Genealogy Chat

See Below

I found the following in the Liverpool Family History Magazine June 02 and it puts a very different slant on our Ag Labs. They are the salt of the Earth and we should all be proud of them! I know I am! 'Food For Thought - He must have been an Ag Lab ' 'Ask yourselves whether you know the gestation period for a sheep or a cow, and you can't read or write to make a note of it. The ag lab knew when the animal would calve by observing the position of the stars and work it out from that, or from the particular religious festivals being celebrated in church at the appropriate times. Reading and writing is one thing, but it wasn't necessary. Numeracy, however, or a limited knowledge of it, was essential so as to count his or his master’s livestock and his own money and to tell the time. It was no good thinking that 7 o'clock came immediately after three bells had just struck on the church clock! There was no electricity, the lanes were bad and there was no health service. The Ag lab knew how to make his own rush lights to light his home, the shortest and driest route between 2 places and which herbs to pick as remedies for his families' ailments. He knew his neighbours far better than we know ours. We isolate ourselves in our cars and in front of our television sets. He relied on neighbours with different skills from his, to help him out when the need arose. He was thrifty where we borrow on bits of plastic he and his family had to make ends meet regardless or with great shame go on the parish. Yes, he could even forecast his local weather by watching the reactions of wildlife and plants to changing conditions. He was far better at it than any of us from our centrally heated homes and offices. He knew how to thatch and how to get straight straw for thatching whereas we send for experts to fix a cracked slate. He was tough. He could walk for days behind a plough, pulled by a team of horses, and still walk miles to church each Sunday. A 20 mile walk, laden with produce or purchases to and from market each week was also the norm for some. No fancily equipped gymnasium for him, yet he was fitter than today's health freaks, who maybe should take a lesson or two from his ancestors. Can you use a sickle or scythe from dawn to dusk, in all weathers? Can you snare a rabbit for dinner or cut beanpoles from a hedge in a manner that will promote further growth? Can you mix your own whitewash, or train a dog to hunt or round up sheep for you? Come to that can you milk a cow or slaughter and butcher a sheep or pig? So-called ag labs were no fools. They survived and very few of us would be here to read this if they hadn't! Leave your car at home and walk to work tomorrow, even if it is five miles, your ancestor did!' Janet

I recon that although life was not filled with luxuries the needs were simpler and more easily met. Game from the fields and woods provided meat. Vegetables from the fields filled the pot. Fuel came from the woods. Bees provided honey, ale and wine was home-made. Whatever he earned was his to spend on his family, no Income tax on the low-paid. No Council Tax. Transport needs met by his, his employer's or his neighbour's horse. His wife would sew or knit clothing. Furniture was rough and simple, knocked up from local timber, not from IKEA. He could bring up eight kids on a few shillings a week.

Thanks Janet and Brian, I have saved both of your posts. It certainly hit home to me a few weeks ago, how an ag lab worked and lived. I went to visit the village (blink and miss it!) of my ggg gf who was an ag lab in Hants. The lane that I drove down was so tiny and the fields were vast. I couldn't imagine living like they did. I take my hat off to all ag labs!! Julia

Three sisters are working dawn to dusk in a lincolnshire field. They are cutting winter cabbage by hand. They are in line and linked together by a rope around their waists. The middle one is blind.That is what some of my family contributed.

I have to say that I don't recognise Brian's version of the past. Game from the woods was poaching: you could be transported. There was similarly a very dim view taken of those who collected firewood from anywhere but common land. My 'father of eight' ancestor could NOT support his children on his income. He needed parish relief on a weekly basis and two of his sons were forced to emigrate.

My other half descends from a long line of ag labs, his father worked the land too. Hubby still proclaims 'its going to be a hard winter, just look at the berries on that' He has some very weird foresight into the weather. I'm still not sure if it actually works out as he predicts! So I guess some of the old traditions are still there but getting a little diluted now!

I come from a long line of Ag Labs, and have been one fror 30 odd years, I used to know so much more than I do now ( lots of info. not used, so forgotten) Farming will never be quite the same, its now BIG business. Shame. Tina

I have to say I recognise much of what Brian has said and I lived in a rural situation which had not changed much in 200 years.

You could indeed be convicted and even transported overseas for poaching game and that could include rabbits and hares. Most country people caught rabbits through gin traps, ferrets and wire made into a noose and put over the burrow hole, all methods which I remember being used during W War 2. Unfortunately 2 of my pet cats were caught in the gintraps and died horrible deaths, of which I still have very strong memories. We lived in a farm cottage with 2 up and 2 down, with a scullery at the back, a well outside and the toilet (a bucket and seat with newspaper for toilet paper. No newspaper? Well there was always Dock Leaves!!) at the bottom of the garden, to be emptied into a ditch which we had to dig ourselves, which served as manure for the vegetable garden!

Most ag labs going back over the centuries would have done as we did during the 2 World War years, grown their own vegetables, picked wild mushrooms, wortleberries and blackberries in season and would make plenty of pies. Wild crab apples and sloes and other berries were used in other ways. Fruit Liquids would have been strained through muslin bags and sour milk used in so many ways to make junket or scones. Many ag labs would have kept chickens, a goat and certainly would not have gone hungry unless too much drink was consumed! There was no electricity and candles would have been used.

There were 4 of us living in the cottage desribed above during the War Years, but a look at the 1891 Census revealed a family of 7 children and 3 adults and I marvel to think how they could have packed them all in there. The same family was there in 1871 and 1881 with slightly fewer children than 1891. In 1871 the family were working on the farmland, but by 1891 they were working in the nearby quarry, going up in the world?? Well, by 1901 they had totally disappeared from the area.

There was always plenty of commonland around the country for people to be able to collect firewood legally, and I certainly remember dragging branches home from the copses on the moorland to 'feed' the fire, and that custom had not changed over 200 years. The way of farming that I remember in Cornwall with the scything of the fields, stooking the hay /corn and the hay carts with their farm horses had not changed very much in over 200 years, though as the 2 World War progressed, I saw the coming of the Hay Binder first of all,and then the Tractor, followed by the Combine Harvester, which saw one owner using it for the several farms in the area. Many people had already left the land to work at the nearby Claypits and Tin Mines but whether that was better employment than farming would be very debateable. They may have been paid more money, but at what cost, as we all know what happened to the Clay Pits and the Tin Mines and the atrocious conditions people working in these areas lived under.

There was no money to spare as a farm labourer, but they did have a roof over their heads, sometimes in the form of a tied cottage but by no means were they always tied cottages. They also had the the two most important elements of life that most people craved for, even in the towns, warmth and food. They also got plenty of exercise and fresh air, something that few Town Dwellers were able to enjoy.

It all went sour with the industrial revolution when people moved into the town/city for more lucratrive work and the ag lab realised he was being left behind moneywise.

I suppose, just like today, the grass was always greener on the other side of the fence but was it?

Oh yes, I have a poacher of wild game who was caught not once, but twice and then transported to OZ leaving behind a destitute family. I am not sure that he was poaching rabbits as he lived on the estate of one of the Royal Parks!

Most of my Ag Labs lived to a ripe old age. All my shoemakers never seemed to get past 40 but when you read of the horrendous concoctions they made for preserving the leather, that is not surprising. My bakers worked most of the night, as well as the daytime and some of these emigrated. The factory worker's conditions make you shudder and it needed a person like Shaftesbury to fight for the rights of the factory worker whilst it was left to Dickens to fight for the big Cities like London.

Janet North London Borders

Nudge for Sandra

I come from a great long line of ag labs and farmers. They lived notably long lives, lost few children in infancy and although I cannot know what privations they went through, they survived. In the 1850s, they all headed for Manchester, to work on the railways and in the Mills. They died like flies, of TB, childbirth and cholera mostly. Few made it past 40 and my huge bank of ancestors has dwindled down to ONE person by 1900 - my paternal grandfather. OC

Well I will certainly look at all my Ag Lab's in a different way now, it was a real eye opener, reading all the messages.

Hi Julie, What does 'a nudge ' mean ??

It just keeps the thread to the first page so it remains current.

Thanks Sue, There is so much to learn, wish I had started to do this 20 years ago. x

Nudge

Janet North London Borders

Sandra, adding any reply to a thread - 'nudge', 'n', or just a . - will 'bookmark' it so you can call it up again if you need to refresh your memory. (As I often do!)

Bee.

I just wanted to say 'thank you' for that fascinating insight into the life of Ag. Labs - I have loads in my ancestry, some as young as 10 and as old as 70. An aunt told me that she and her siblings picked oakum to help the family finances and they all looked forward to the spring when they had lambs tail pie - provided by granpa who was a shepherd. It truly was another world.

This is something that Clive Buckle said about ag labs earlier this year on 15/06/2007

A farm servant was different from an Ag Lab because

a) (S)he was hired on Lady Day for one year at a fixed wage.
b)(S)he had to be single and remain so for the year
c) Lived in

An Ag Lab was only paid when (s)he worked - bad weather could be a real tragedy

(S)he could marry

(S)he might have to walk miles to get to work

Many Ag Labs in Norfolk, Suffolk and Dorset worked under the gang system where conditions were so bad even parliament got round to doing something about.

and another reply on that thread then explained
Lady Day is on the 25th March which is first of the Vernal Equinox quarters of the year.
Farm years traditionally started on this day.

This is an interesting article
http://www.rootsweb.com/~engcam/aglab.htm

I also found this
http://www.littlecoxwell.com/history/class-terminology.php

ag. lab. - agricultural labourer

The term "Ag. Lab." is frequently found in census records, but it should not be taken at face value. Before the Twentieth Century the word "labourer" was used rather as we would use the word "worker", e.g., in factory worker, or shop worker. It should be taken as a general term for anyone employed in agriculture including a variety of highly skilled jobs, such as shepherds or cowmen. For instance a shepherd was entrusted by a farmer with the upkeep of a valuable resource, and was expected to have sufficient expertise to handle everything that pertained to his flocks, including their health.



Sue

n