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 43prolific 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 44was 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, 45was 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]

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 46two 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]

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 47for 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 48is 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 49wynowed 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]

50Fitzherbert’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]

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]

51The 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]

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 52have of heʳ 1.00^[80] to mᵒ Recᵈ. of Myles Gouth wife foʳ ploughing for her 1.04”^[81]

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]

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]

Katharine Davie was presented “for not paving before her doore.” Mrs. Elizabeth Parkhurst for 53“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]

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]

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 54among 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]

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]

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 55with 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]

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]

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]

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 56for 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]

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]

57The 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.

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]

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 58was 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.

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]

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 59hard 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]

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 60maintain 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.

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]

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) 61to 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]

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]

62“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]

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]

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 63restalrig for making good wailings of strae, 4s. (Scots money).”^[116]

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]

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, 64time 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 65among 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 66the 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.

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 67the truth of these figures, though it is not always clear whether the payments include meat and drink.^[122]

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. 68Except 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]

69A 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]

70The 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]

“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]

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]

71Thus 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 72at 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]

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 73maintain 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.

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.

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]

74In 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]

It was often necessary to compel unwilling overseers 75to 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]

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]

The housing problem however could not be settled by orders instructing the overseers to build cottages 76for 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]

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]

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 77Inhabitants 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]

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]

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]

78Labourers 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]

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]

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 79severall 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]

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]

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 80which 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]

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]

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 81poor, 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]

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]

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 82denyed 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]

There were endless examples of these conflicts often attended as in the above case with great cruelty.^[158]

83The 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]

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]

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 84by 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]

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]

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 85libtie that the said James shall remove out of this towne before the next Court Leet.”^[164]

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]

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]

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 86payne of xs a weeke and to provide suretyes to discharge the towne of the childe.”^[167]

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 87the 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]

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 88her 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 89future 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?

On the death or desertion of her husband the labouring woman became wholly dependent on the Parish for support. 90The 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]

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 91of 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.

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]

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 92wife 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]

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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