Agriculture Discussions - Genealogy Wise
2024-03-29T13:42:53Z
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Tracing the makers of old farm machinery
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2010-02-11:3463583:Topic:228629
2010-02-11T12:37:11.900Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
My son has an old straw elevator and I thought it it would be interesting to find out more about the makers. The full history of the Lainchbury family and the machine are found at this link:…<div><br></br></div>
My son has an old straw elevator and I thought it it would be interesting to find out more about the makers. The full history of the Lainchbury family and the machine are found at this link:<div><br/></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000" face="'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"><a href="http://lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/farmgirl.html">http://lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/farmgirl.html</a></span></font></div>
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A personal account of an "ag lab" in 1840 re the Corn Laws
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-09-04:3463583:Topic:157977
2009-09-04T12:28:45.893Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
The Corn Laws<br />
This extract from the North Devon Journal dated 2 Apr 1840 shows just how bad life was at the time.<br />
This was kindly lent to me by Brenda Powel. Thank you Brenda. James Vicary being her ancestor.<br />
<br />
“The Corn Laws- Our readers are probably aware that the Anti-corn-law delegates have lately had up agricultural labourers from the country to London, for examination. The following statement, as it comes from a labourer of the neighbourhood [ North Devon ] will be interesting to our…
The Corn Laws<br />
This extract from the North Devon Journal dated 2 Apr 1840 shows just how bad life was at the time.<br />
This was kindly lent to me by Brenda Powel. Thank you Brenda. James Vicary being her ancestor.<br />
<br />
“The Corn Laws- Our readers are probably aware that the Anti-corn-law delegates have lately had up agricultural labourers from the country to London, for examination. The following statement, as it comes from a labourer of the neighbourhood [ North Devon ] will be interesting to our readers. It is copied from the “Morning Chronicle” of Monday:-James Vicary, of Great Torrington, was then examined: I am a farm labourer. I arrived in London last evening. I have been employed by Mr. Braginton, for a year and a half. I get 9s a week. I have six children. The eldest is twenty-two years of age; the second, 20; the third, 18; the fourth, 16; the fifth,11; and the youngest about three years old. Four are living with me. The third earned 1s or 1s. 6d a week, on an average; the fourth, who is about sixteen years of age, is deficient in his mind, and gets nothing; the fifth goes to school, and the youngest remains at home. My wife earns 6d a week. My master gives his men 9s a week, but the regular wages of all the other farmers is only 7s a week, and one quart of cider a day. The latter is worth 2d a quart, which is equal to 8s a week. He is paid 7s in money. The reason I get higher wages is that my master is a little better off than other farmers, and he ( witness) did a little odd work. I get 11s a week altogether; of that I lay out on bread 3s 6d. The farmer give us a crop of potatoes if we manure the land. I feed a pig in the course of a year. I buy corn for it and save the waste. The pig eats 7 or 8 bushels of barley at 5s or 5s 6d a bushel. We drink herb tea, or perhaps a little peppermint. My wife occasionally gets half an ounce of tea. She has no sugar. We have three-quarters of a pound of candles a week. We eat no shambles meat[ meat from the slaughter house] but have a rasher of bacon and a bit of bread. We have no cheese. We may taste it once in a while. The family generally have fried potatoes and a bit of bacon. We purchase coal at 1s a hundred [weight, about 25kgs, 56 lbs]. We use on hundred and a half per week. Our yearly rent is £3.14s. I pay poor rates and highway rates- on an average 3s to 3s 6d a year. There are no church rates. We have but little clothing. I have had this jacket for five or six years or more. I only were it on Sundays. I bought the rest eight or nine years ago. The trousers were at first only second hand. My every-day clothes are very mean. I could show you a pair of trousers that made [sic] them myself. They are patched six or seven times over. They are nigh forty pounds weight, ... loud laughter.... I have had them since within a few days of my marriage. That was about 30 years ago. During that time I have had none else except a pair of sail canvass trousers and the pair I have on. I had the canvass trousers about three years. My wife buys the linen from a pack-man. She also buys clothing for herself and the children that way. I have two shirts. My wife has one gown in the course of a year. For one pair of shoes I pay 8s 6d. I wear the best only on Sundays. Married men have no better wages than single. For seven years, till my wages were raised, I had only 1 1\2 lb bacon a week for myself, wife and three children. In 1835 O got 7s wages. Corn was then 2s 6d or 3s a bushel. Now it is 5s or 6s a bushel. I was better off then than now. I had more of a bellyful. My wife now has less money to spend. The bread used is barley bread.<br />
The Chairman: Do you save any money? – Witness (with surprise): God bless you sir, no savings. I don’t know what will become of me when I am old. In illness I get 6s from a club. I pay the club 3d a week. I owe three quarters of a year’s rent. I know not how I shall pay it. I was never in debt so much before. The labourers on Lord Rolle’s estate get 7s a week. There are no railways near us. The people generally are in a state of starvation.<br />
By Mr. Sturge: These labourers who have 7s a week have no meat. Thirty years ago I got 7s or 8s a week wages. I used then to be up on job-work. In war time we lived better then. We could get a little wheat and labourers were generally better off. Some of my neighbours keep a pig, as I do. I never get parish relief. My daughter earns 1s 6d a week. She works from six o’clock in the morning till nine o’clock at night. I have not always had a bellyful of food. It is the same frequently with my family. Barley bread is used about me. If barley was cheaper, we could buy more clothing. We have heard something about corn laws lately. We first heard about half a year ago. The labourers wish that a change would take place, but some persuaded them against it. They told the labourers that it would be worse for them, but we say that it never can be worse,....hear hear, and laughter.”<br />
From the North Devon Journal 24 Jun 1858<br />
“Accidental Death- James Vicary, an old man above 80 years of age, went to his work on Monday morning, in good health, and was returning home in the evening, and on his road he came to Coverdale-well, on the Commons, and passing on in the path which is about 15 feet above the well he fell over. It is supposed that he was attacked with a fit or lightness in the head, as it was seen that he must have fallen first on the side of the precipice, as the marks there evidently showed, in his attempt to rise, he fell over and his head came into contact with a stone in the stream. His head here bled profusely and he vomited. His mouth and nose were in the stream when found; so that he would have been smothered, if nothing else had caused his death. Deceased was a harmless, hard working old man, and has brought up a large family.”<br />
The inquest into his death was also reported in the NDJ of 1 Jul 1855. A witness saw him with a shovel and pick on his shoulder, but these tools were not recovered. The verdict was accordingly concussion to the brain. His trip to London was noted.<br />
1851 census<br />
Head: VICARY, James<br />
Name Relationship Mar Age Sex Occupation Birthplace<br />
James VICARY Head M 65 M Ag Lab Gt Torrington-Dev<br />
Betsy VICARY Wife M 48 F Glover Gt Torrington-Dev<br />
Mary VICARY Daur U 17 F Glover Gt Torrington-Dev<br />
James VICARY Son - 10 M Scholar Gt Torrington-Dev<br />
William VICARY Son - 8 M Scholar Gt Torrington-Dev<br />
Address: Mill Street, Torrington<br />
Census Place: Great Torrington Torrington, Devonshire<br />
PRO Reference: HO/107/1894 Folio: 537 Page: 60 FHL Film: 0221045
Agriculture in Witheridge Devon
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-08-16:3463583:Topic:138842
2009-08-16T11:03:02.806Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
This links takes you to a very intersting website:<br />
<a href="http://www.witheridge-historical-archive.com/agriculture.htm">http://www.witheridge-historical-archive.com/agriculture.htm</a>
This links takes you to a very intersting website:<br />
<a href="http://www.witheridge-historical-archive.com/agriculture.htm">http://www.witheridge-historical-archive.com/agriculture.htm</a>
DEVON FARMERS & LABOURERS in 1808 by Brenda Powell ©
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-08-05:3463583:Topic:122810
2009-08-05T11:19:58.142Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
DEVON FARMERS & LABOURERS in 1808 by Brenda Powell<br />
<br />
In the early 1800s, owing to the on-going Napoleonic Wars and an increasing population, food shortages led the Government of the day to commission an agricultural survey of each county of England, in order to find out just how efficient farming practices were. In those days Jane Austen and her friends may have been parading in their finery in the Assembly rooms of Bath, Lyme and Sidmouth, but how were our poorer ancestors in rural Devon…
DEVON FARMERS & LABOURERS in 1808 by Brenda Powell<br />
<br />
In the early 1800s, owing to the on-going Napoleonic Wars and an increasing population, food shortages led the Government of the day to commission an agricultural survey of each county of England, in order to find out just how efficient farming practices were. In those days Jane Austen and her friends may have been parading in their finery in the Assembly rooms of Bath, Lyme and Sidmouth, but how were our poorer ancestors in rural Devon faring, such as my great-great-grandparents John Joslin, labourer of Ashreighney, and wife Dorothy with their five children (with four more to come), and John Gloyn, labourer, and Grace of Thornbury with seven children?<br />
Most family historians ‘get back’ to this era without too much difficulty, discovering the names of forebears about five or six generations back. If they are Devonian then the chances are that many of them will have worked on the land as labourers, yeomen or tenant farmers. We have parish registers, and rarely, wills, to give us names, but nothing much to tell us about these rural ancestors. There are no photographs or portraits as the rich had. What were their lives really like: what were their homes like, what kind of work did they do and what did they eat? Could they have aspired to anything better? I have always wanted to know more.<br />
<br />
It was with great interest therefore that I found in an antique shop a copy of the report on this agricultural survey carried out in Devon in 1808 by one Charles Vancouver. This reprint by David & Charles (no doubt familiar to many social historians but new to me and perhaps many other family historians), is a treasure trove of domestic and farming historical detail. Mr. Vancouver traversed the County as a Surveyor on behalf of the Board of Agriculture recording the state of Devon’s rural life as he found it. It must be said, however, that his ‘employer class’ status shines through in his decidedly biased opinions!<br />
HOUSING If we imagine that three-times great-grandfather who laboured on the land brought his family up in a pretty thatched cottage then we are probably wrong! Charles Vancouver was rather disdainful of cob. There was he said, ‘sufficient stone in the county to have caused a discontinuation of the use of mud walls’, but garden walls and cottages were still built of this ‘deforming material’. If not rough-scat, it was impossible he said, ‘to distinguish between a village and a beat (sic) field’, both being the same shade, and therefore ‘a stranger may perceive smoke to be rising out of the ground’. This conjures up a different scene to that we probably imagine.<br />
Vancouver did admit, however, that a cob cottage could be ‘rendered very clean and comfortable and decently furnished for about sixty shillings’. The accommodation provided for the labouring families seems to have varied between none at all and quite model housing. In Chilworthy the Surveyor found three mud walls and a hedgebank forming a ‘habitation for peasantry’. In many parts of the County there was a scarcity of housing forcing families to leave their villages, which led to a shortage of labour. This was in part due to the ‘perversement of farmers’ who allowed cottages to go to ruin, and thus with fewer poor people around they had less poor rate to pay. Land agents, too, suggested to the owners of country residences that too many buildings spoilt the view! However, in an area east of Dartmoor, between Chagford and Bovey more than one in ten houses were found to be vacant or in a state of ruin, which Vancouver declared was utterly out of his power to explain.<br />
Where some farms had been consolidated, the farmhouses were used to accommodate three or four labourer families. But cottages intended for workers were rarely attached to farms and where this happened Vancouver considered it beneficial as it would surely have been to the farmer, having his workforce close at hand. A piece of ground could be provided for growing potatoes and other vegetables and for ‘the run of a pig’. The rent for such a cottage was about 30 shillings a year.<br />
In the South Hams labourers seldom lived on farms but were ‘crowded together in villages’ where some considered that ‘morals were more liable to be corrupted’. For the same reason in the east of the county Lord Rolle encouraged the building of cottages on the borders of Woodbury Common as a means of improving the comfort and the morals of his workers. By ‘withdrawing the labourer from his former haunts in the village’, he would spend more time employed to the benefit of his family instead of ‘in the ale-house or in frivolous conversation with his neighbour’. This would, the Surveyor declared, lead to ‘the improvement of the national stock’! (Did he mean animals or the population?) An acre of land was allowed for the plot, with more available later, enabling the cottager the ‘privilege of enclosing more of the waste’ when ‘his strength and ability enables him to render it equal justice’. What an ideal arrangement for the landowner, to get more of the waste common land under cultivation with free labour!<br />
There were, however, some well-meaning gentlemen who sought to fill the need of housing for working families. Lord Clifford had built (?Chudleigh) some very neat cottages for his workers. The ground floor is not described but two upper rooms shared a window to admit light. Each family had a piece of ground to grow potatoes and a small orchard ‘sufficient to produce 1 or 2 hogsheads of cider and a good sufficiency of winter storing apples’. This was in lieu of grazing land for a cow as formerly allowed. Vancouver comments that ‘the cow being subject to accident, places this munificence on a more permanent footing’. It seems unlikely that cider and apples rather than milk would have benefited the children!<br />
The Reverend Mr. Luxmore was another altruistic gentleman, and obviously proud to write to the Surveyor to describe the cottages he had built for his workers in Bridestowe. Two old ruinous cottages were demolished and replaced with a row of ‘twelve, neat, comfortable cottages’. The walls were stone up to 8 feet, and then cob with a slate roof, and cost about 40 shillings each to build. A detailed description is given with an etching showing the row of houses with happy mothers and children peering over the stable-type doors. The cottages still stand, opposite the village church.<br />
Each cottage had a ground floor room 16 feet square with a door and window in front. A fireplace with oven was provided, and a backdoor leading to a shed for tools, fuel or shelter for a pig, and thence leading to a backyard. Under the stairs was a pantry with shelves. The bedroom above was the same size as below. Because the labouring poor normally apprenticed their children out at 8 or 9 years of age the good Reverend had considered that one bedroom for parents and little ones would do. He had later realised that some tenants, who by their ‘exceptional industry’ had not had to apprentice their children out so young, needed a second bedroom, so in later cottages he rectified this plan.<br />
Each cottage was let for 1 shilling a week, and the Rector supplied wood for fuel at a reduced price. As long as the tenants frequented church and ‘behaved themselves soberly and carefully’ and were good neighbours to each other he would not remove anyone from his dwelling.<br />
<br />
WORK<br />
The point of the Surveyors’ reports was to inform the Board of Agriculture on the state and efficiency of farming in each county. In those days of the Napoleonic wars and the Industrial Revolution, farmers were making good profits. Imports of food were disrupted, the population was growing at an unprecedented rate and with the movement of people to the ever-expanding cities fewer people were involved in food production than ever before. It was important therefore for land to be used efficiently.<br />
Charles Vancouver found that the Parish Apprenticeship System, started in the days of Queen Elizabeth, was still in operation in Devon more than in most other counties. The farmer received 10 shillings a year to take a child apprentice. His comments on the scheme were that he found no fault with the treatment of young boys, whose ‘instruction is better understood and whose morals are better preserved than if they stayed at home’. On the girls’ lot, however, he was condemning of the ‘severity of their servitude’. Scraping roads and lanes, turning over and mixing and filling dung-pots was a waste of time; what, he asked, can a girl of ten or twelve do with a mattock or shovel? Driving horses was by no means a proper employment for girls, being incompatible with the domestic duties they should be learning. The result was that girls had no liking or desire for their work and were likely to ‘form premature connections’, leaving for early marriages before they have acquired useful domestic skills.<br />
Vancouver divided the County into districts for the purposes of his report. The types of work the adult labourers were required to do varied: jobs he mentions are thrashing of course, of wheat, oats and barley, and making bundles of reed. There was cutting and making of faggots in woodland, ‘brushing and trimming’ of hedgerows, and cutting and tying of furze. On the fields the men might be ‘spreading beat-ashes’, lime-mould mixing and dung-spreading.<br />
Typically, the day labourer worked from 7.0 am until noon, and from 1.0 pm until 5 or 6 o’clock. The labourer, Vancouver wrote, ‘is frequently seen on his way home this early, with his tools upon his back’. This was not from idleness but the custom in the County, because ‘these are the hours required to produce what is considered a day’s work’, for example the time taken to tie 100 faggots or make 12 bundles of straw at 35 lbs each.<br />
In the large section of his report which Vancouver gives to farm animals, he extols the virtues of the cattle of North Devon which were much valued as working oxen as well as for grazing for meat rather than for milk. They would work at the plough or harrow for eight hours a day, the ‘ploughboy cheering them on with a song or chant’.<br />
<br />
WAGES Vancouver remarked that the wages had not kept pace with the depreciation of money. The outdoor labourer earned about 7shillings a week plus a quart or 3 pints of drink daily (probably cider), and a casual labourer received 1s.4d a day with drink. The peasant worker was allowed to buy wheat at 6 shillings or barley at 3 shillings a bundle for his family, and use ‘dunged’ land at 6 or 8 pence a perch to grow potatoes. This meant he could keep a pig, which when slain at the end of the winter and cured provided, as Vancouver put it, ‘a rare but comfortable indulgence’. To put the wages more in context, if the family had to buy their pork or ‘green bacon’ it was 5d a pound. And potatoes were 8d to 1s a bushel.<br />
There was one season in the farming year when perhaps the labourer was rather better rewarded. The goings-on at harvest time met with Mr Vancouver’s stern disapproval! When 10 or 20 acres of corn were ready, an indefinite number of men, women and children gathered at the field, according to how well the farmer was liked! By noon more hands had joined them, and the ale and cider ‘had warmed and elevated their spirits’ so much that the ribaldry could be heard some distance away. Dinner of best meat and vegetables was served in the field. Cutting and binding continued until about five o’clock when work stopped for buns, cakes and more drink. When the last sheaf was tied reaping hooks were thrown at it with much shouting of ‘we ha in’, after which the workers retired to the farmhouse for more drinking and carousing until the early hours of the morning! The whole ‘event’ was likely to be repeated the next day at another farm!<br />
In order that the crop was not spoiled the farmers were of course dependent on as many hands as could be found turning up to bring the harvest in. Some showed a little more gratitude than others: in the northern and western parts it was still the ‘proviso’ that the harvest worker be invited for a ‘frolic at the farmer’s house at the Christmas following’<br />
<br />
FUEL The cottagers were able to gather copse and hedgerow wood for their fires, and turf and peat in some areas. For faggots a charge of 13s. 6d per 100 was made, a rise of 50% in the last 12 or 14 years, caused by the ‘peculiar circumstances of the times’. For those who could afford it there was Welsh, Newcastle or Somerset coal. The poor at Northam Burrows gathered cow and horse dung which they dried and laid by for the winter – ‘they call this shensen’.<br />
<br />
DIET & HEALTH. It may be supposed that the farm labourer’s diet was very plain but Vancouver recorded how the food varied across the county and interestingly, linked it to health differences.<br />
In North Devon, ‘scorbutic’ complaints (scurvy, lack of vitamin C) were less common than in other parts, and asthma and consumption (Tb) were rare. There were ‘rheumatisms’ but most lived to old age. The basic diet was wheat or barley bread and potatoes, with cider or a light malt beverage, 1 – 3 pints a day. (I believe cider has some vitamin C) Across mid-Devon, the longevity and good health were ascribed to ‘simple aliment’ plus regularity and exercise.<br />
In the area of west Devon adjoining Cornwall, the parish of Lydford, scrofula and sore legs were common in old age and ‘on the heads and other parts of young people before puberty’. (These were quite possibly TB abscesses). Their food was ‘mostly barley bread and potatoes, wheat broth seasoned with a piece of meat and pot-herbs’. Pies were made of bacon and potatoes. (I know from my mother’s family, that folk in west Devon, like Cornwall are known for their love of putting anything – such as ‘chipples’, parsley, turnips, apples - between layers of pastry!)<br />
The South Hams folk had an ample supply of fish to add to the basic fare and this was thought to contribute to their ‘firmness and vigour’ into old age. On Dartmoor, Vancouver found many houses vacant and in ruins, but he remarked on the hardihood of the villagers, and how they excelled in ‘all manner of athletic exercises’. He examined the Parish registers and commented on the great ages at which people died. In Moretonhampstead in 1807, of 15 funerals, 7 were of folk aged 80 – 92 years. The diet of barley bread and ‘abundance of potatoes’ was supplemented with pickled pork, bacon or mutton fat, with a ‘profusion’ of leeks and onions.<br />
East of Exeter, and around the Culm and Clyst rivers, the climate was kinder but people did not live to such a great age, ‘consumption and gravelly cases (kidney stones) being more common’. There was little fish in the diet here except around Exeter, but further east in the county plenty of fish was eaten, especially in the pilchard season.<br />
Mr Vancouver made a particular comment on the culinary gardens of Devon which he suggested were amongst the best in England. Behind cob walls were ‘highly flavoured wall-fruit’ and farmers and peasants alike grew excellent vegetables especially large quantities of leeks.<br />
There was some who showed concern about the depravation of labouring families in Devon. The Reverend Coham of Black Torrington wrote a long letter to the Surveyor expounding his theories.<br />
Firstly, he suggested, better wages would improve conditions of the poor and result in fewer of them needing poor relief. He reminded the Surveyor that whereas wages were fixed some fourteen years ago prices of commodities had doubled and pointed out that not many years earlier a labourer’s wife and family were able to earn as much from spinning wool as the husband earned at his labouring. The demise of the woollen manufacture as a cottage industry as it moved to the north of England to factories had, of course, taken away this work. Vancouver confirmed that a woman who might have been paid 3s. 6d per week spinning now through lack of work ‘spent her time rummaging around for sticks’. Things were not so bad in the east of the county where some women worked at bone-lace making.<br />
The Reverend Coham’s strongest recommendation was that ‘gentlemen of fortune and influence’, should set up Agricultural Societies such as had proved their worth in other areas. The improvement of farming practices, equipment and the skills of the workers together with the encouragement of honesty and industry would lead to making a district ‘more virtuous, prosperous and more happy’. The good parson also emphasised the importance of ‘fidelity in farm servants, frugality and general exemplary conduct in labourers towards their families’.<br />
<br />
Education What were the chances of our peasant ancestors improving their lot? Education might have been the answer but while some villages had dame schools at this time, many folk were unable to write as we know from the ‘x’ signatures in the marriage registers.<br />
Mr. Vancouver expressed his opinion, probably shared by many of his peers, on educating the poor. From the ‘dawning’ of the establishment of Sunday Schools ‘promoted by their present Majesties’ (George III and Queen Charlotte), Mr. Vancouver pronounced that he ‘looked forward with dread to the consequences of such a measure’. After all, if education would result in the labourer being more moral and more desirous of excelling in his work then it might be of public benefit. But he was certain the opposite effect was likely as, for example in Ireland, where teaching people to read had led to a ‘desire to ramble’ and thus to emigration. It gave peasants ambitions that were entirely unsuitable for ‘those whose path in life is distinctly marked out’. He believed the keenness of the Scottish folk to migrate stemmed from the education they received when young; any measure that makes people restless must prove harmful to the community.<br />
It was therefore the Surveyor’s opinion that every means be made available to make labourers want to excel, whether at breaking stones for lime kilns or repairing highways. As a further warning on the dangers of allowing literacy to spread among the workers he begged the question, ‘how can mutinies and uprisings be avoided if the multitude can correspond with one another’?<br />
Education, if it had been available, would surely have been the way for our forebears to improve their lives. With the ruling classes having attitudes like Mr Vancouver it is not surprising it was to be over 60 years before free schooling was provided for all. With life-styles such as Devon labourers had, in rough cob hovels, working almost as slaves on a poor & monotonous diet, was it any wonder some had a ‘desire to ramble’? During the next half-century thousands of Devonians would set off for a new life across the sea, especially to Canada, as one son and three grandchildren of John & Dorothy Joslin did in the 1850s.<br />
In his book ‘Old Devon’, W.G.Hoskins’ wrote a chapter on the lot of the Devon farm labourer, in which he quotes from ‘The State of the Poor’ in 1797 by Sir Frederick Morton Eden, and also from reports from the Poor Law Commissioners in 1843. The chapter contains much detail about wages & food, and the latter report is based on accounts by individuals about their experiences as child apprentices on farms, which would have been at the time of Vancouver’s report, and therefore makes further interesting reading.<br />
<br />
SOURCES: GENERAL VIEW of the AGRICULTURE of the COUNTY of DEVON<br />
By Charles Vancouver. 1808 David & Charles Reprint 1<br />
OLD DEVON by W.G.Hoskins David & Charles 1966<br />
<br />
By Brenda Powell. © I want to thank Brenda for her kindness in allowing me to use her article.
"A bit o' binder string
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-08-02:3463583:Topic:117915
2009-08-02T10:24:27.147Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
Though I would share this verse with you, even today farmers find all sorts of uses for binder string, to make temporary repairs and very often they never get fixed properly!!<br />
<br />
A Bit of Binder String.<br />
<br />
Dost mind Bill Bates as used to work for Drake at Badgers End<br />
There weren’t a tool about the farm this feller couldn’t mend<br />
From a hayfork to a harvester or any mortal thing<br />
Old Bill could always fix it with a bit if binder string<br />
<br />
One day a Friesian bull got out and raged and tore around<br />
Nobody…
Though I would share this verse with you, even today farmers find all sorts of uses for binder string, to make temporary repairs and very often they never get fixed properly!!<br />
<br />
A Bit of Binder String.<br />
<br />
Dost mind Bill Bates as used to work for Drake at Badgers End<br />
There weren’t a tool about the farm this feller couldn’t mend<br />
From a hayfork to a harvester or any mortal thing<br />
Old Bill could always fix it with a bit if binder string<br />
<br />
One day a Friesian bull got out and raged and tore around<br />
Nobody dared go near ‘im as he roared and hooked the ground<br />
Till Boss shouts “Bill” the bull’s got out and been and broke his ring<br />
An Bill lassoed the beggar wi’ a bit of binder string<br />
<br />
Bill courted Mabel seven years an’; then he said “Let’s wed”<br />
I’ve got a table an’ some chairs an’ Granny’s feather bed<br />
Ther’s half a ton o’ taters up in the field as I can bring<br />
An’ I’ve made some handsome doormats out of thic’ there binder string<br />
Well Mabel said “ We’d best get wed before they cut the hay<br />
So they had a slap up Wedding on the seventeenth of May<br />
But when they got to the church Bill found he had gone and lost the ring<br />
So he had to marry Mabel with a loop of binder string<br />
<br />
Next year a little daughter came to bless the happy pair<br />
Wi’ girt blue eyes and a tuft of ginger hair<br />
And Bill, he says to Parson at the baby’s Christening<br />
Zee, ‘er be just the colour of a bit of binder string<br />
<br />
Well time went on an’ old Bill died an’ came to Heaven’s Door<br />
He heard them all a singing there and he was worried sore<br />
An’ he says to good St. Peter, “Zir I’ve never sung before<br />
I were always kep’ so busy mendin’ things wi’ binder string”<br />
“Don’t worry Bill”, St. Peter said “The Good Lord understands<br />
He’ve been a carpenter and likes to see folk use their hands<br />
An we’m veryhappy to see ‘ee here, we’ve plenty who can sing<br />
But we need a handy chap like thee, has ‘ee brought some binder string?<br />
<br />
So Bill do bide in Heaven now, he’s very happy there<br />
He’s got a liddle workshop round behind St. Peter’s chair<br />
An’ while the Angels play their harps and all the saints do sing<br />
Bill mends the little cherub’s toys with bits of binder string. "
The Corn Laws of 1815
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-07-28:3463583:Topic:107945
2009-07-28T09:18:02.323Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
The Corn Law Act had been passed in 1815 as a measure to protect the interests of landowners who looked as if they were about to lose out when highly inflated prices for corn ceased with the ending of the Napoleonic Wars. This kept the price of not only corn but also bread artificially high.<br />
<br />
Although an Anti-Corn Law League formed to oppose the legislation, it was not until the potato famine in Ireland that repeal was enacted in a belated attempt to alleviate some of the suffering. The repeal…
The Corn Law Act had been passed in 1815 as a measure to protect the interests of landowners who looked as if they were about to lose out when highly inflated prices for corn ceased with the ending of the Napoleonic Wars. This kept the price of not only corn but also bread artificially high.<br />
<br />
Although an Anti-Corn Law League formed to oppose the legislation, it was not until the potato famine in Ireland that repeal was enacted in a belated attempt to alleviate some of the suffering. The repeal marked an end to protectionist policies and can be seen as a major stepping stone in turning Britain into a free trading nation.<br />
<br />
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, legislation was introduced to regulate the import of cereals in an attempt to maintain an adequate supply for consumers while providing a secure price for the producers. Cereals could not be imported into Britain until the domestic price reached eighty shillings a quarter. This price meant that cereals and bread were more expensive than they needed to be and this caused considerable agitation.<br />
<br />
Other aspects of agricultural production also caused popular concern - in 1834, six Dorset farm workers - The Tolpuddle Martyrs - were transported to the colonies for seven years because they had taken an illegal oath to a labourers' union.<br />
<br />
If you look at the history of farming, you will realise that the nineteenth century was practically all downhill. The inflation of the Napoleonic war years was followed by a trough of depression, when those who had bought land at high prices found their markets had disappeared and they were bankrupt.<br />
<br />
The Enclosures of the early C19 favoured the big farmers and small men declined into farm labourers, just in time for the introduction of the new farming methods and machinery, which reduced the need<br />
for actual hands.<br />
<br />
During the 1840s, there were ten years of bad to miserable harvests (The Hungry Forties), which drove more men out of the countryside. The slight pick up of the 50s was followed by outbreaks of cattle plague in the 1860s, which meant total devastation of the ground for years to come. A lot of migration and emigration followed. Bakers went over to the Canadian type of grain - so arable farmers had to give up or convert to livestock farming.<br />
<br />
Then came the invention of refrigeration, and foreign meat could be imported easily. More ruin. Even the Duchess of Marlborough was complaining about the effect of American meat imports on the Churchill estates - she sold them her son to redress the balance.<br />
<br />
The farm labourers were on the sharp end all the time - services no longer required. They could stay put and starve or migrate where the jobs were. There was always a demand for unskilled labour in towns, humping and hauling, digging foundations for houses and factories and for men building railways all over the place.
Farming and Labouring
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-07-27:3463583:Topic:105934
2009-07-27T15:16:08.622Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
Farming and Labouring<br />
(With regard to ploughing) The style of driving an ox team, here is observable; indeed, cannot pass unnoticed by a stranger. The language, though to a certain degree peculiar in the country, does not arrest the attention; but the tone, or rather tune, in which it is delivered. It resembles, with great exactness the chantings, or recitative of the Cathedral service. The plow boy chants the counter tenor, with unabated ardour through the day; the plow man throwing in, at…
Farming and Labouring<br />
(With regard to ploughing) The style of driving an ox team, here is observable; indeed, cannot pass unnoticed by a stranger. The language, though to a certain degree peculiar in the country, does not arrest the attention; but the tone, or rather tune, in which it is delivered. It resembles, with great exactness the chantings, or recitative of the Cathedral service. The plow boy chants the counter tenor, with unabated ardour through the day; the plow man throwing in, at intervals, his hoarser notes. It is understood that this chanting march, which sometimes be heard to a considerable distance, encourages and animates the team, as the music of a marching army, or the song of rowers.....I have never seen so much cheerfulness attending the operation of ploughing, anywhere as in Devonshire. (From Marshall's Rural Economy of the West of England, 1796).<br />
Marshall further states:<br />
Farmers of every class (some few excepted) carry their corn perhaps a quarter of a mile to the summit of some airy swell, where it is winnowed by women! the mistress of the farm, perhaps, being exposed in the severest weather to the cutting winds of winter, in this slavish and truly barbarous employment. The machine fan, however, is at length making its way to the western extremity.<br />
Mr. G.A. Cooke in "The County of Devon" (written about 1816-1820) narrates on<br />
"Society and Manners":<br />
....as they relate to rustic affairs, are particularly distinguishable during the wheat harvest, when the wheat being ready to cut down, notice is given in the neighbourhood, that a reaping is to be performed on a particular day; as a farmer may be more or less liked in the village on the morning of the day appointed a gang, consisting of an indefinite number of men and women, assemble on the field, and the reaping commences after breakfast, which is seldom over till between 8 and 9 o'clock. This company is open for additional hands to drop in at any time before the twelfth hour, to partake of the frolic of the day. The dinner, consisting of the best meat and vegetables is carried into the field between 12 and 1, and distributed with copious draughts of ale and cider. At 2, cutting and binding is resumed, and at 5, what is called the drinkings are taken into the field, accompanied with buns, cakes etc. When all is over, about the close of the evening, a small sheaf is bound up and set upon the top of one of the ridges, when the reapers, retiring to a certain distance, each throws his reaping-hook at the sheaf, until one of them strikes it down. This achievement is accompanied with the utmost stretch and power of the voices of the company, uttering the words, we ha in! The company afterwards retire to the farmhouse to sup, after which, they make merry with ale and cider, to a late hour. At the same house, or that of a neighbouring farmer, a similar course is probably renewed between 8 and 9 o'clock on the following morning. The labourers, thus employed, it must be observed, receive no wages, but instead of this, receive an invitation to the farmer's house at Christmas, when open house is kept 3 or 4 days at least; and if the rudeness of the bear garden is sometimes exhibited, the opulent, who can command their hours and means of gratification at pleasure, should not envy those of the rustic.<br />
"Let not ambition mark their useful toil,<br />
Their humble joys and destiny obscure,<br />
Nor grandeur hear with disdainful smile,<br />
The short and simple annals of the poor."<br />
Further, under "Labour and Labourers", Cooke states:<br />
The wages of the out-door labourer is generally 7/= per week, winter and summer, and from a quart to 3 pints of drink daily. Even in hay-time and harvest these wages are not increased, though additional exertions at those seasons are amply compensated by board, and treatings with ale and cider. During the war (NOTE: the Napoleonic Wars), the addition to these wages was the standing supply of wheat at 6/= and barley at 3/=, per bushel. A portion of land is also assigned by the farmer to each peasant family for growing potatoes, which enables some of these to keep a pig. Among the small farmers, the men are often content to receive 3/6 per week and their board. It is also no unusual practice in the northern and western part of the county for a man to work at harvesting for 1 day, only for his drink and board, upon condition that he shall be invited to the harvest frolic at the farmer's house, which continues for some days together. Near large trading towns the price of labour has occasionally risen with the demand. But the hours of work and stinted labour have long been customary here; the former are from 7 to 12, and from 1 to between 5 and 6. Even in Summer, when at day-work, the labourer may be seen on his way home with his tools at his back; this however, is not the result of idleness but of custom; as having performed his stint, the labourer is no longer detained.<br />
Any notions that the rustic life had its attractions were to be removed by the changing conditions and great poverty in England. In "Towards Quebec", Ann Giffard details some conditions and reasons for emigration from the West Country:<br />
William Cobbett described his John Plodpole with 'his handful of fire and his farthing or half-farthing rushlight'. Parson Hawker, living in Morwenstow in North Cornwall from 1834 onwards, wrote: "they are crushed down, my poor people, ground down with poverty, with a wretched wage". As the century wore on the descriptions became more specific. In the 1860s the village of Halberton, near Tiverton (Devon), was decribed thus:<br />
"The general sanitary condition of the village was very bad. Picturesque as they were externally, many of the peasant's cottages were unfit for the housing of pigs. Pools of stagnant water stood in many parts of the parish....The whole village was badly drained, open sewers ran through it frequently trickling down upon the cottages into the village brook, from which cattle slaked their thirst and the villagers and their children often drank."<br />
At the turn of the (nineteenth) century, Arthur Young wrote one of the reasons for this rural poverty:<br />
"by nineteen out of twenty Enclosure Acts the poor are injured, in some grossly injured...The poor in these parishes may say, and with truth, 'Parliament may be tender of property; all I know is, I had a cow, and an Act of Parliament has taken it from me".<br />
Not only their cows, but they also lost their gleaning rights, the possibility of growing a few vegetables, of collecting firewood. Cobbett, in 1824, wrote of the Industrial Revolution and the decline of cottage industries:<br />
"The profit of a small farm received a great addition from the fruit of the labours of knitting, spinning and the like; but when these were taken away by the lords of the loom....the little farm itself did not offer a sufficiency of means to maintain a considerable family."<br />
Times were bad from the end of the Napoleonic Wars and through the 1830s, with spasmodic riots and rick-burning across the country (one such case was reported in the 'London Gazette' in October, 1815, on the property of Mr. JOHN HOLE, Saunton Court, Braunton). In 1815 there were riots to prevent the exportation of grain from Bideford. The North Devon Journal carried numerous advertisements for emigrant vessels, some of which listed agents in towns as far as Okehampton and Tavistock. It reported in 1831:<br />
"such is the prevailing rage for emigration, that a female who had given birth to a child but three days before, would not be persuaded by the most urgent entreaties....to remain behind for another season.<br />
A letter written by a young man living in a North Devon village in 1845 to his uncle who had settled in Prince Edward Island, Canada, says it all in a nutshell:<br />
"I am thinking of trying America as there is nothing here to look to for a living for the inhabitants is so thick and Labour is so dead there is nothing going on.....an if ever I come to America I think it will be next Summer for I am thinking then to take a wife an after people get settled it is a great Difficulty of removing again.....the young woman I intend to make my wife has got a brother on the Island and he is Doing very well......."<br />
In 1862, the following was reported:<br />
"Never yet in my incumbancy of 27 years did the prospects of farmers and labourers and poor assume so dark a hue. They come to me for advice. If they have a few pounds out of the wreck my advice always is, 'Emigrate!' And accordingly nearly a hundred in the current year go across the sea. Our population in 1851 was 1074, and in 1861 it was 868, a decrease of 206......." ("Family Servants and Visitors", Mary Bouquet, 1985).<br />
The populations of villages had, by this time, passed their sustainable peak. In 1987, Wendy Hawkins published her thesis entitled "By The Sweat of the Labour" (Loughborough University), from which the following are extracts:<br />
An 1864 North Devon Labourer's Fare:<br />
Breakfast Tea kettle broth (hot water poured on bread and flavoured with onions). Dinner Bread (1861 4lb loaf 7½d) and hard cheese at 2d a pound with cider (sour). Supper Potatoes or cabbage greased with a tiny bit of fat bacon. He seldom sees or smells butcher's meat. (My own Lerwill family were somewhat more fortunate and were able to rent some land on which to grow vegetables, but even so their usual fare was said to be "skimmed milk and potatoes". Potatoes were said to have been introduced into Devon by an Irishman called Moore, in the 18th c.).<br />
Lacking fuel to make fire....Devon far from coal supplies....Wood scarce and firing not allowed except in the form of permission to grub up the roots of old hedges. Therefore, little heating and cooking. ......Part of Braunton village lay on low marshy ground that was prone to flooding. This was noted in the Medical Officer's report 1842, which also identified manure pits "which give off a foul miasma as they were filled with very putrid water and filth". At the age of 45 or 50, the peasant was usually found to be crippled up by rheumatism.....Carpenters were traditionally also undertakers.......Midwives had a very low status, and were commonly held to have been "dirty old hags" who more often than not hindered rather than helped. The midwives used much folklore and herbal remedies.<br />
However, farmers often gave their labourer the runt of the litter which was called locally the nistledraft. The animals became tame through hand-feeding and were treated almost as pets, thus, when the time for slaughter came round, the butcher had to be called to do the job. Pigs were best killed at the 'growing of the moon', since it was considered that the meat did not shrink so much with boiling as when the moon was 'going back'. By keeping a pig, a farm supplied its own lard and bacon, and the meat and inwards were also used to make ''ogs pudd'ns', of fascinating (and lengthy) manufacture.
The Farmer's Wife
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-07-23:3463583:Topic:92117
2009-07-23T13:03:14.937Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
There is a wonderful book, still in print, I believe, called "The Diary of A Farmer's Wife, 1796 - 1797." It was written by Anne Hughes.<br />
<br />
Her intoduction reads:<br />
"Anne Hughes, her boke in wiche I rite what I doe, when I hav thee tyme, and beginnen wyth the daye, Feb ye 6 1796.<br />
<br />
A worthwile read and insight in to the woman's role on the farm.
There is a wonderful book, still in print, I believe, called "The Diary of A Farmer's Wife, 1796 - 1797." It was written by Anne Hughes.<br />
<br />
Her intoduction reads:<br />
"Anne Hughes, her boke in wiche I rite what I doe, when I hav thee tyme, and beginnen wyth the daye, Feb ye 6 1796.<br />
<br />
A worthwile read and insight in to the woman's role on the farm.
Early History
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-07-23:3463583:Topic:91908
2009-07-23T12:11:15.560Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
A few notes of Early History<br />
<br />
Many scientists, archaeologists, books and television presentations have<br />
put forward many theories about the evolution of mankind, so I leave you<br />
the reader, to follow the path you favour on that subject.<br />
<br />
Due to the ingenuity of our early ancestors and their ability to adapt,<br />
invent and solve problems we are here today. They made tools and<br />
mastered fire. They were hunters and food gatherers, totally dependent<br />
on nature and on their own skills. They had few options…
A few notes of Early History<br />
<br />
Many scientists, archaeologists, books and television presentations have<br />
put forward many theories about the evolution of mankind, so I leave you<br />
the reader, to follow the path you favour on that subject.<br />
<br />
Due to the ingenuity of our early ancestors and their ability to adapt,<br />
invent and solve problems we are here today. They made tools and<br />
mastered fire. They were hunters and food gatherers, totally dependent<br />
on nature and on their own skills. They had few options as far as the<br />
fundamentals of food, clothing and shelter were concerned. Skins were<br />
the earliest clothes. Caves were their shelters.<br />
<br />
The first traces of humans in Europe have been found in caves in Spain<br />
and France, and date from 40,000 years ago. The settlers in the fertile<br />
valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates (Iraq) were the worlds first<br />
farmers.<br />
<br />
The first great revolution in human history was the development and<br />
spread of agriculture, which can be traced back to the growing of wheat<br />
and barley in the Near East. Agriculture meant settlement. It required<br />
forethought, people had to know when to sow and reap, and developed the<br />
methods and skills to make it possible.<br />
<br />
Hungry wild dogs would scavenge around the settlements and the braver<br />
ones became domesticated as did the young cattle, pigs and sheep taken<br />
by the hunters and raised as a sure supply of fresh meat and the<br />
herding of livestock developed. The women were the gatherers and<br />
through the generations learnt what was good to eat and how best to use<br />
it. Perhaps some grain was dropped near by and the seed germinated.<br />
The grain was gathered and some replanted. This was how the growing of<br />
corn came about.<br />
<br />
The people, now settled, found ways of making tools, pots, ploughs,<br />
baking ovens and textiles etc. They cut reed and made boats with cloth<br />
sails and went out to catch fish, learnt how to ferment grain and grapes<br />
for wine and ale. The bartering for goods to make life easier led to trading<br />
and merchanting being developed.<br />
<br />
The settlements became villages. Building bricks were made from sun<br />
baked clay to make the early houses and fortified villages, 6000 BC.<br />
<br />
The wheel was the most important achievement. It is thought to date<br />
back to 37500 BC. The first wheels were thought to be used to make pots<br />
as we do today. The first wheeled vehicle consisted of two or three<br />
sections of plank cut to form a disc and fastened with wooden brackets.<br />
The wheel was fixed to the axles with a linchpin. Lighter spoke wheels<br />
came around 200 BC. The spokes were held together with a one piece rim<br />
of wood.<br />
<br />
The first people to arrive in Britain came from the eastern land mass.<br />
They may well have been hunters looking for fertile land. Britain was<br />
linked to Europe by a land bridge and many immigrants came to Britain<br />
before this was eroded away by about 5000 BC.<br />
<br />
The Celts from Central Europe were seizing lands in the south and<br />
seeking refuge in Britain from the Germanic tribes (1000 - 500 BC).<br />
They were obsessed with fighting and many battles were fought. They<br />
used shields, spears and swords and rode in light chariots drawn by<br />
ponies. Celts built hill forts such as Maiden Castle near Dorchester<br />
and at Glastonbury. Celtic farmers changed the face of the countryside<br />
by laying out large rectangular fields and terraces. They had many<br />
gods, myths and legends, Halloween has Celtic origins. The Druids<br />
mediated between the natural and spiritual worlds of the people, they<br />
are thought to have been the builders of Stonehenge near Salisbury.<br />
<br />
The Romans landed a 10,000 strong army in Kent in 55 BC, but is was not<br />
until 43 AD that the Romans began to make headway. Queen Boadicea was<br />
one formidable Celtic leader they encountered. But they were beaten by<br />
the Romans and Boadicea took poison.<br />
<br />
The Romans established cities linked by straight roads. The centers<br />
had fine workshops, temples, amphitheatres and bath houses. Even the<br />
slaves lived in conditions which serfs of later eras would have envied.<br />
<br />
By the early 400s AD Britain could be described as a model protectorate.<br />
Successful businessmen built luxury villas and their sons had a Latin<br />
education. Christianity spread throughout the Empire and before long<br />
the Celtic peasants were the only large groups of pagans remaining in<br />
the provinces.<br />
<br />
This orderly way of life was menaced by Germanic raiders working along<br />
the British coast line. Picts and Scots from the north renewed their<br />
attacks. The Romans fled, the last Roman troops leaving in 436 AD.<br />
<br />
The Germanic tribes flooded into Britain after the Romans left. They<br />
came by long boat, and included a host of peoples, Angles, Saxons,<br />
Jutes and Frisians. Some newcomers settled peaceably enough alongside<br />
the native Celtics, but there is evidence of battles and repression,<br />
many had to face a life of slavery.<br />
<br />
King Arthur ruled Wessex at this time and many legends have arisen from<br />
his deeds.<br />
<br />
In time the invaders settled into kingdoms governed by councils of<br />
wisemen called a witan. The population converted to Christianity<br />
following St. Augustines' mission to Canterbury in 597.<br />
<br />
Offa (757 - 796) was one of the Saxon kings who left his mark by<br />
building Offas' Dyke 170 miles long from the Dee to the Severn to keep<br />
the Welsh Tribes at bay. He also set the standard form of currency<br />
which was to last for over 600 years.<br />
<br />
The next well known figure to emerge as a ruler was King Alfred (875 -<br />
899). He stopped the Danish invaders with a long battle waged from the<br />
Isle of Athelney on the Somerset Marshes.<br />
<br />
For over 600 years the Anglo - Saxon way of life became the basis of<br />
our country as we know it today. They gave us the form of village life.<br />
Place names ending in -ham refer to enclosures and clearings in forests<br />
were -den, -ley, -hurst and -field.<br />
<br />
The villages were built of timber, wattle and thatch with boundry<br />
ditches and wooden fences. The Lords or Thanes lived in large halls,<br />
the free peasants in smaller halls and the slaves in poor hovels. Most<br />
villagers had a small garden plot to grow their own food and pens for<br />
livestock. There would have been workshops for weavers, metalworkers<br />
and woodworkers. Water mills came into being for the grinding of corn.<br />
Churches were a focus point of the village. They were built of wood r<br />
masonry taken from the Roman ruins.<br />
<br />
The farmers used a large iron plough shear pulled by six or eight ox to<br />
till the land. The fields were in long strips so as the plough team did<br />
not have to make so may awkward turns. The length of the furrow 220<br />
yds (furrow long) is the furlong term used until we went metric.<br />
<br />
The Anglo - Saxons held the Bonds of Kinship in much esteem. Everyman<br />
had his wergild, the death price, which defined his standing.<br />
Money, livestock and land were given up if a man should break the laws<br />
and there were set values for certain crimes. Trials were also by<br />
ordeal, the accused would have to hold a red hot iron in his bare hand,<br />
if the wound did not heal within three days he was proven guilty.<br />
<br />
The Saxon rulers of this era are as follows:<br />
<br />
Egbert 827 - 839 Athelstan 924 - 939<br />
Aethelwulf 839 - 858 Edmund 939 - 946<br />
Aethelbald 858 - 860 Edred 946 - 955<br />
Aethelbert 860 - 865 Edwy 955 - 959<br />
Aethelred 1 865 - 871 Edgar 959 - 975<br />
Alfred the Great 871 - 899 Edward the Martyr 975 - 978<br />
Edward the Elder 899 - 924 Aethelred 11 978 - 1016<br />
Edmund Ironside 1016.<br />
<br />
England was to suffer many invasions by the Danes but between 959 and<br />
975 King Edgar "the Peaceable" was accepted by the Saxons and Danes as<br />
ruler of all England. He encouraged learning and set up ecclesiastical<br />
reforms. His son Edward reigned just three years to be followed by<br />
Aethelred the "Unready". He tried to buy off the Danish invaders with a<br />
bribe called the "Danegeld". This he raised by taxing his people.<br />
Aethelred then gave orders for the massacre of all the Danes in the land<br />
(1002).<br />
<br />
Sven Forkbeard, king of Norway and Denmark, swore revenge on England for<br />
his act and many devasting raids took place. Aethelred fled to France,<br />
but was too ill on his return to rule so his son Edmund Ironside took<br />
on the responsibility of defending the country against the claims of Sven's<br />
son Canute.<br />
<br />
At a truce parley after Aethelred's death Edmund and Canute agreed to<br />
divide the country between them, but Edmund died soon after and Canute<br />
became King. He married Aethelreds' widow Edith. He ruled from 1016<br />
to 1035 giving England a period of stability. He was followed by Harold 1<br />
Harefoot 1035 - 1040 and Harthacanute 1040 -1042.<br />
<br />
In 1042 Aethelred's son Edward was asked to come back from Normandy as king.<br />
Known as Edward the "Confessor" because of his piety. He was not a good<br />
king and retreated from the affairs of state absorbed in the building<br />
of an abbey at Westminster. He was too ill to attend the<br />
consecration of the abbey in December 1065 and died a week later.<br />
<br />
[Encarta and Pears Encyclopedia]
The Plough
tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-07-23:3463583:Topic:91780
2009-07-23T10:50:54.533Z
Christine Gibbins
http://www.genealogywise.com/profile/ChristineGibbins
I have attached an interesting file on early plough history.
I have attached an interesting file on early plough history.