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.

    126/404 (page 106)
    I think girls, after serving an apprenticeship, make belter servants, and also better wives; they learn useful things, and are willing to do everything necessary. A girl not properly brought up to know her work does not know what to do if she marries; if she has a family everythinir directly is in conlusion. I think generally farmers liko apprentices ; for if they turn out well they are very useful; I find it so in my own case. Apprentices are not treated as they used to be ; formerly they were only half clothed and half fed ; such things are never heard of now. Sometimes, perhaps, wben a farmer is very poor, he can't afford to clothe and feed his apprentice'as well as he is in other places ; but there is no ill treatment; there can't be, with the activity of the magistrates in looking after the matter. I remember formerly when girls turned out regularly with the boys to plough, &c, and were up to their knees in dirt, in the middle of winter, in all kinds of employments. Now you never see a girl about in the fields. No 36. Statement of Mr. John Gould, Poltimore, near Exeter. I beg to say that for many years past I have been a most strenuous advo- cate that the able-bodied man should be paid in money for his work suffi- cient to give him the opportunity of maintaining himself and family without parochial assistance; and to prove this fact, as much as 11 years since I subjected myself to be brought before a bench of magistrates at Exeter because I would give the labourers in this parish 9*. per week instead of 7s., and not to receive any parochial aid, for which I received from the Bench their thanks as well as their support, and up to this time this is the wages I pay, and which have become tolerably general in this neighbour- hood ever since, or for the greatest part of three or four parishes, the men receiving three pints of cider per day. Women are paid 9d. per day, with one quart of cider. Boys are employed after nine years of age (by me and some others) at Is. 6d. per week, with a quart of cider per day, their wages increasing as they grow in years, and according to their conduct. Girls are but seldom employed in early years in agricultural pursuits. At this season of the year [Christmas] women are employed by me and others in taking up the Swedish turnips for the cattle or housing, and for which they receive Id. per peck, and by this work they can earn Is. a-day; the roots of the turnips are cut off, as well as the green, and deposited in heaps ready for cartage. I strongly adhere to piece-work as much as possible, so that all may earn what they are enabled, and it is far less trouble to the master or his hind. The hours of labour are in summer from seven to six, in winter from seven to five. I am a strong advocate for allotment gardens for the labourers of all classes, taking care that it be rendered to them of the best land, as near as possible for convenience to their cottages, beginning from 20 perches and not exceeding 40, according to their families. The poor are generally healthy, and all well provided for in moral and religious instruction in this parish and district. Parish apprentices are altogether done away with in this neighbourhood ; I myself was the first to oppose this improper mode of unpleasant servitude, having often known all three parties equally unwilling, viz, the master, the apprentice, and the parents of the child. No. 37. Statement of Abraham Smith, Esq., of Treastear, near Exeter. Women are generally employed in the spring in planting peas and beans, weeding corn and grass fields, then in hay-making, after that in the harvest-