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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    field in the autumn in applo-picking, collecting acorns, afterwards in pre- paring turnips for housing, which lusts great part of the winter, when the weather is mild. Male children are principally employed in driving horse and ox ploughs, attending to cattle, and frequently in the same way as women. Female children are very rarely employed by us in the fields. Women generally receive as wages from Id. to 9c?. a-day ; those at Id. get a pint of cider, those at 9c?. none. Children from 4c?. to 6c?., increasing as their labour becomes more valuable; they also generally get cider in small quantities. Women for the most part work from eight in the morning till six in the evening. Boys from seven to six, taking two hours for their meals, and occasionally refreshing themselves with their cider. They [women] are generally remarkably healthy, and I think their morals for the most part are tolerably good; but there certainly are frequently com- mitted by them petty thefts, such as stealing wood, turnips, and apples. Children begin to work about 10 or 11 years of age. Their health is extremely good. I do not think they have much time for religious instruc- tion or school tuition, except on Sundays, when many of them attend Sun- day schools. As to the binding parish apprentices there is a great diversity of opinion : I am decidedly of opinion that it is the very best mode of bringing up a robust, honest, and industrious peasantry ; for with the farmers (I mean those who take their meals with their families and dependents, and work with them) they are well fed, clothed, and are brought up in honest and industrious hahits ; whereas with their parents they are too frequently en- couraged in those petty thefts I have before named, which initiates them in crime. I know that many think that giving labourers cider in their work is wrong ; but I am convinced it is the means of keeping them from those pests to society, the beer and cider shops, where the worst crimes are ma- tured and brought into action. No. 38. Communication from J. H. Matthews, Esq., Brad?iihch, Devon. Women are very little employed in agricultural labour in this neighbour- hood. During the season .of harvest they are engaged in binding corn, making hay, &c.; and sometimes also in weeding, and picking stones. Boys are employed from nine upwards in driving horses at plough, tending cattle, and driving them to and from their pastures. Girls seldom work out of doors, but are chiefly employed in domestic labour ; they milk cows, and feed pigs, &c. Women earn from 7c?. to 8d. per day, with a quart of cider ; boys, from 9 to 10 earn from 3d. to 9c?. Women work from eight a,m. to six p.m., an hour being allowed for dinner. Boys work rather longer. I think the physical condition of agricultural labourers of both sexes, with large, or even moderate families, is impaired by the small quantity of animal food which, with their small wages, they are enabled to obtain. The wages of the generality of able-bodied labourers does not exceed 7*. per week, with three or four pints of cider per day. Some masters give their servants opportunities of larger earnings by task-work. The moral condition of children is not much attended to after they leave the school. They generally have opportunities of attending some place of worship on the Sabbath, and in some families read some little of the Bible ; but generally speaking, their moral and intellectual attainments arc less at the age of 20 than at 9. Boys generally begin to work at 9 years old; girls at 10.