The Agricultural Labourer

Verdon, Nicola

doi:10.1007/978-1-137-31674-5_3

Nicola Verdon²

191 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter explores the complexities behind the term ‘agricultural labourer’, focusing on those who worked on the land on a full-time basis. First, the core or constant men—those employed in a supervisory capacity and/or with livestock—and second, those termed ‘ordinary’ labourers—a disparate group who encountered a variety of employment practices and developed a range of skills—are discussed. The nature of the everyday labour process is analysed, and how these were shaped by region, age and gender, before the chapter moves on to consider how far, and why, these changed in the era before the First World War. The impact of new farm machinery, of agricultural depression and of changing aspirations among farmworkers all emerge as significant.

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Notes

1.
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2.
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3.
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4.
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5.
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6.
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7.
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8.
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9.
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10.
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11.
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12.
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13.
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14.
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15.
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16.
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17.
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18.
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19.
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20.
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21.
Hudson, Nature in Downland, p. 126.
22.
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23.
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24.
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26.
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27.
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28.
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29.
B.P.P., 1867–1868, XVII, Report by Mr. Henley, p. 54.
30.
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31.
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32.
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34.
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35.
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36.
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37.
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38.
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39.
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40.
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41.
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42.
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49.
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50.
The best description of this remains David H. Morgan, Harvesters and harvesting: A study of the rural proletariat, 1840–1900 (London, 1982).
51.
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52.
Reading Mercury, 15 September 1888.
53.
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54.
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55.
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56.
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57.
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58.
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59.
Women agricultural workers in this region have also proved a source of fascination to historians. See Valerie G. Hall, Women at work, 1860–1939: How different industries shaped women’s experiences (Woodbridge, 2013); Judy Gielgud, ‘Nineteen century farm women in Northumberland and Cumbria: The neglected workforce’ (unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Sussex, 1992); Jane Long, Conversations in cold rooms: Women, work and poverty in nineteenth-century Northumberland (Woodbridge, 1999), ch. 4.
60.
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61.
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65.
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66.
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67.
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68.
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71.
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72.
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73.
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74.
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75.
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79.
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80.
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81.
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82.
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83.
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84.
See Alun Howkins, ‘The Discovery of Rural England’, in R. Colls and P. Dodds, eds., Englishness: Politics and culture, 1880–1920 (London, 1986), pp. 62–88; Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London: A study in the relationship between classes in Victorian society (Oxford, 1971).
85.
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86.
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88.
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89.
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90.
B.P.P., 1893–1894, XXV, General report, p. 38.
91.
MERL, SR 6, NUAW B/1, General Secretary Report and Balance Sheet for the year ending 31 December 1907.
92.
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Modern British History, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
Nicola Verdon

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Verdon, N. (2017). The Agricultural Labourer. In: Working the Land. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-31674-5_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-31674-5_3
Published: 15 July 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-30439-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-31674-5
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