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.

    131/404 (page 111)
    tret places as servants sooner than others; they know more, and are not so difficult to please. We don't let our apprentices go home to see then- parents ; .parents who have heen apprenticed never like their children to run home much. It is a strict, rule with us that apprentices sleep at home ; also that boys and girls are always kept apart. We always contrive to keep girls in a through room, if possible, so as to keep them in order, and we never let them go into the stables. Girls see boys only at dinner, and at night, when they all sit down in the kitchen together ; the girls are there at needlework. My father and mvself don't strike a boy once a year; now and then, perhaps, I give one a smart switch with a stick, but a sharp word is generally enough. No. 42. Mrs. Cozens, Wife of Cozens, St. Thomas's, Exeter, Farm- labourer, examined. I am 37 years old. I have worked in the fields a great deal, many years. I was always rather the better for it. I think digging potatoes is the hardest work, but it is better paid. I would go out now if there was work to do. I like it. I was an apprentice from nine years old till twenty-one. I had a kind master and mistress ; Hived well and lodged comfortably. I think it is a good thing for boys and girls to be apprenticed, more particularly now they have no al- lowance [from the parish as a premium to the master]. But I would rather a child should be able to be kept at home if it could earn its living than be apprenticed. The wages of women are, for Stone-picking, Id. a seam, or 1*. a-day, without cider.' Apple-picking, Id. a-day, and a quart of cider. Potato-digging, 1*. a-day, and a quart of cider. Clover-picking, 8c?. a-day, without cider. Hay-making, 8c/. a-day, with cider. Harvest, loS. a-day, with cider. Women do not always drink their cider ; they bring it home and give it their husbands. Boys, not apprenticed, go to farm-labour between seven and eight years old. 'They live in the farm-house, and are found in living, but they find their own clothes. They get about Gd. a-week wages at first. No. 43. George Moxey, of Shillingford, near Exeter, Farm-labourer. I was born at Shillingford, and am 42 years old. I am a farm-labourer. I was apprenticed soon after I was nine years old. My master had a good deal of land ; he had four or five apprentices besides me, two girls, the others Were boys. I had a good place ; I never was beaten, and never ill-used by my master; but I was badly used by the other apprentices; apprentices always beat each other, go wherever you will. 1 had plenty to eat and drink. My master and mistress and family and all got dinner together. We had meat everyday, generally boiled pork; sometimes we might have mutton. Wc had broth for breakfast sometimes, at other times fried bacon and potatoes. I always had a bellyful; if short one day I made up for it the next. The boys and men, eight or nine of them, slept in one room. The girls did not often work in the fields with the men,—sometimes one might occasionally. The girls were not allowed to