Reports of special assistant poor law commissioners on the employment of women and children in agriculture.

  • Board of guardians
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports of special assistant poor law commissioners on the employment of women and children in agriculture. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    » 90 MR. A. AUSTIN ON THE COUNTIES OF I hurt me, but I was always better when I was out in the fields at work. much^ better in health when working out of doors than when buttoning. Buttoners arc not so healthy as those who stir about at work. I don't think there is anything wrong takes place in the harvest or hay field • Mr In- gram never allowed talking at those times. ' In the spring I used to work from eight till five ; at hay-mating from six till seven ; and at harvest from eight till sunset. I have ahvavs had Gd a-day in the spring for weeding ; 8d. a-day for hay-making ; and Is. a-dav for harvest. I don't think all the women get Is. a-day at harvest but I managed to work hard and earn it. When I was about 17 I lived with my father and mother, two sisters older than I was, and a brother 14 years old, in a cottage at Milton Abbas Robert Vacher and his wife, with three children, about 1, 2, and 3 years old lived in the same cottage. We had the two rooms down stairs, and the Vachers the two rooms up stairs. There were only four rooms in the cottage. There were two cottages in the building. My father and mother two sisters and young brother, slept in the back room down stairs. There were two beds : my father and mother had one ; my sisters and brother hacl the other. I slept out at my grandmother's. The Vachers and their chil- dren slept in the back room up stairs. The Vachers still live in the same two rooms, and they have six or seven children living with them. My brother and his wife live in the two rooms down stairs ; they have five chil- dren ; the eldest is about 14, and the youngest between 2 and 3. The cot- tages in Milton Abbas are very crowded : there are many families that live together in one room; they sometimes put up a curtain between the beds. I believe that there are a great many bastards in Milton Abbas. My father worked for Lady Caroline [Damer] : he had 9s. a-week. My sisters worked as I did ; first at buttoning, and afterwards in the fields. My father had high wages; if he had worked for a farmer he would have had perhaps only 7s. a-week. No. 25. Mrs. Bustle, Wife of Charles Bustle, Farm-labourer, JFliihhurch, Dorset, examined. My husband is carter to Mr. Fowler. He has 7s. a-week wages. We have also our cottage with a garden, and ten lugs of potato-ground, rent-free; also a bushel of grist corn, if we like as much, a-week ; that is, tailings at 5s. per bushel. Every week or ten days my husband goes a journey with the waggon ; he has then Is. for his dinner, and another shilling which he may spend at the public-house where he puts up, which he always does, however. If he carries his victuals with him he has still 2s. every journey. He is out a day and night generally on a journey. Mr. Fowler also gives us furze for firing, and my husband has 1/. at harvest, because he can't do tut-work like the others; he is wanted for something else. I have five girls and a boy. The three eldest girls, 8, 10, and 12, do buttoning, but I don't think they earn 2s. a-week between them ; they spoil a good deal of cotton, and dirty more ; and they don't get all money for their buttons; it would be better if they did. The boy is too young to work. The bread we make at home is better than baker's bread; I make six loaves out of a bushel of corn: we have not quite so much as that every week; but what we have, with a bag of potatoes [240 lbs], is quite as much as we consume at home. Four baker's loaves, with the potatoes, are not enough. Baker's bread does not satisfy the children ; it is licked away in no time, and they are hungry all day long with it. We never know the taste of butcher's meat, except when a piece is given to us.