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  1. #11
    clarefmshaw
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    hi Dennis

    Thanks so much for the information, which I will definitely chase up. Your post has actually made me realise that I might have a local WEA publication about our village which might help.......many thanks for reminding me!

    Incidentally, I live in the village of Winteringham which is about 20 miles from Keelby. My husband's direct line of agricultural labourers has been in this area, literally within about a 5-mile radius, for almost 300 years - it's been really easy to track them down, although at times rather unexciting!

    Clare
    Last edited by Guest; 10-10-2007 at 1:57 PM.

  2. #12
    Dennis Harker
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    Hi again Clare,

    I was not too far away from Winteringham just over a week ago - visiting my cousin and other members of her family at Elsham. We left a white Somerset, as we'd had a fair bit of snow on the Friday morning, to arrive in a slightly warmer Lincolnshire (that doesn't happen too often). However, by the Monday, as you will know, the snow and ice had found us. Departed in black ice on the Wednesday morning but arrived back in a much warmer Somerset (10°C - almost tropical!).

    I started my family research in order to answer a few questions for my mother and father, complete with skeletons that they suspected had been hiding in the cupboard. Sure enough, out they popped and it has made the research all the more interesting for that, both my parents are pleased to have a couple of questions answered at last.

    I've also learnt a lot more about how badly off the agricultural industry was at the turn of the century (1900) and it has also made me appreciate a lot more the hardships that they went through to raise their families although they did their best to have some good times whilst surviving on very little money. Most of the close family eventually realised there were better wages for less work in other industries and some went to Scunthorpe steelworks and the like. My Dad moved across to Anglia Water and wished he'd made the move years before. Just clocked up his 85th and still digs his own garden to grow most of their own vegetables. Made of strong stuff in those days!!

    I enjoyed growing up having the freedom of the farms (if not the money) but eventually escaped to sea where I spent nearly 39 years in the MN and the eventual pleasure of carrying out a refit in Immingham - a place I had never been to until the RFA decided to send me there! I also remember as a kid catching the paddle ferries from New Holland to Hull and back - it's just a shame that they weren't preserved properly when the bridge opened - another part of history allowed to slip away. I know the Tattershall Castle is on the Thames and I think it is Lincoln Castle alongside as a restaurant in Grimsby - but they've taken so much of the ships' original fittings away.

    However, I ramble. Hope you have success in compidships that they went through to raise their families although they did their best to have some good times whilst surviving on very little money.

    Best wishes.

    !!!

  3. #13
    clarefmshaw
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    Thanks, Dennis, rambling is good in my book!

    Sorry that this reply is a bit late, but I've been away for a few days.

    No, your reply has been great to read - my husband's family have also been very closely linked with agriculture and iron/steelworking for the past 150 years in this neck of the woods.

    It's particularly interesting to read from census info that my husband's forebears on both sides have been 'foremen' in agriculture and steelmaking, which I didn't know before - which may help to explain (in terms of the "gene pool") how my husband ended up as the (current) leading trade unionist at Scunthorpe Steelworks!

    thanks again for your reminiscences.

  4. #14
    Dennis Harker
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    Interesting coincidences here. My last four years in the MN were spent working in the RFA Headquarters at Portsmouth. My elected role was as the NUMAST Liaison Officer. This was (and is) a trade union post, still employed by the shipping company but acting for the union, (National Union of Marine, Aviation and Sea Transport officers), who look after MN Officers and I was involved in everything from Policy, negotiations for terms and conditions and representing officers at various hearings. Very, very interesting and rewarding work. I presume your husband feels the same?

  5. #15
    Thisby
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    Hello,

    I've been reading this thread with interest as my ggrandmother's family were agricutural labourers (and paper mill workers) in Orpington. It appears that my gg grandmother married into an Ogden family who came from Lancashire/Manchester. I'm wondering was there some migration from the North around the 1830-50s?

    It looks as though there is a pattern forming with my other ancestors who were ag labourers in Downham Essex, Langdon Hills Essex, and Churchill Oxfordshire. By the 1880s they seemed to have married and settled in London.

    The tide has turned again and most of the current family now live outside London.

  6. #16
    jeeb
    Guest

    Default Interesting read.

    Hi Clare,
    The Illustrated Shepherd's Life by W H Hudson and published by Book Club Associates in 1987 is an excellent read if you are interested in Agricultral Labourers in the latter half of the 19th century. It was first published in 1910 under the title 'A Shepherd's Life'. It tells the story of farm life based on a real life person's account who knew the author. He was a shepherd on a Wiltshire farm through the Victorian reign. It gives details of every day life on a farm as seen through the shepherd's eyes and is probably the sort of material you are after.
    I am a present day sheep farmer and I understand and relate well with the writing in this book and can recommend it.

    Cheers,
    Jeremy

  7. #17
    jeeb
    Guest

    Default Migration of the masses.

    Quote Originally Posted by Thisby View Post
    Hello,

    I'm wondering was there some migration from the North around the 1830-50s?
    Hi Thisby,
    There was a general migration of people from the countryside into the towns around and after the mid 19th century. This was not just from the north but in general. As mechanisation took over less people were required to work the land and with growth of industry in the towns the population moved to find jobs. Generally pay was better in the towns than agricultral based labour but often at the expense of poorer working/living conditions. Large areas of slum housing grew in the urban areas in latter 19th century to accomodate the mass influx of people moving from the countryside to find work. These back to back houses were crammed with large families and they had little or no sanitation and the infant mortality was high.
    Cheers,
    Jeremy

  8. #18
    suedent
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    In some cases people who were in receipt of Parish Relief in rural areas were "encouraged" to move to work in the Industrial North.

    This subject was covered in the episode of Who Do You Think You Are which featured Jeremy Paxman.

  9. #19
    Thisby
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    Hi jeeb,

    I've only been researching for a few months and I've come to realise that there's so much more than just finding the names of my acestors

    I wonder why my Manchester agricutural labourers moved to Orpington to become agricutural labourers there rather than trying for work in a more urban area. One hard life for another. The men worked the land and the women worked in the paper mill.

    I can only imagine my other gg grandparents feelings when they moved from the lovely clean air of Oxfordshire and Essex to one of the small courts in Bermondsey in the 1850s which was right next to a glue factory. Actually I think living in Bermondsey must have been an a assualt on the nose, what with the docks, biscuit and vinegar factories and the tanneries. Sometimes when I walk down by the river, I can still faintly smell the spices that were delivered to the wharves.

    I noted that my gg grandfather was listed as an agricultural labourer at the age of 8 in Downham as well as the women in the family. Looks like childhood ended early in those days.

    Thisby

  10. #20
    jeeb
    Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thisby View Post
    Hi jeeb,

    I've only been researching for a few months and I've come to realise that there's so much more than just finding the names of my acestors

    I wonder why my Manchester agricutural labourers moved to Orpington to become agricutural labourers there rather than trying for work in a more urban area. One hard life for another. The men worked the land and the women worked in the paper mill.

    I can only imagine my other gg grandparents feelings when they moved from the lovely clean air of Oxfordshire and Essex to one of the small courts in Bermondsey in the 1850s which was right next to a glue factory. Actually I think living in Bermondsey must have been an a assualt on the nose, what with the docks, biscuit and vinegar factories and the tanneries. Sometimes when I walk down by the river, I can still faintly smell the spices that were delivered to the wharves.

    I noted that my gg grandfather was listed as an agricultural labourer at the age of 8 in Downham as well as the women in the family. Looks like childhood ended early in those days.

    Thisby
    Hi Thisby,
    Your ancestors will never fail to astound you. The notion held by a lot of people than our ancestors stayed in the same place is total fiction. Of course some families did remain in the same small area all their lives but a great many moved about the country and even abroad on a regular basis. The usual reason for movement was work and as I mentioned before there was a general movement from rural areas into the urban areas after 1850. People often moved to a new area if a relative was already there and it may be worth looking into that for your ancestors movement from Manchester to Orpington. Remember Orpington would be a lot more rural then than it is now. Young girls would seek work as parlour maids, cooks etc and the lads as grooms and servants of various kinds. The people often travelled long distances to find the jobs or simply found jobs locally then moved with their wealthier employers, the censuses bare the facts that servants are often living a long way from their birthplace. These servants married in the area and established a family in a new county many miles from their original home. This of course is only the tip of the iceberg but is one reason why the 'working classes' settled in new areas.

    Jeremy

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