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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    , What amount of wages are they paid ?—About Sd. per day. Are they taken from school to earn anything by work, or kept at school though they might earn something by work ?—Both, according to the ability or otherwise of their parents to maintain them. Is there any domestic employment ?—The girls are employed in knitting Are parish apprentices common ; about how many annually, and to what trades {—Not so common as some years ago; now about one in seven years ; generally tailors and shoemakers. Are any premiums given, and what?—About Si. How are they treated ?—In case of improper treatment the parish officers would be required to interfere. Evidence of Mr. John Snowdon, Parish of Middlelon Tyas. Women. What sort of out-door labour are women employed in in each month''' —*rom November to February a small proportion of the women are em- ployed in pulling turnips and attending to the threshing and winnowino- machine: in March and April a much larger number knock about the manure droppings, and gather stones from grass pasture-lands ; in July and part of August all the women who ever go out to work weed corn, gather twitch-grass, hoe turnips, make hay, &c; in the remaining part of August and September, the harvest, gathering potatoes, twitch-grass, &c. What wages are they paid ?-Wages are Id. per hour, or 8d. a-dav • sometimes 1*. m hay-time'; Is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. in harvest. ' What are their hours of work?—From 8 to 12 o'clock, and from 1 to 5 • four ^ 1S' aS m hayUme' any over-hours, they rest for half an hour about What are their meal-hours and diet ?—Breakfast about seven, dinner 12 to one, tea about six. Bread and tea are chiefly eaten at all meals when out at work, therefore the tea is often cold; now and then they have bread and bacon when out, and when at home, one day potatoes with the fat of the bacon, and the next with the bacon itself; sometimes they have hard boiled eggs m the fields; and in summer, fruit pies, without sugar to their tea; in the evening they have usually coarse, or sometimes, according to their circumstances, white hot cakes, but always tea or coffee to every meal when they can get it hot. y oc]yha1t1are,the1effe,ctsof s«ch employment on the manners and morals, 1 r I fg'rlS,?'15 ^ uPwar,ds?-I am fully persuaded that no bad habits arise from their out-door work ; they are almost always attended by the master or foreman; it improves their health, and affords, I believe a Hind of moral restraint upon young girls, especially as they dread nothing ZTu aS t1 any,hAng -they have Said or done sh°i get Z into kbouret' * ^ thatltbecomes the object of gossip among the Jll !here an>-^estic employment ?-We have no domestic employment with us, except three or four dress-makers. What are the effects of no out-door employment, or of any re-ular do- ZTZT»?10n TvWe W°Uld,SayJhat the eifects of n° ouSooSmploy- rnent was bad, as with us none but the really idle are without it • I am not tT'ood el^ythgtrd0mf,iC empl°yment is otherwise ,l,an'conduc?ve wSSSLfH f^ 86 Wh°' lInde1' any circu™tances, are void of good principle, and of hese we are at present more than usually free. wnrt-T, fTrW P,refermi 10 in-d00r' or^ceversa, and why ?-Out-door work is, I believe always preferred to anylhing else, hence we have some- times to complam that our young people do not get off to service So soon 2 A