” _May 18, 1647_, “I came home with Raph

Wordsworth of the Water hall who came to buy a bull on my wife, who was

gone into Holmefrith.”[89]

Footnote 89:

Eyre, (Capt. Adam), _A Dyurnall_, p. 16, p. 36.

The business capacity of married women was even more valuable in

families where the father wished to devote his talents to science,

politics, or religion, unencumbered by anxiety for his children’s

maintenance. It is said in Peter Heylin’s Life that “Being deprived of

Ecclesiastical preferments, he must think of some honest way for a

livelihood. Yet notwithstanding he followed his studies, in which was

his chief delight.... In which pleasing study while he spent his time,

his good wife, a discreet and active lady, looked both after her

Housewifery within doors, and the Husbandry without; thereby freeing him

from that care and trouble, which otherwise would have hindered his

laborious Pen from going through so great a work in that short time. And

yet he had several divertisements by company, which continually resorted

to his house; for having (God be thanked) his temporal Estate cleared

from Sequestration, by his Composition with the Commissioners at

_Goldsmith’s Hall_, and this Estate which he Farmed besides, he was able

to keep a good House, and relieve his poor brethren.”[90]

Footnote 90:

_Heylin, (Peter)_, pp. 18-19.

Gregory King’s father was a student of mathematics, “and practised

surveying of land, and dyalling, as a profession; but with more

attention to _good-fellowship_, than mathematical studies generally

allow: and, the care of the family devolved of course on the mother,

who, if she had been less obscure, had emulated the most eminent of the

Roman matrons.”[91]

Footnote 91:

King (Gregory), _Natural and Political Observations, etc._

Adam Martindale’s wife was equally successful. He writes “about

Michaelmas, 1662, removed my family from the Vicarage to a little house

at Camp-greene, ... where we dwelt above three years and half.... I was

three score pounds in debt, ... but (God be praised) while I staid there

I paid off all that debt and bestowed £40 upon mareling part of my

ground in Tatton.... If any aske how this could be without a Miracle, he

may thus be satisfied. I had sent me ... £41 ... and the £10 my wife

wrangled out of my successor, together with a table, formes and ceiling,

sold him for about £4 more.”[92] Later on he adds “My family finding

themselves straitened for roome, and my wife being willing to keep a

little stock of kine, as she had done formerly, and some inconvenience

falling out (as is usual) by two families under a roofe, removed to a

new house not completely furnished.”[93]

Footnote 92:

_Martindale, (Adam),_ _Life_, p. 172.

Footnote 93:

_Ibid._, p. 190.

That in the agricultural community women were generally supposed to be,

from a business point of view, a help and not a hindrance to their

husbands—that in fact the wife was not “kept” by him but helped him to

support the family is shown by terms proposed for colonists in Virginia

by the Merchant Taylors who offer “one hundred acres for every man’s

person that hath a trade, or a body able to endure day labour as much

for his wief, as much for his child, that are of yeres to doe service to

the Colony.”[94]

Footnote 94:

Clode, (C.M.) _Merchant Taylors_, Vol. I., p. 323.

B. _Husbandmen._

Husbandmen were probably the most numerous class in the village

community. Possessed of a small holding at a fixed customary rent and

with rights of grazing on the common, they could maintain a position of

independence.

Statute 31 Eliz., forbidding the erection of cottages without four acres

of land attached, was framed with the intention of protecting the

husbandman against the encroachments of capitalists, for a family which

could grow its own supply of food on four acres of land would be largely

independent of the farmer, as the father could earn the money for the

rent, etc., by working only at harvest when wages were highest. As

however this seasonal labour was not sufficient for the farmers’

demands, such independence was not wholly to their mind, and they

complained of the idleness of husbandmen who would not work for the

wages offered. Thus it was said that “In all or most towns, where the

fields lie open there is a new brood of upstart intruders or inmates ...

loiterers who will not work unless they may have such excessive wages as

they themselves desire.”[95] “There is with us now rather a scarcity

than a superfluity of servants, their wages being advanced to such an

extraordinary height, that they are likely ere long to be masters and

their masters servants, many poor husbandmen being forced to pay near as

much to their servants for wages as to their landlords for rent.”[96]

Footnote 95:

Pseudonismus, _Considerations concerning Common Fields and

Enclosures_, 1654.

Footnote 96:

Pseudonismus, _A Vindication of the Considerations concerning Common

Fields and Enclosures_, 1656.

The holdings of the husbandmen varied from seven acres or more to half

an acre or even less of garden ground, in which as potatoes[97] were not

yet grown in England the crop consisted of wheat, barley, rye, oats, or

peas. Very likely there was a patch of hemp or flax and an apple-tree or

two, a cherry tree and some elder-berries in the hedge, with a hive or

two of bees in a warm corner. Common rights made it possible to keep

sheep and pigs and poultry, and the possession of a cow definitely

lifted the family above the poverty line.

Footnote 97:

Potatoes were already in use in Ireland, but are scarcely referred to

during this period by English writers.

Dorothy Osborne describing her own day to her lover, gives an idyllic

picture of the maidens tending cows on the common: “The heat of the day

is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o’clock I walk

out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young

wenches keep sheep and cows, and sit in the shade singing of ballads. I

go to them and compare their voices and beauties to some ancient

shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a vast difference there; but

trust me, I think these are as innocent as those could be. I talk to

them and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the

world but the knowledge that they are so. Most commonly, when we are in

the midst of our discourse, one looks about her, and spies her cows

going into the corn, and then away they all run as if they had wings at

their heels. I, that am not so nimble, stay behind, and when I see them

driving home their cattle, I think ’tis time for me to retire too.”[98]

Footnote 98:

_Osborne (Dorothy), Letters_, pp. 103, 4. 1652-1654.

Husbandmen have been defined as a class who could not subsist entirely

upon their holdings, but must to some extent work for wages. Their need

for wages varied according to the size of their holding and according to

the rent. For copy-holders the rent was usually nominal,[99] but in

other cases the husbandman was often forced to pay what was virtually a

rack rent. Few other money payments were necessary and if the holding

was large enough to produce sufficient food, the family had little cause

to fear want.

Footnote 99:

30s. Susanna Suffolke a young maid holds a customary cottage, ... and

renteth per annum 2d.

£28 Eliz. Filoll (widdow) holdeth one customary tenement. Rent per

annum 26s. 8d.

£2 Mary Stanes holdeth one customary cottage (late of Robert Stanes)

and renteth per annum 7d.

£12 Margaret Dowe (widdow) holdeth one customary tenement (her eldest

son the next heir) rent 7s. 8d.

Among freeholders. Johan Mathew (widow) holdeth one free tenement and

one croft of land thereto belonging ... containing three acres and a

half and renteth 3d.

(Stones, Jolley. 1628. From a List of Copyholders in West & S.

Haningfield, Essex.)

Randall Taylor wrote complacently in 1689 that in comparison with the

French peasants, “Our _English_ husbandmen are both better fed and

taught, and the poorest people here have so much of brown Bread, and the

Gospel, that by the Calculations of our _Bills_ of _Mortality_ it

appears, that for so many years past but One of Four Thousand is

starved.”[100]

Footnote 100:

Taylor. (Randall), _Discourse of the Growth of England, etc._, p. 96,

1689.

The woman of the husbandman class was muscular and well nourished.

Probably she had passed her girlhood in service on a farm, where hard

work, largely in the open air, had sharpened her appetite for the

abundant diet which characterised the English farmer’s housekeeping.

After marriage, much of her work was still out of doors, cultivating her

garden and tending pigs or cows, while her husband did his day’s work on

neighbouring farms. Frugal and to the last degree laborious were her

days, but food was still sufficient and her strength enabled her to bear

healthy children and to suckle them. It was exactly this class of woman

that the gentry chose as wet nurses for their babies. Their lives would

seem incredibly hard to the modern suburban woman, but they had their

reward in the respect and love of their families and in the sense of

duties worthily fulfilled.

The more prosperous husbandmen often added to their households an

apprentice child, but in other cases the holdings were too small to

occupy even the family’s whole time.

At harvest in any case all the population of the village turned out to

work; men, women, and children, not only those belonging to the class of

husbandmen, but the tradesmen as well, did their bit in a work so

urgent; for in those days each district depended on its own supply of

corn, there being scarcely any means of transport.

Except during the harvest, wages were so low that a man who had a

holding of his own was little tempted to work for them, though he might

undertake some special and better-paid occupation, such as that of a

shepherd. Pepys, describing a visit to Epsom, writes: “We found a

shepherd and his little boy reading, far from any houses or sight of

people, the Bible to him, I find he had been a servant in my Cozen

Pepys’s house ... the most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I

saw in my life ... he values his dog mightily, ... about eighteen score

sheep in his flock, he hath four shillings a week the year round for

keeping of them.”[101]

Footnote 101:

Pepys, Vol. IV, p. 428. 14 July, 1667.

Probably this picturesque shepherd belonged to the class of husbandmen,

for the wages paid are higher than those of a household servant. Four

shillings a week comes to £10.8.0 by the year, whereas a Wiltshire wages

assessment for 1685 provided that a servant who was a chief shepherd

looking after 1,500 sheep or more was not to receive more than £5 by the

year.[102] On the other hand, four shillings a week would not maintain

completely the shepherd, his boy and a dog, not to speak of a wife and

other children. Thus, while the shepherd tended his sheep, we may

imagine his wife and children were cultivating their allotment.

Footnote 102:

_Hist. MSS. Miss. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I. p. 170.

The wages for the harvest work of women as well as men, were fixed by

the Quarter Sessions.[103] References to their work may be found in

account books and diaries. Thus Dame Nicholson notes: “_Aug. 13, 1690_,

I began to sher ye barin croft about 11 o’clock, ther was Gordi Bar and

his wife—also Miler’s son James and his sister Margit also a wife called

Nieton—they sher 17 threv and 7 chivis.”[104]

Footnote 103:

A comparison of the assessments which have been preserved, in the

different counties shows that men’s earnings varied in the hay harvest

from:—

4d. and meat and drink, or 8d. without, to

8d. and meat and drink, or 1s. 4d. without

and in the corn harvest from:—

5d. and meat and drink, or 10d. without, to

1s. and meat and drink, or 2s. without

Women’s wages varied in the hay harvest from:—

1d. and meat and drink, or 4d. without, to

6d. and meat and drink, or 1s. without

and in the corn harvest from:—

2d. and meat and drink, or 6d. without, to

6d. and meat and drink, or 1s. without

The variations in these wages correspond with the price of corn in

different parts of England and must not be regarded as necessarily

representing differences in the real value of wages.

Footnote 104:

Society of Antiquarians of Scotland, vol. xxxix, p. 125. _Dame

Margaret Nicholson’s Account Book._

Best gives a detailed account of the division of work between men and

women on a Yorkshire farm: “Wee have allwayes one man, or else one of

the ablest of the women, to abide on the mowe, besides those that goe

with the waines.[105] The best sort of men-shearers have usually 8d. a

day and are to meate themselves; the best sorte of women shearers have

(most commonly) 6d. a day.[106] It is usuall in some places (wheare the

furres of the landes are deepe worne with raines) to imploy women, with

wain-rakes, to gather the corne out of the said hollow furres after that

the sweath-rakes have done.[107] ... We use meanes allwayes to gett

eyther 18 or else 24 pease pullers, which wee sette allways sixe on a

lande, viz., a woman and a man, a woman and a man, a woman or boy and a

man, etc., the weakest couple in the fore furre ... it is usuall in most

places after they gette all pease pulled, or the last graine downe, to

invite all the worke-folkes and wives (that helped them that harvest) to

supper, and then have they puddinges, bacon, or boyled beefe, flesh or

apple pyes, and then creame brought in platters, and every one a spoone;

then after all they have hotte cakes and ale; some will cutte theire

cake and putte into the creame and this feaste is called the

creame-potte or creame-kitte ... wee send allwayes, the daye before wee

leade, [pease] two of our boys, or a boy and one of our mayds with each

of them a shorte mowe forke to turn them.”[108]

Footnote 105:

Best, _Rural Economy_, p. 36.

Footnote 106:

_Ibid._ p. 42.

Footnote 107:

Best, _Rural Economy_, p. 59.

Footnote 108:

_Ibid._ pp. 93-4.

For thatching, Best continues: “Wee usually provide two women for helpes

in this kinde, _viz._, one to drawe thacke, and the other to serve the

thatcher; she that draweth thacke hath 3d. a day, and shee that serveth

the thatcher 4d. a day, because shee also is to temper the morter, and

to carry it up to the toppe of the howse.... Shee that draweth thatch

shoulde always have dry wheate strawe ... whearewith to make her bandes

for her bottles. She that serveth will usually carry up 4 bottles at a

time, and sometimes but 3 if the thatch bee longe and very wette.”[109]

Footnote 109:

_Ibid._, pp. 138-9. “The thatchers,” Best says, “have in most places

6d. a day & theire meate in Summer time, ... yett we neaver use to

give them above 4d ... because their dyett is not as in other places;

for they are to have three meale a day, viz. theire breakfaste att

eight of the clocke, ... theire dinner about twelve and theire supper

about seaven or after when they leave worke; and att each meale fower

services, viz. butter, milke, cheese, and either egges, pyes, or

bacon, and sometimes porridge insteade of milke: if they meate

themselves they have usually 10d. a day.”

“Spreaders of mucke and molehills are (for the most parte) women, boyes

and girles, the bigger and abler sorte of which have usually 3d. a day,

and the lesser sorte of them 2d. a day.”[110] “Men that pull pease have

8d. women 6d. a day.”[111]

Footnote 110:

Best, _Rural Economy_, p. 140.

Footnote 111:

_Ibid._ p. 142.

A picture of hay-harvesting in the West of England given by Celia

Fiennes suggests that in other parts of England to which she was

accustomed, the labour, especially that of women, was not quite so

heavy. All over Devon and Cornwall she says, hay is carried on the

horses’ backs and the people “are forced to support it wᵗʰ their hands,

so to a horse they have two people, and the women leads and supports

them, as well as yᵉ men and goe through thick and thinn.... I wondred at

their Labour in this kind, for the men and the women themselves toiled

Like their horses.”[112]

Footnote 112:

Fiennes (Celia), _Through England on a Side-saddle_, p. 225.

There was hardly any kind of agricultural work from which women were

excluded. Everenden “payed 1s. 2d. to the wife of Geo. Baker for

shearing 28 sheep.”[113] In Norfolk the wages for a “woman clipper of

sheepe” were assessed at 6d. per day with meat and drink, 1s. without,

while a man clipper was paid 7d. and 14d. It is noteworthy that only 4d.

per day was allowed in the same assessment for the diet of “women and

such impotent persons that weed corn and other such like Laborers” and

2d. per day for their wages.[114] Pepys on his visit to Stonehenge “gave

the shepherd-woman, for leading our horses, 4d.,”[115] while Foulis

enters, “Jan. 25, 1699 to tonie to give ye women at restalrig for making

good wailings of strae, 4s. (Scots money).”[116]

Footnote 113:

Suss. Arch. Coll. Vol. IV., p. 24. _Everendon Account Book._

Footnote 114:

Tingye (J. C.), _Eng. Hist. Rev._, Vol. XIII., pp. 525-6.

Footnote 115:

Pepys, Vol. V., p. 302. (11th June, 1668).

Footnote 116:

Foulis (Sir John) _Acct. Bk._, p. 246.

But the wives of husbandmen were not confined to agricultural work as is

shown by many payments entered to them in account books:[117] Thus the

church wardens at Strood, in Kent, paid the widow Cable for washing the

surplices 1s.[118]; and at Barnsley they gave “To Ricard Hodgaris wife

for whipping dogs” (out of the Church) 2s.[119] while “Eustace Lowson of

Salton (a carrier of lettres and a verie forward, wicked woman in that

folly)” and Isabell her daughter are included in a Yorkshire list of

recusants.[120]

Footnote 117:

“Aug. 7th., 1701 to my wife, to a Bleicher wife at bonaley for

bleitching 1. 3. 4.” (Scots)

“Jan. 28th, 1703 to my good douchter jennie to give tibbie tomsome for

her attendance on my wife the time of her sickness 5.16.0 (Scots).

(_Foulis (Sir John) Acct. Bk._ p. 295, 314.)

“Sep. 11th, 1676, pd. her (Mary Taylor) more for bakeing four days.

Mothers Acct. 8d. (_Fell, (Sarah) Household Accts._ p. 309.)

“Pd. Widow Lewis for gathering herbs two daies 6d. (Sussex, Arch.

Coll. xlviii. p. 120. _Extracts from the Household Account Book of

Herstmonceux Castle._)

“Paid to goodwife Stopinge for 2 bundles of Rushes at Whitsuntide for

the Church, iiijid. (_Churchwarden’s Account Book, Strood_, p. 95,

1612.”

Footnote 118:

_Churchwarden’s Account Book, Strood_, p. 197. 1666.

Footnote 119:

Cox (J. C.) _Churchwarden’s Accts._, p. 309.

Footnote 120:

_Yorks. North Riding, Q.S. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 62, Jan. 8., 1606-7.

No doubt the mother with young children brought them with her to the

harvest field, where they played as safely through the long summer day

as if they and she had been at home. But at other times she chose work

which did not separate her from her children, spinning being her

unfailing resource. It is difficult living in the age of machinery to

imagine the labour which clothing a family by hand-spinning involved,

though the hand-spun thread was durable and fashions did not change.

In spite of the large demand the price paid was very low, but when not

obliged to spin for sale, time was well spent in spinning for the

family. The flax or hemp grown on the allotment, was stored up for

shirts and house-linen. If the husbandman had no sheep, the children

gathered scraps of wool from the brambles on the common, and thus the

only money cost of the stuff worn by the husbandman’s household was the

price paid to the weaver.

The more prosperous the family, the less the mother went outside to

work, but this did not mean, as under modern conditions, that her share

in the productive life of the country was less. Her productive energy

remained as great, but was directed into channels from which her family

gained the whole profit. In her humble way she fed and clothed them,

like the wise woman described by Solomon.

The more she was obliged to work for wages, the poorer was her family.

C. _Wage-earners._

In some respects it is less difficult to visualise the lives of women in

the wage-earning class than in the class of farmers and husbandmen. The

narrowness of their circumstances and the fact that their destitution

brought them continually under the notice of the magistrates at Quarter

Sessions have preserved data in greater completeness from which to

reconstruct the picture. Had this information been wanting such a

reconstruction would have demanded no vivid imagination, because the

results of the semi-starvation of mothers and small children are very

similar whether it takes place in the seventeenth or the twentieth

century; the circumstances of the wives of casual labourers and men who

are out of work and “unemployable” in modern England may be taken as

representing those of almost the whole wage-earning class in the

seventeenth century.

The most important factors governing the lives of wage-earning women

admit of no dispute. First among these was their income, for

wage-earners have already been defined as the class of persons depending

wholly upon wages for the support of their families.

Throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century the rate of wages

was not left to be adjusted by the laws of supply and demand, but was

regulated for each locality by the magistrates at Quarter Sessions.

Assessments fixing the maximum rates were published annually and were

supposed to vary according to the price of corn. Certainly they did vary

from district to district according to the price of corn in that

district, but they were not often changed from year to year.

Prosecutions of persons for offering and receiving wages in excess of

the maximum rates frequently occurred in the North Riding of Yorkshire,

but it is extremely rare to find a presentment for this in other Quarter

Sessions. The Assessments were generally accepted as publishing a rate

that public opinion considered fair towards master and man, and outside

Yorkshire steps were seldom taken to prevent masters from paying more to

valued servants. That upon the whole the Assessments represent the rate

ordinarily paid can be shown by a comparison with entries in

contemporary account books.

The Assessments deal largely with the wages of unmarried farm servants

and with special wages for the seasons of harvest, intended for the

occasional labour of husbandmen, but in addition there are generally

rates quoted by the day for the common labourer in the summer and winter

months. Even when meat and drink is supplied, the day-rates for these

common labourers are higher than the wages paid to servants living in

the house and are evidently intended for married men with families.

In one Assessment different rates are expressly given for the married

and unmarried who are doing the same work,[121] a married miller

receiving with his meat and drink, 4d. a day which after deducting

holidays would amount to £500 by the year, while the unmarried miller

has only 46s. 8d. and a pair of boots.

Footnote 121:

A shoemaker servant of the best sorte being married, to have without

meate and drinke for every dosin of shoes —— xxijid.

ditto unmarried to have by the yeare with meat and drink and withowte

a leverye —— liijs.

Millers and drivers of horses beinge batchelors then with meate and

drinke and without a liverye and a payre of boots —— xlvis viijid.

Millers and drivers of horses beinge married men shall not take more

by the daye then with meate and drinke —— ivid. and without viijid.

a man servant of the best sorte shall not have more by the yeare then

with a levereye —— xls. and without xlvjs viiid.

the same, of the thirde sorte has only with a leverye xxvjs viiid. and

without —— xxxiijs iiijd.

while any sort of labourer, from the Annunciation of our Ladye until

Michellmas has with meat and drink by the day —— ivd. and without

viijd.

From Michellmas to the Annunciation —— iiid. and without vijd.

The best sorte of women servants shall not have more by the yeare than

with a liverye —— xxjs. and without —— xxvjs viijd.

while “a woman reaping of corne” shall not have “more by the daye then

—— vd with meat and drink.”

(_Hertfordshire Assessment_, 1591).

Every man-servant serving with any person as a Comber of Wooll to have

by the yeare —— 40s.

Every such servant being a single man and working by yᵉ pound to have

by yᵉ pound —— 1ᵈ.

Every such servant being a marryed man and having served as an

apprentice thereto according to the statute to have by yᵉ pound —— 2ᵈ.

(_Assessment for Suffolk_, 1630).

Assessments generally show a similar difference between the day wages of

a common labourer and the wages of the best man-servant living in the

house, and it may therefore be assumed that day labourers were generally

married persons.

Day rates were only quoted for women on seasonal jobs, such as harvest

and weeding. It was not expected that married women would work all the

year round for wages, and almost all single women were employed as

servants.

The average wage of the common agricultural labourer as assessed at

Quarter Sessions was 3½d. per day in winter, and 4½d. per day in summer,

in addition to his meat and drink. Actual wages paid confirm the truth

of these figures, though it is not always clear whether the payments

include meat and drink.[122]

Footnote 122:

Paid to a shovele man for 2 days to shovell in the cart rakes, 2s.

(_Hertford Co. Rec._, Vol. I, p. 233, 1672.) 2½ days’ work of a

labourer, 2s. 6d. (_ibid._, p. 130, 1659).

For one daies work for one labourer, 1s. (_Strood Churchwarden’s Acc._

p. 182, 1662.)

pᵈ. to James Smith for one days’ work thatching about Widow Barber’s

house, she being in great distress by reason she could not lie down in

her bed and could get no help to do the same. 1s. 2d. (_Cratford

Parish Papers_, p. 152, 1622.) Thatchers were paid more than ordinary

labourers, being generally assessed at the same rate as a carpenter,

or a mower in the harvest.

_July 15, 1676._ Tho. Scott for workeinge hay 2 dayes, 4d.

Tho. Greaves youngeʳ for workeinge hay 2 dayes, 4d.

_May 5, 1678_, Will Braithwᵗ foʳ threshing 6 dayes 1.00.

_April 27, 1676_, by mᵒ. pᵈ. him for thatching 2 days at Petties

Tenemᵗ, 8d.

_August 2, 1676._ pᵈ Margᵗ Dodgson foʳ workinge at hay & otheʳ worke 5

weekes 03. 06.

pᵈ Mary Ashbrner for workinge at hay & other worke 4 weekes & 3 dayes,

03. 0. 0.

_Sept 4._ pᵈ. Will Nicholson wife foʳ weedinge in yᵉ garden & pullinge

hempe 12 dayes 01. 0. 0.

_Oct. 2._ pᵈ. Issa. Atkinson for her daughtʳ Swingleinge 6 dayes 01.

0. 0.

_May 7, 1677._ pᵈ. Will Ashbrner for his daughteʳ harrowing here 2

weekes 01. 0. 0. (_Fell (Sarah), House Acct._)

Labourers’ wages 4d. per day.

(_Hist. MSS. Comm. Var. Coll._, Vol. IV. 133, 1686. Sir Jno. Earl’s

Inventory of goods.)

Weeks’ work common labourer, 3s. Thos. West, 1 week’s haying 2s.

(_Sussex Arch. Coll._, Vol. IV, p. 24, _Everendon Acc. Book_, 1618.)

Paid for a labourer 3 dayes to hoult the alees and carrying away the

weedes, 1s. 6d. (_Cromwell Family, Bills and Receipts_, Vol. II, p.

233, 1635.)

_Jan. 26, 1649._ Payd. to John Wainwright for 5 days worke 1s. 8d.

[Yorkshire].

(_Eyre (Capt. Adam) Dyurnall_, p. 117.)

Thos. Hutton, xiiij days work ijs. iiijd, his wyfe xij dayes iiijs.

Thos. Hutton xiij dayes at hay vid, his wyfe 4 dayes xvjid. Leonell

Bell, xiij dayes about hay, vjs. vjid.

Tho. Bullman the lyke. iiijs. iiijd, Thos. Hutton 4 dayes at mowing

corne, xvjid.

_Howard Household Book_, p. 40-41).

If we accept the Assessments as representing the actual wages earned by

the ordinary labourer we can estimate with approximate accuracy the

total income of a labourer’s family, for we have defined the wage-earner

as a person who depended wholly upon wages and excluded from this class

families who possessed gardens. Taking a figure considerably higher than

the one at which the Assessment averages work out, namely 5d. per day

instead of 4d. per day, to be the actual earnings of a labouring man in

addition to his meat and drink, and doubling that figure for the three

months which include the hay and corn harvests, his average weekly

earnings will amount to 3s. 2d. Except in exceptional circumstances his

wife’s earnings would not amount to more than 1s. a week and her meat

and drink. The more young children there were, the less often could the

wife work for wages, and when not doing so her food as well as the

children’s must be paid for out of the family income.

In a family with three small children it is unlikely that the mother’s

earnings were more than what would balance days lost by the father for

holidays or illness, and the cost of his food on Sundays, but allowing

for a small margin we may assume that 3s. 6d. was the weekly income of a

labourer’s family, and that this sum must provide rent and clothing for

the whole family and food for the mother and children.

A careful investigation of the cost of living is necessary before we can

test whether this amount was adequate for the family’s maintenance.

There is no reason to suppose that a diet inferior to present standards

could maintain efficiency in the seventeenth century. On the contrary,

the English race at that time attributed their alleged superiority over

other nations to a higher standard of living.[123]

Footnote 123:

The dietary in charitable institutions gives an idea of what was

considered bare necessity.

(_Children’s Diet in Christ Church Hospital_, 1704.)

For breakfast, Bread and Beer. For dinner, Sunday, Tuesday, and

Thursday, boiled beef and pottage. Monday, milk pottage, Wednesday,

furmity. Friday old pease & pottage. Saturday water gruel. For supper

bread and cheese or butter for those that cannot eat cheese. Sunday

supper, legs of mutton. Wednesday and Friday, pudding pies.

(_Stow, London, Book_ I, p. 182.)

_Diet for Workhouse, Bishopsgate Street, London._

They have Breakfasts, dinners, and suppers every day in the week. For

each meal 4 oz. bread, 1½ oz. cheese, 1 oz. butter, 1 pint of beer.

Breakfast, four days, bread and cheese or butter and beer. Mondays a

pint of Pease Pottage, with Bread and Beer. Tuesdays a Plumb Pudding

Pye 9 oz. and beer. Wednesdays a pint of Furmity. On Friday a pint of

Barley Broth and bread. On Saturdays, a plain Flower Sewet Dumpling

with Beer. Their supper always the same, 4 oz. bread, 1½ of cheese or

1 oz. of butter, and beer sufficient. (Stow, _London_, Book I, p.

199).

_Lady Grisell Baillie gives her servant’s diet_:

Sunday they have boild beef and broth made in the great pot, and

always the broth made to serve two days. Monday, broth made on Sunday,

and a Herring. Tuesday, broth and beef. Wednesday, broth and two eggs

each. Thursday, broth and beef. Friday, Broth and herring. Saturday,

broth without meat, and cheese, or a pudden or blood-pudens, or a

hagish, or what is most convenient. Breakfast and super, half an oat

loaf or a proportion of broun bread, but better set down the loaf, and

see non is taken or wasted, and a muchkin of beer or milk whenever

there is any. At dinner a mutchkin of beer for each. _Baillie (Lady

Grisell). Household Book_, pp. 277-8. 1743.

A comparison between the purchasing power of money in the seventeenth

and twentieth centuries is unsatisfactory for our purpose, because the

relative values of goods have changed so enormously. Thus, though rent,

furniture and clothes were much cheaper in the seventeenth century,

there was less difference in the price of food. Sixpence per day is

often given in Assessments as the cost of a labourer’s meat and drink

and this is not much below the amount spent per head on these items in

wage-earners’ families during the first decade of the twentieth century.

One fact alone is almost sufficient to prove the inadequacy of a

labourer’s wage for the maintenance of his family. His money wages

seldom exceeded the estimated cost of his own meat and drink as supplied

by the farmer, and yet these wages were to supply all the necessaries of

life for his whole family. Some idea of the bare cost of living in a

humble household may be gained by the rates fixed for pensions and by

allowances made for Poor Relief. From these it appears that four

shillings to five shillings a week was considered necessary for an

adult’s maintenance.

The Cromwell family paid four shillings weekly “to the widd. Bottom for

her bord.”[124] Pensions for maimed soldiers and widows were fixed at

four shillings per week “or else work to be provided which will make

their income up to 4s. per week. Sick and wounded soldiers under cure

for their wounds to have 4s. 8d. per week.”[125]

Footnote 124:

_Cromwell Family, Bills and Receipts_, Vol. II., p. 233, 1635.

Footnote 125:

_Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum_, II., p. 556. (For Maimed

Soldiers and Widows of Scotland and Ireland, Sept 30, 1651.)

The Justices in the North Riding of Yorkshire drew up a scale of

reasonable prices for billeted soldiers by which each trooper was to pay

for his own meat for each night—6d; dragoon, 4½d; foot soldier, 4d.[126]

Footnote 126:

_Yorks. North Riding, Q.S. Rec._, Vol. VII., p. 106, 1690.

“Edward Malin, blacksmith, now fourscore and three past and his wife

fourscore, wanting a quarter” very poor and unable “to gett anything

whereby to live,” complained to the Hertfordshire Quarter Sessions that

they receive only 1s. 6d. a week between them; “others have eighteen

pence apiece single persons” and desire that an order be made for them

to have 3s. together which is but the allowance made to other

persons.[127]

Footnote 127:

_Hertfordshire, Co. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 258, 1675.

In cases of Poor Relief where payments were generally intended to be

supplementary to other sources of income, the grants to widows towards

the maintenance of their children were often absurdly small; in

Yorkshire, Parish officers were ordered to “provide convenient

habitation for a poor woman as they shall think fit and pay her 4d.

weekly for the maintenance of herself and child.”[128] In another case

to pay a very poor widow 6d. weekly for the maintenance of herself and

her three children.[129] The allowance of 12d. weekly to a woman and her

small children was reduced to 6d., “because the said woman is of able

body, and other of her children are able to work.”[130] On the other

hand when an orphan child was given to strangers to bring up, amounts

varying from 1s. to 5s. per week were paid for its maintenance.[131]

Footnote 128:

_Yorks. N.R. Q.S. Rec._, Vol. VI., p. 242, 1675.

Footnote 129:

_Ibid._ p. 217, 1674.

Footnote 130:

_Ibid._ p. 260, 1674.

Footnote 131:

Joane Weekes ... “hadd a maide childe placed to her to bee kept &

brought upp, the mother of which Childe was executed at the Assizes,

six pounds per ann, proporconed toward the keepinge of the said childe

... besides she desireth some allowance extraordinary for bringinge

the said Childe to bee fitt to gett her livinge.” (_Somerset, Q.S.

Rec._, Vol. III, p. 28-9, 1647).

In 1663 a woman who was committed to the Castle of Yorke for felony

and afterwards executed, was while there delivered of a male child,

which was left in the gaol, and as it was not known where the woman

was last an inhabitant the child could not be sent to the place of her

settlement, Sir Tho. Gower was desired by Justices of Assize to take a

course for present maintenance of the child. He caused it to be put

unto the wife of John Boswell to be nursed and provided for with other

necessaries. John Boswell and his wife have maintained the child ever

since and have hitherto received no manner of allowance for the same.

Ordered that the several Ridings shall pay their proportions to the

maintenance past and present, after the rate of £5 per annum. (_Yorks.

N.R. Q.S. Rec._, Vol. VI, pp. 102-3, 1666.)

Marmaduke Vye was only to have £4 a year for keeping the child born in

the gaol of Ivelchester whose mother was hanged for cutting of purses.

(_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. I, p. 101., 1613.)

Item payd to the said widowe Elkyns for Dyett and keeping of a poore

child leafte upon the chardge of the parish at 11d. the weecke from

the 14th of August, 1599, till this secound of Sept., 1601, every

Saturday, being two yeres and three weeckes, videlicet 107 weeckes in

toto vˡⁱ vijs. (_Ch. Accs., St. Michael’s in Bedwendine, Worcester_,

p. 147.)

Itm pd. to Batrome’s wife of Linstead for keeping of Wright’s child 52

weeks £3 0s. 8d. (Cratfield _Parish Papers_, p. 129, 1602.)

Pd to Geo. Cole to take and bring up Eliz. Wright, the daughter of Ann

Wright according to his bond, £4. 0s. 0d. More towards her apparell

5s. (_Ibid._ p. 137. 1609.)

Item paide Chart’s Child’s keeping by the week £4. 11s. 8d. Item for

apparrell £1. 18s. 2d. Item paid to the surgeon for her. 3s. 6d.

(_Suss. Arch. Coll._, Vol. xx., p. 101, _Acct. Bk of Cowden_. 1627.)

for apparrelling Wm. Uridge and for his keeping this yeare £5. 12s.

9d.

(_Ibid._ p. 103, 1632.)

For the keep of William Kemsing 14 weeks £1. 2s. 8d. and 23 weeks at

2s. per week, £2. 6s. 0d. and for apparrelling of him; and for his

indentures; and for money given with him to put him out apprentice;

and expended in placing him out £11. 17s. 9d.

(_Ibid._ p. 107, 1650.)

John Mercies wief for keeping Buckles child, weekly, 1s. 6d.

John Albaes wief for keeping Partickes child, 1s. 4d.

(_S.P.D._, cccxlvii., 67, 1. Feb, 1637. Answer of Churchwardens to

Articles given by J.P.’s for St. Albans).

George Arnold and Jas. Michell late overseers of the poore of the

parishe of Othery ... had committed a poore child to the custody,

keepinge and maintenance of ... Robert Harris promising him xijid.

weekly. (_Somerset, Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III, p. 1, 1646.) Order for Thos.

Scott, a poor, lame, impotent child, to be placed with Joanna Brandon;

She to be paid 5s. a week for his maintenance. (_Middlesex Co. Rec._,

p. 180, _Sess. Book_, 1698).

Thus the amount paid by the Justices for maintaining one pauper child

sometimes exceeded the total earnings of a labourer and his wife. Other

pauper children were maintained in institutions. The girls at a

particularly successful Industrial School in Bristol were given an

excellent and abundant diet at a cost of 1s. 4d. per head per week.[132]

At Stepney, the poor were maintained at 2s. 10d or 3s. per week,

including all incidental expenses, firing and lodging. At Strood in

Kent, 2s. was paid for children boarded out in poor families, while the

inmates of the workhouse at Hanstope, Bucks, were supposed not to cost

the parish more than 1s. 6d. a week per head.[133] At Reading it was

agreed “that Clayton’s wief shall have xiiiiid. a weeke for every poore

childe in the hospitall accomptinge each childe’s worke in parte of

payment.”[134]

Footnote 132:

Cary, _Acc. Proceedings of the Corporation of Bristol_. 1700. “Their

diets were made up of such provisions as were very wholesome, viz.

Beef, Pease, Potatoes, Broath, Pease-porridge, Milk-porridge, Bread

and Cheese, good Beer, Cabage, Carrots, Turnips, etc. it stood us

(with soap to wash) in about sixteen pence per week for each of the

one hundred girls.”

Footnote 133:

_Account Workhouses_, 1725, p. 13, p. 37, p. 79.

Footnote 134:

Guilding, _Reading_, Vol. II., p. 273, Jan. 16, 1625-6.

These and many other similar figures show that a child must have cost

from 1s. to 1s. 6d. a week for food alone, the amount varying according

to age. Above seven years of age, children began to contribute towards

their own support, but they were not completely self-supporting before

the age of thirteen or fourteen.

According to the wages assessments, a woman’s diet was reckoned at a

lower figure than a man’s, but whenever they are engaged on heavy work

such as reaping corn or shearing sheep, 6d. or 8d. a day is allowed for

their “meate and drinke.” On other work, such as weeding or spinning,

where only 2d. a day is reckoned for wages, their food also is only

estimated as costing 2d. to 4d. As in such cases they are classed with

“other impotent persons” it must not be supposed that 2d. or 3d.

represents the cost of the food needed by a young active woman; it may

even have been prolonged semi-starvation that had reduced the woman to

the level of impotency. Unfortunately, there is often a wide difference

between the cost of what a woman actually eats and what is necessary to

maintain her in efficiency. Probably the woman who was doing ordinary

work while pregnant or suckling a baby may have needed as much food as

the woman who was reaping corn; but in the wage-earner’s family she

certainly did not get it; thus when a writer[135] alleges that a man’s

diet costs 5d. a day and a woman’s 1s. 6d per week, his statement may be

correct as to fact, though the babies have perished for want of

nourishment and the mother has been reduced to invalidism.

Footnote 135:

Dunning, R. _Plain and Easie Method_, p. 5, 1686.

Another writer gives 2s. as being sufficient to “keep a poor man or

woman (with good husbandry) one whole week.”[136] Certainly 2s. is the

very lowest figure that can have sufficed to keep up the mother’s

strength. The bare cost of food for a mother and three children must

have amounted to at least 5s. 6d. per week, but there were other

necessaries to be provided from the scanty wages. The poorest family

required some clothes, and though these may have been given by

charitable persons, rent remained to be paid. Building was cheap. In

Scotland, the “new house” with windows glazed with “ches losens” only

cost £4 12s. 3d. to build, while a “cothouse” built for Liddas “the

merchant” cost only £1 0 0;[137] other cots were built for 4s., 11s.

1d,, 5s. and 14s. 4d. These Scottish dwellings were mud hovels, but in

England the labourers’ dwellings were not much better.

Footnote 136:

_Trade of England_, p. 10, 1681.

Footnote 137:

Baillie (Lady Grisel), _House Book_, Introd. Ixiv.

Celia Fiennes describes the houses at the Land’s End as being “poor

Cottages, Like Barns to Look on, much Like those in Scotland, but to doe

my own country its right yᵉ Inside of their Little Cottages are Clean

and plaister’d and such as you might Comfortably Eat and drink in, and

for curiosity sake I dranck there and met with very good bottled

ale.”[138]

Footnote 138:

Fiennes (Celia), _Through England on a Side-saddle_, p. 224.

In some places the labourers made themselves habitations on the waste,

but this was strictly against the law, such houses being only allowed

for the impotent poor.

Many fines are entered in Quarter Sessions Records for building houses

without the necessary quantity of land. By 39 Eliz. churchwardens and

overseers were ordered, for the relief of the impotent poor, to build

convenient houses at the charges of the Parish, but only with the

consent of the Lord of the Manor. 43 Eliz. added that such buildings

were not at any time after to be used for other inhabitants but only for

the impotent poor, placed there by churchwardens and overseers.

The housing problem was so acute that many orders were made by the

justices sanctioning or ordering the erection of these cottages. “Rob.

Thompson of Brompton and Eliz. Thompson of Aymonderby widow, stand

indicted for building a cottage in Aymonderby against the statute, etc.,

upon a piece of ground, parcell of the Rectorie of Appleton-on-the

street, and in which the said Eliz. doth dwell by the permission of John

Heslerton, fermour of the said Rectorie, and that the same was so

erected for the habitation of the said Elizᵗʰ. being a poore old woman

and otherwise destitute of harbour and succour ... ordered that the said

cottage shall continue ... for the space of twelve yeares, if the said

Elizᵗʰ. live so long, or that the said Heslerton’s lease do so long

endure.”[139] In another case, Nicholas Russell, the wife of Thomas

Waterton, and Robert Arundell, were presented for erecting cottages upon

the Lord’s waste ... at the suit of parishioners these cottages are

allowed by Mr. Coningsby, lord of the manor.[140]

Footnote 139:

_Yorks. N.R. Q.S. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 29. 1605-6.

Footnote 140:

_Hertfordshire Co. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 63. 1639-41.

It was often necessary to compel unwilling overseers to build cottages

for the impotent poor, and for widows. “A woman with three children

prays leave for the erection of a cottage in East Bedwyn, she having no

habitation, but depending upon alms; from lying in the street she was

conveyed into the church where she remained some small time, but was

then ejected by the parish.” The overseers are ordered to provide for

her.[141]

Footnote 141:

_Hist., MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I, p. 113, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._

1646.

The overseers at Shipley were ordered to build a house on the waste

there for Archelaus Braylsford, to contain “two chambers floored fit for

lodgings” or in default 5s. a week. At the following sessions his house

was further ordered to be “a convenient habitation 12 feet high upon the

side walls soe as to make 2 convenient chambers.”[142]

Footnote 142:

Cox, _Derbyshire Annals_, Vol. II, p. 176, 1693.

The following cases are representative of an immense number of

petitions from widows and the impotent poor:

1608. Margaret Johns having dwelt in Naunton Beauchamp for 55 years

has now no house or room but dwells in a barn, she desires to have

house room and will not charge the parish so long as she is able to

work.

1620. Eleanor Williams charged with keeping of young child is now

unprovided with house room for herself and her poor child, her husband

having left the soile where they lately dwelled and is gone to some

place to her unknown. She is willing “to relieve her child by her

painful labour but wanteth a place for abode” prays to be provided

with house room.

(Bund, J. W. Willis, _Worcestershire Co. Records_, Vol. I., pp. 116-7,

337).

1621. Overseers of Uggliebarbie to provide a suitable dwelling for 2

women (sisters) if they refuse them a warrant, etc. (_Yorks. North

Riding Q.S. Recs._, Vol. III., p. 118.)

1672. Parish Officers of Scruton to provide a convenient habitation

for Mary Hutchinson and to set her on work, and provide for her, etc.,

until she shall recover the possession of certain lands in Scruton.

(_Ibid._ Vol. VI., p. 175).

1684. Mary Marchant ... livinge in good estimation And repute for many

years together; being very Carefull to maintaine herself And family

for being prejudice to ye sd. Towne; ye petitioners husbande beinge

abroad and driven Away; and returninge not backe Againe to her

leaveinge ye petitioner with a little girle; being In want was put

into a little cottage by & with ye consent of ye sd. Towne; ye sd.

Owner of ye sd. Tenement comeinge when ye petitioner was gon forth to

worke leavinge her little girle in ye sd. house; ye sd. Owner get a

locke And Key upp on ye door, where as your petitioner cannot Injoy

her habitation wth peace and quietness; soe yt your petitioner is

likely to starve for want of A habitation and child, etc.

(Cox. J. C., _Derbyshire Annals_, Vol. II., pp. 175-6, _Q.S. Recs._,

1684).

The housing problem however could not be settled by orders instructing

the overseers to build cottages for the impotent poor alone. Petitions

were received as often from able-bodied labourers and for them the law

forbade the erection of a cottage without four acres of land attached.

The magistrates had no power to compel the provision of the land and

thus they were faced with the alternatives of breaking the law and

sanctioning the erection of a landless cottage on the waste or else

leaving the labourer’s family to lie under hedges. The following

petitions illustrate the way in which this situation was faced:

George Grinham, Norton-under-Hambton, “in ye behalfe of himselfe, his

poore wife and famelye” begged for permission “for my building yᵉʳ, of a

little poor house for ye comfort of my selfe, my poore wife and children

betwixt those other 2 poore houses erected on the glebe ... being a

towne borne childe yᵉʳ myselfe.”[143]

Footnote 143:

_Somerset, Q.S. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 41, 1609.

Another from William Dench, “a very poor man and having a wife and seven

children all born at Longdon,” who was destitute of any habitation,

states that he was given by William Parsons of Longdon, yeoman, in

charity, “a little sheep-cote which sheep cote petitioner, with the

consent of the churchwardens and overseers converted to a dwelling.

Afterwards he having no licence from Quarter Sessions, nor under the

hands of the Lord of the Manor so to do, and the sheep-cote being on the

yeoman’s freehold and not on the waste or common, contrary to Acts 43

Eliz. c. 2 and 31 Eliz. c. 7 he was indicted upon the Statute against

cottages and sued to an outlawry. He prays the benefit of the King’s

pardon and for licence in open session for continuance of his

habitation.”[144]

Footnote 144:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 296, _Worcestershire, Q.S.

Rec._, 1617.

Eliz. Shepperd of Windley alleged she “was in possession of a Certayne

cottage situate in Chevin, which was pulled downe and taken away by the

Inhabitants of Dooeffield, shee left without habitation and hath soe

Continued Twelve months at the least, shee being borne in Windley, and

hath two small children” prayed the inhabitants should find her a

homestead—the case was adjourned because the overseers raised a

technical objection; that Eliz. Shepherd was married, & a woman’s

petition could only proceed from a spinster or widow—meanwhile another

child was born, and at the Michaelmas Sessions a joint petition was

presented by Ralph Shepherd and Eliz. his wife, with the result that

“the overseers are to find him habitation or show cause.”[145]

Footnote 145:

Cox, J. C. _Derbyshire Annals_, Vol. II., pp. 173-4, 1649.

Joseph Lange of Queene Camell “being an honest poore laborer and havinge

a wife and 2 smale Children” prayed that he “might haue libertie to

erect a Cottage uppon a wast ground”.... This was assented to “for the

habitacon of himselfe for his wife and afterwards the same shall be

converted to the use of such other poore people etc.”

Order that Robert Morris of Overstowey, husbandman, a very poor man

having a wife and children, and no place of habitation “soe that hee is

like to fall into greate misery for want thereof” may erect and build

him a cottage on some part of the “wast” of the manor of Overstowey ...

(subject to the approbation of the Lord of the said Manor).[146]

Footnote 146:

_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III., pp. 29, 58.

The predicament of married labourers is shown again in the following

report to the Hertfordshire Quarterly Sessions: “John Hawkins hath

erected a cottage on the waste of my mannour of Benington, in

consideration of the great charge of his wife and children that the said

Hawkins is to provide for, I do hereby grant and give leave to him to

continue the said cottage during his life and good behaviour.”[147]

Footnote 147:

_Hertford Co. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 100, 1652.

Labourers naturally were unwilling to hire cottages while there was a

possibility of inducing the justices to provide one on the waste rent

free. The churchwardens of Great Wymondley forwarded a certificate

stating “that the poor people of the said parish that are old and not

able to work are all provided for and none of the poor people of the

said parish have been driven to wander into other unions to beg or ask

relief, for this thirty years last past. This Nathaniel Thrussel, which

now complains, is a lusty young man, able to work and always brought up

to husbandry, his wife, a young woman, always brought up to work, and

know both how to perform their work they are hired to do, and have at

present but one child, but did not care to pay rent for a hired house

when he had one nor endeavour to hire a house for himself when he

wants.”[148]

Footnote 148:

_Hertford Co. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 370, 1687.

The scarcity of cottages resulted in extortionate rents for those that

existed; Best noted that in his district “Mary Goodale and Richard

Miller have a cottage betwixt them; Mary Goodale hath two roomes, and

the orchard and payeth 6s. per annum; and Richard Miller, hayth one

roomestead and payeth 4s. per annum.... They usually lette their

cottages hereaboutes, for 10s. a piece, although they have not soe much

as a yard, or any backe side belonging to them.”[149]

Footnote 149:

Best, _Rural Econ._, p. 125.

The rents paid elsewhere are shown in the returns made in 1635 by the

Justices of the Peace for the Hundreds of Blofield and Walsham in

Norfolk concerning cottages and inmates:

Thos. Waters hath 3 inmates:

Wm. Wyley pays £1. per annum

Anthony Smith pays £1. per annum

Roger Goat pays 12s. per annum

“which are all poore labourers and have wifes and severall children and

if they be put out cannot be provided in this towne and by reason of

their charge and poverty are not likely to be taken elsewhere.”

“Wm. Browne hath 2 inmates:

Edmund Pitt 14s. per annum

Wm. Jostling 14s. per annum

that are very poor and impotent and take colleccion.

Wm. Reynoldes hath 2 inmates:

Anthony Durrant £1 16s. per annum

Wm. Yurely 16s. per annum

both are very poore labourers and have wifes and small children. Jas.

Candle owner of a cottage [has] Robert Fenn, 13s. a poore man. Anne

Linckhorne 1 inmate Philip Blunt that pay £1. 17. 0 that is a poore man

and hath wife and children.”[150]

Footnote 150:

_S.P.D._, cccx., 104, 1635. Returns made by Justices of the Peace.

Thus it appears that while a labourer who obtained a cottage on the

waste lived rent free, twenty or thirty shillings might be demanded from

those who were less fortunate.

Whatever money was extorted for rent meant so much less food for the

mother and children, for it has been shown that the family income was

insufficient for food alone, and left no margin for rent or clothes.

The relation of wages to the cost of living is seldom alluded to by

contemporary writers, but a pamphlet published in 1706 says of a

labourer’s family, “a poor Man and his Wife may have 4 or 5 children, 2

of them able to work, and 3 not able, and the Father and Mother not able

to maintain themselves and Families in Meat, Drink, Cloaths and House

Rent under 10s. a week.”[151]

Footnote 151:

Haynes, (John.), _Present State of Clothing_, p. 5, 1706.

A similar statement is made by Sir Matthew Hale, who adds “and so much

they might probably get if employed.”[152] But no evidence has been

found from which we can imagine that an agricultural labourer’s family

could possibly earn as much as 10s. a week in the seventeenth century.

Our lower estimate is confirmed by a report made by the Justices of the

Peace for the half hundred of Hitching concerning the poor in their

district; “when they have worke the wages geven them is soe small that

it hardlye sufficeth to buy the poore man and his familye breed, for

they pay 6s. for one bushell of mycelyn grayne and receive but 8d. for

their days work. It is not possible to procure mayntenance for all these

poore people and their famylyes by almes nor yet by taxes.”[153]

Footnote 152:

Hale, (Sir Matt). _Discourse touching Provision for the Poor_, p. 6,

1683.

Footnote 153:

_S.P.D._ ccclxxxv., 43. Mar. 8, 1638.

The insolvency of the wage-earning class is recognized by Gregory King

in his calculations of the income and expense of the several Families of

England, for the year 1680. All other classes, including artisans and

handicrafts show a balance of income over expenditure but the families

of seamen, labourers and soldiers show an actual yearly deficit.[154]

Footnote 154:

King (Gregory). _Nat. and Political Observations_, pp. 48-9.

NO. OF FAMILIES. YEARLY

INCOME PER EXPENSE LOSS PER

PERSONS. HEAD. PER HEAD. HEAD.

50,000 Common Seamen 150,000 £7. £7. 10s. 10s.

364,000 Labouring 1,275,000 £4. 10s. £4. 12s. 2s.

people &

outservants

400,000 Cottagers & 1,300,000 £2. £2. 5s. 5s.

Paupers

35,000 Common 70,000 £7. £7. 10s. 10s.

soldiers

A still more convincing proof of the universal destitution of

wage-earners is shown in the efforts made by churchwardens and overseers

in every county throughout England to prevent the settlement within the

borders of their parish of families which depended solely on wages.

Their objection is not based generally upon the ground that the labourer

or his wife were infirm, or idle, or vicious; they merely state that the

family is likely to become chargeable to the parish. Each parish was

responsible for the maintenance of its own poor, and thus though farmers

might be needing more labourers, the parish would not tolerate the

settlement of families which could not be self-supporting.

The disputes which arose concerning these settlements contain many

pitiful stories.

“Anthony addams” tells the justices that he was born in Stockton and

bred up in the same Parish, most of his time in service and has “taken

great pains for my living all my time since I was able and of late I

fortuned to marry with an honest young woman, and my parishioners not

willing I should bring her in the parish, saying we should breed a

charge amongst them. Then I took a house in Bewdley and there my wife

doth yet dwell and I myself do work in Stockton ... and send or bring my

wife the best relief I am able, and now the parish of Bewdley will not

suffer her to dwell there for doubt of further charge.... I most humbly

crave your good aid and help in this my distress or else my poor wife

and child are like to perish without the doors: ... that by your good

help and order to the parish of Stockton I may have a house there to

bring my wife & child unto that may help them the best I can.”[155]

Footnote 155:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 298, _Worcestershire Q.S.

Rec._, 1618.

Another petition was brought by Josias Stone of Kilmington ... “shewinge

that he hath binn an Inhabitant and yet is in Kilmington aforesaid and

hath there continued to and fro these five yeares past and hath donn

service for the said parishe and hath lately married a wife in the said

parish intendinge there to liue and reside yet since his marriage is by

the said parishe debarred of any abidinge for him and his said wife

there in any howse or lodginge for his mony.”[156]

Footnote 156:

_Somerset, Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III., p. 15, 1647.

Another dispute occurred over the case of Zachary Wannell and his wife

who came lately from Wilton “into the towne of Taunton where they haue

been denyed a residence and they ly upp and downe in barnes and hay

lofts, the said Wannell’s wife being great with child; the said Wannell

and his wife to be forthwith set to Wilton and there to continue until

the next General Sessions. The being of the said Wannell and his wife at

Wilton not to be interpreted as a settlement of them there.”[157]

Footnote 157:

_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. III., p. 246, 1654.

There were endless examples of these conflicts often attended as in the

above case with great cruelty.[158]

Footnote 158:

“One Humfrey Naysh, a poore man hath ben remayning and dwellinge

within the pish of Newton St. Lowe by the space of five years or

thereabouts and now being maryed and like to haue charge of children,

the pishioners Do endeuor to put the said Naishe out of their pish by

setting of amcents and paynes in their Courts on such as shall give

him house-roome, or suffer him to liue in their houses which he doth

or offereth to rent for his money which the court conceiveth to be

vnjust and not accordinge to lawe.” Overseers ordered to provide him a

house for his money. (_Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 19, 1626.)

The petition of the “overseer of the poore of the parishe of East

Quantoxhead ... that one Richard Kamplyn late of Kilve with his wife

and three small children are late come as Inmates into the Parish of

East Quantoxhead which may hereafter become very burdensome and

chargeable to the said parish if tymley prevention bee not taken

therein.” (_Ibid._, Vol. III, p. 9, 1646.)

“John Tankens, his wife and three children ... had lived twoe yeares

in Chewstoake undisturbed and from thence came to Chew Magna and there

took part of a Cottage for their habitation for one yeare ... whereof

the parishe of Chew Magna taking notice found themselves aggrieved

thereatt, and brought the same in question both before the next

Justice of the peace of Chew Magna and att the Leete or Lawday, and

yett neither the said Tankens, his wife or children, had beene

actually chardgeable to the said parishe of Chew Magna. This Court in

that respect thinketh not fitt to disturbe the said Tankens, his wife

or children duringe the said terme, but doth leave them to thend of

the same terme to bee settled accordinge by lawe they ought. And

because the parishioners of Chew Magna haue been for the most parte of

the tyme since the said Tankens, his wife and Children came to Chew

Magna complayninge against them, This court doth declare that the

beinge of them att Chew Magna aforesaid duringe the said terme shall

not bee interpreted to bee a settlement there.” (_Ibid._, Vol. III,

pp. 94-5, 1649).

“Pet. of Richard Cookesley of Ashbrettle shewing that he is married in

the said parish and the said parish endeavour to haue him removed from

thence although hee is no way chargeable, this court doth see noe

cause but that the said Cookesley may remaine att Ashbrittle

aforesaid; provided that his being there shall not be interpretted to

bee a settlement of him there.” (_Ibid._, Vol. III., p. 248, 1654).

James Hurde a poor labourer stated that for these two years last past

he had dwelt in the parish of Westernemore “In a house wch he hired

for his monie” and had taken great pains to maintain himself, his wife

and two children, wherewith he never yet charged the said parish nor

hopeth ever to do. And yet the parishioners and churchwardens there,

do “indeavour” and threaten to turn him out of the parish unless he

will put in sufficient sureties not to charge the said parish which he

cannot by reason he is but a poor labourer; he humbly requests that he

may quietly inhabit in the said parish so long as he doth not charge

the same, otherwise he and his family are like to perish. (_Ibid._,

Vol. I, p. 94, 1612.)

The Justices were shocked at the consequent demoralization and generally

supported the demands of the labourers as regards their settlement and

housing. One writes to the clerk of the Peace: “I have sent you enclosed

the recognizance of William Worster and William Smith, of Bovindon, for

contempt of an order of sessions ... in the behalfe of one, John Yorke,

formerly a vagrant, but now parishionir of Bovingdon. Yet I believe the

rest of the inhabitants will doe their utmost to gett him thence though

they force him to turn vagrant againe. Yorke will be with you to prove

that he was in the parish halfe-a-year or more before they gave him any

disturbance, and that not privately, for he worked for severall

substantiall men and was at church, and paid rent.”[159]

Footnote 159:

_Hertford Co. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 321, 1681. Letter from Francis Leigh

to Clerk of Peace.

But the Justices never suspected that the rate of wages which they

themselves had fixed below subsistence level was at the root of the

settlement difficulty. The overseers believed that all the troubles

might be solved if only young people would not marry imprudently, and

they petitioned the Justices begging that overseers of parishes might

not be compelled to provide houses for such young persons “as will marry

before they have provided themselves with a settling.”[160]

Footnote 160:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 322. _Worcestershire Q.S.

Rec._, 1661.

While the overseers were seeking to exclude all wage earners from the

parish, individual farmers, perchance the overseers themselves wanted

more labourers. To meet this difficulty, the overseers discovered an

ingenious device. Before granting a settlement, they required the

labourer to find sureties to save the parish harmless from his becoming

chargeable to it. Obviously a labourer could not himself find sureties,

but the farmer who wished to employ him was in a position to do so, and

thus the responsibility for the wage-earner’s family would be laid upon

the person who profited by his services. Petitions against this demand

for sureties came before the Quarter Sessions. One from Robert Vawter

stated that he was “a poore Day labourer about a quarter of a yere

sithence came into the said parish of Clutton, and there marryed with a

poore Almesmans Daughter, now liveing with her said father in the

Almeshouse of Clutton aforesaid, and would there settle himselfe with

his said wife.” He was ordered to find sureties or to go to gaol.[161]

Footnote 161:

_Somerset Q.S. Rec._, Vol. II., p. 292, 1637-8.

It was reported at Salford “Whereas Rich. Hudson is come lately into the

towne with his wife and ffoure children to Remaine that the Burrow-reeve

and Constables of this towne shall give notice unto Henry Wrigley, Esq.,

upon whose land he still remaynes that hee remove him and his wife and

children out of this Towne within this moneth unlesse hee give

sufficient security upon the paine of ffive pounds.”[162]

Footnote 162:

_Salford Portmote Records_, Vol. II., p. 144, 1655.

Similar orders were made re Nathan Cauliffe, his wife and three

children, Robert Billingham with wife and two children, Peter ffarrant

and his wife, & Roger Marland and wife. Later the record continues, “and

yet the said parties are not removed” order was therefore made “that

this order shalbee put in execution.”[163] Another step in the

proceedings is recorded in the entry, “Whereas James Moores, George

Moores and Adam Warmeingham stand bound unto Henry Wrigling Esq. in £20

for the secureinge the Towne from any poverty or disability which should

or might befall unto the said James, his wife, children, or family or

any of them. And whereas it appeares that the said James Moores hath

been Chargeable whereby the said bond is become forfeit yet this Jury

doth give the said George Moores and Adam Warmeingham this libtie that

the said James shall remove out of this towne before the next Court

Leet.”[164]

Footnote 163:

_Ibid._, p. 151, 1656.

Footnote 164:

_Salford Portmote Rec._, Vol. II., p. 150.

Fines were exacted from those who harboured unfortunate strangers

without having first given security for them, and no exception was made

on the score of relationship. James Meeke of Myddleton was presented

“for keeping of his daughter Ellen Meeke, having a husband dwelling in

another place, and having two children borne forth of the parishe.”[165]

Footnote 165:

_Yorks. N.R. Q.S. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 170, 1609.

Rules made at Steeple Ashton by the Churchwardens declare: “There hath

much povertie happened unto this p’ish by receiving of strangers to

inhabit there and not first securing them ag’st such contingencies and

avoyding the like occasions in tyme to come, It is ordered by this

vestrie that ev’ry p’son or p’sons whatsoev’r w’ch shall lett or sett

any houseinge or dwellinge to any stranger and shall not first give good

securite for defending and saving harmeless the said inhabitants from

the future charge as may happen by such stranger comeing to inhabite

w’thin the said p’ish and if any p’son shall doe to the contrary Its

agreed that such p’son soe receiving such stranger shal be rated to the

poor to 20s. monethlie over and above his monethlie tax.”[166]

Footnote 166:

_Wilts. Notes and Queries_, Vol. VII., p. 281, 1664. _Churchwarden’s

Acct. Book. Steeple Ashton._

The penalties at Reading were higher. “At this daye Wm. Porter, th’elder

was questioned for harboringe a straunger woman, and a childe, vizᵗ, the

wief of John Taplyn; he worketh at Mr. Ed. Blagrave’s in Early:

Confesseth. The woman saith she hath byn there ever syns Michaellmas

last, and payed rent to goodman Porter, xxs a yeare; her kinsman

Faringdon did take the house for them. Wm. Porter was required to paye

xs a weeke accordinge to the orders and was willed to ridd his tenant

with all speed upon payne of xs a weeke and to provide suretyes to

discharge the towne of the childe.”[167]

Footnote 167:

Guilding, _Reading Records_, Vol. II., p. 181, 1624.

The starvation and misery described in Quarter Sessions Records were not

exceptional calamities, but represent the ordinary life of women in the

wage earning class. The lives of men were drab and monotonous, lacking

pleasure and consumed by unending toil, but they did not often suffer

hunger. The labourer while employed was well fed, for the farmer did not

grudge him food, though he did not wish to feed his family. There was

seldom want of employment for agricultural labourers, and when their

homes sank into depths of wretchedness and the wife’s attractiveness was

lost through slow starvation, the men could depart and begin life anew

elsewhere.

The full misery of the labourer’s lot was only felt by the women; if

unencumbered they could have returned, like the men, to the comfortable

conditions of service, but the cases of mothers who deserted their

children are rare.

The hardships suffered by the women of the wage-earning class proved

fatal to their children. Gregory King estimated that there were on an

average only 3½ persons, including father and mother in a labourer’s

family though he gives 4.8 as the average number of children for each

family in villages and hamlets.[168] Another writer gives 3 persons as

the average number for a labourer’s family.[169] The cases of disputed

settlements which are brought before Quarter Sessions confirm the

substantial truth of these estimates. It is remarkable that where the

father is living seldom more than two or three children are mentioned,

often only one, though in cases of widows where the poverty is recent

and caused as it were by the accidental effect of the husband’s

premature death, there are often five to ten children. In Nottingham, of

seventeen families, who had recently come to the town and been taken in

as tenants, and which the Council wanted to eject for fear of

overcrowding, only one had four children, one three, and the rest only

two or one child apiece.[170]

Footnote 168:

King (Gregory), _Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions_,

p. 44, pp. 48-9.

Footnote 169:

_Grasier’s Complaint_, p. 60.

Footnote 170:

_Nottingham, Records of the Borough of_, Vol. IV., pp. 312-5, 1613.

In fact, however large the birth-rate may have been, and this we have no

means of ascertaining, few children in the wage-earning class were

reared. Of those who reached maturity, many were crippled in mind or

body, forming a large class of unemployables destined to be a burthen

instead of strength to the community.

This appalling loss and suffering was not due to the excessive work of

married women but to their under-feeding and bad housing. Probably the

women of the wage-earning class actually accomplished less work than the

women of the husbandman class; but the latter worked under better

conditions and were well nourished, with the result that their sons and

daughters have been the backbone of the English nation.

The sacrifice of the wage-earners’ children was caused by the mother’s

starvation; vainly she gave her own food to the children for then she

was unable to suckle the baby and grew too feeble for her former work.

Probably she had herself been the daughter of a husbandman and was

inured to labour from child hood. “Sent abroad into service and hardship

when but 10 years old” as Oliver Heywood wrote of a faithful servant,

she met the chances which decide a servant’s life. The work on farms was

rough, but generally healthy. At first the child herded the pigs or the

geese and followed the harrow and as she grew older the poultry yard and

the cows divided her attention with the housework. Sometimes she was

brutally treated and often received little training in her work, but

generosity in meat and drink has always been characteristic of the

English farmer, and during the hungry years of adolescence the average

girl who was a servant in husbandry was amply nourished. Then came

marriage. The more provident waited long in the hope of securing

independence, and one of those desirable cottages with four acres of

land, but to some the prospect seemed endless and at last they married

hoping something would turn up; or perhaps they were carried away by

natural impulses and married young without any thought for the future.

Such folly was the despair of Churchwardens and Overseers, yet the folly

need not seem so surprising when we consider that delay brought the

young people no assurance of improvement in their position. Church and

State alike taught that it was the duty of men and women to marry and

bring forth children, and if for a large class the organisation of

Society made it impossible for them to rear their children, who is to

blame for the fate of those children, their parents or the community?

After one of these imprudent marriages the husband sometimes continued

to work on a farm as a servant, visiting his wife and children on

Sundays and holidays. By this means he, at least, was well fed and well

housed. The woman with a baby to care for and feed, could not leave her

home every day to work and must share the children’s food. In

consequence she soon began to practise starvation. Her settlement was

disputed, and therefore her dwelling was precarious. Nominally she was

transferred on marriage to the parish where her husband was bound as

servant for the term of one year, but the parish objected to the

settlement of a married man lest his children became a burden on them.

No one doubted that it was somebody’s duty to care for the poor, but

arrangements for relief were strictly parochial and the fear of

incurring unlimited future responsibilities led English parishioners to

strange lengths of cruelty and callousness. The fact that a woman was

soon to have a baby, instead of appealing to their chivalry, seemed to

them the best reason for turning her out of her house and driving her

from the village, even when a hedge was her only refuge.

The once lusty young woman who had formerly done a hard day’s work with

the men at harvesting was broken by this life. It is said of an army

that it fights upon its stomach. These women faced the grim battle of

life, laden with the heavy burden of child-bearing, seldom knowing what

it meant to have enough to eat. Is it surprising that courage often

failed and they sank into the spiritless, dismal ranks of miserable

beings met in the pages of Quarter Sessions Records, who are constantly

being forwarded from one parish to another.

Such women, enfeebled in mind and body, could not hope to earn more than

the twopence a day and their food which is assessed as the maximum rate

for women workers in the hay harvest. On the contrary, judging from the

account books of the period, they often received only one penny a day

for their labour. Significant of their feebleness is the Norfolk

assessment which reads, “Women and such impotent persons that weed

corne, or other such like Labourers 2d with meate and drinke, 6d

without.”[171] Such wages may have sufficed for the infirm and old, but

they meant starvation for the woman with a young family depending on her

for food. And what chance of health and virtue existed for the children

of these enfeebled starving women?

Footnote 171:

_Eng. Hist. Rev._, Vol. xiii., p. 522.

On the death or desertion of her husband the labouring woman became

wholly dependent on the Parish for support. The conduct of the

magistrates in fixing maximum wages at a rate which they knew to be

below subsistence level seems inexplicable; is in fact inexplicable

until it is understood that these wages were never intended to be

sufficient for the support of a family. Statute 31 Eliz. and others,

show that the whole influence of the Government and administration was

directed to prevent the creation of a class of wage-earners. It was an

essential feature of Tudor policy to foster the Yeomanry, from whose

ranks were recruited the defenders of the realm. Husbandmen were

recognised as “the body and stay” of the kingdom.[172] They made the

best infantry when bred “not in a servile or indigent fashion, but in

some free and plentiful manner.”[173] If the depopulation of the

country-side went on unchecked, there would come to pass “a mere

sollitude and vtter desolation to the whole Realme, furnished only with

shepe and shepherdes instead of good men; wheareby it might be a prey to

oure enymies that first would sett vppon it.”[174]

Footnote 172:

Lipson, _Economic Hist. of England_, p. 153.

Footnote 173:

Bacon, _Works_, Vol. VI., p. 95.

Footnote 174:

Lamond (Eliz.) _Discourse of the Common weal_, 1581.

Probably the consideration of whether a family could be fed by a

labourer’s wage, seldom entered the Justices’ heads. They wished the

family to win its food from a croft and regarded the wages as merely

supplementary. The Justices would like to have exterminated

wage-earners, who were an undesirable class in the community, and they

might have succeeded as the conditions imposed upon the women made the

rearing of children almost impossible, had not economic forces

constantly recruited the ranks of wage-earners from the class above

them.

The demands of capital however for labour already exceeded the supply

available from the ranks of husbandmen, and could only be met by the

establishment of a class of persons depending wholly on wages. The

strangest feature of the situation was the fact that the magistrates who

were trying to exterminate wage-earners were often themselves

capitalists creating the demand.

The actual proportion of wage-earners in the seventeenth century can

only be guessed at. The statement of a contemporary[175] that Labourers

and Cottagers numbered 2,000,000 persons, out of a population of only

5,000,000 must be regarded as an exaggeration; in any case their

distribution was uneven.

Footnote 175:

_Grasier’s Complaint_, p. 60.

Complaints are not infrequently brought before Quarter Sessions from

parishes which say they are burdened with so great a charge of poor that

they cannot support it; to other parishes the Justices are sometimes

driven to issue orders on the lines of a warrant commanding “the

Churchwardens of the townes of Screwton and Aynderby to be more diligent

in relieving their poore, that the court be not troubled with any

further claymours therein.”[176]

Footnote 176:

_Yorks. N.R. Q.S. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 22-3, 1605.

On the other hand there were many districts where the wage-earner was

hardly known and the authorities, like the Tithing men of Fisherton

Delamere could report that they “have (thanks to the Almighty God

theirfor) no popish recusants; no occasion to levy twelvepence, for none

for bear to repair to divine service; no inns or alehouses licensed or

unlicensed, no drunken person, no unlawful weights or measures, no

neglect of hues and cries, no roads out of repair, no wandering rogues

or idle persons, and no inmates of whom they desire information.”[177]

Or the Constable of Tredington who declared that “the poor are weekly

relieved, felons none known. Recusants one Bridget Lyne, the wife of

Thos. Lyne. Tobacco none planted. Vagrants Mary How, an Irish woman and

her sister were taken and punished according to the Statute and sent

away by pass with a guide towards Ireland in the County of Cork.”[178]

or as in another report “We have no bakers or alehouses within our

parish. We cannot find by our searches at night or other time that any

rogues or vagabonds are harboured saving Mr. Edward Hall who lodged a

poor woman and her daughter. We do not suffer any vagrants which we see

begging in our parish but we give them punishment according as we

ought.”[179]

Footnote 177:

_Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 93. _Wilts Q.S. Rec._, 1621.

A similar detailed return was made from the Hundred of Wilton in 1691.

Many often return ‘omnia bene’ and the like in brief.

Footnote 178:

Bund (J. W. Willis) _Worcestershire Co. Rec._, Vol. I., p. 564, 1634.

Footnote 179:

_Ibid._ Vol. I., p. 571, 1634.

A review of the whole position of women in Agriculture at this time,

shows the existence of Family Industry at its best, and of Capitalism at

its worst. The smaller farmers and more prosperous husbandmen led a life

of industry and independence in which every capacity of the women,

mental, moral and physical had scope for development and in which they

could secure the most favourable conditions for their children—while

among capitalistic farmers a tendency can already be perceived for the

women to withdraw from the management of business and devote themselves

to pleasure. At the other end of the scale Capitalism fed the man whom

it needed for the production of wealth but made no provision for his

children; and the married woman, handicapped by her family ties, when

she lost the economic position which enabled her through Family Industry

to support herself and her children, became virtually a pauper.

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