Fragments of Two Centuries Part 13

"Ordered that the Overseers of Herts. Buy and Lend to the widow S---- a wheel for the purpose of setting her boy to work."

L s. d.

Spinning Wheles for the Widow D---- . . . 0 2 9 Paid for spinning 17 lb. of flax . . . . . 0 17 6 To mending a weel . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 0 8 14 new, Spendels and wool for G----'s family

The parish accounts in the villages show that wool for spinning was supplied in small quant.i.ties, apparently by small shop-keepers who took the yarn, which was again bought by the dealers and sent away for weaving to the newly established mills--pretty much in the same way as the straw plaiting industry was managed in after years.

Occasionally spinners were dishonest, and spun short measure, and a.s.sociations were formed for punishing the offence.

In every better cla.s.s house a wheel was found by which the mistress would spin the yarn, which was then sent away to be woven into the family linen, and a very necessary part of the preparation for married life was this spinning of a supply of yarn and sending it away to the weaver. A full chest of table linen was as precious to the farmers'

wives as Mrs. Tulliver found hers, and home-spun linen was as much a matter of pride as the cheese-making itself; so much so that servants in farm houses were invariably placed at the wheel to fill up their spare time.

The earnings of the poor spinners could not have been very great, for in Ess.e.x in 1770 "a stout girl of fifteen or sixteen" was not able to earn above 6d. a day. When the industry disappeared as a wage-earning employment, parochial Workhouses turned their attention to teaching children straw plaiting, and plaiting schools were subsidised by overseers for this purpose.

Wool-combing, the next process of employment, was better paid, but later on this too disappeared from our town and neighbourhood, owing to the march of inventions, leaving the last stage of the industry, viz., the wool-sorter's occupation, which continued some time longer. This process of sorting was one which required an experienced eye to detect the different qualities of fibre, and nimble fingers to separate them.

A fleece of wool was thrown open on a bench and an expert would, with surprising speed and dexterity, separate the fibre into about four different qualities and throw them into as many baskets standing by to receive them. After this, as in the combing days, it was sent off by the {105} Wakefield wagons to the mills in the North, and buyers continued to visit Royston, and wagons load up here, until about the middle of this century, the last of the wool-staplers being Mr. Henry Butler, whose warehouse was in Kneesworth Street, where Mr. Sanders'

coachbuilder's yard now is. With the appearance of the railway our "spinning grandmothers" were a thing of the past.

Agriculture in the Georgian era differed somewhat in its appliances, but the philosophy of it was pretty much the same as it is now. Oxen were occasionally used for team labour and were shod like horses; wheat was universally reaped with a sickle, and as universally threshed with a flail, the bent figure of the wheat-barn tasker being a familiar object in the "big old barn with its gloomy bays and the moss upon the thatch." An honest pride he took in his work and has found a fit memorial in the delightful _Sketches of Rural Life_ by Mr. Francis Lucas, of Hitchin, who says of the tasker and his work--

Then let our floors send up the sound, Of the swinjel's measured stroke, It makes the miller's wheel go round, And the cottage chimneys smoke.

One of the most interesting things about rural life was the common herding of the cattle, which, until the Enclosures Act came, had probably gone on from the time the Domesday Book was written, or longer. All through the ages there is the picturesque glimpse of the old herdsman with his horn, each morning and evening from May to October, making his procession to the common land of the village, past homesteads, from whose open gates the cow-kine, in obedience to the blast of the horn, walk out and join their fellows, and at evening the herd in returning dropped its ones, twos, and threes at every farmyard gate--like children going to and from school! The animation among the cattle in and about every farmyard in the village, when, after six months' silence, the herdman's horn was heard once more, was a sight to remember, and a remarkable instance of the sagacity of animals!

Farmers' wives were accustomed, up to the beginning of the present century, to attend the market to sell their cheese and b.u.t.ter, as in Derbyshire they do now, and the work connected with the accidental discovery of the Royston Cave, it will be remembered, was for the accommodation of these good dames.

Farmers at this time had few new notions or agricultural shows to set them thinking, but farmed according to "the good old ways," leaving to here and there a gentleman farmer, farming his own land, such hair-brained schemes as went contrary to them, their plea being that "farmers did not rear the worse turnips nor were longer fatting their oxen without book knowledge than they would be with it."

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But it is when we come to market prices for the farmer's produce that we get, I suspect, at the root and origin of the smooth-sounding phrase of the "Good old times when George the III. was King." Of the enormous influence of peace or war upon prices then, and the excitement which news of the one or the other stirred in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of farmers and landlords as they gathered in groups in the yards of the Hull, or the Red Lion, on Royston market days, let the following picture testify--

[Ill.u.s.tration: READING THE NEWS.]

Below are given a few years of average prices of farmers' produce in grain:--

AVERAGE PRICES.

Wheat. Barley. Oats.

Year. s. d. s. d. s. d.

1785 43 1 24 9 17 8 1790 54 9 26 3 19 5 1795 75 2 37 5 24 5 1799 69 0 36 2 27 6 1800 113 10 59 10 39 4 1801 119 6 68 6 37 0 1802 69 10 33 4 20 4 1805 89 9 44 6 28 4 1809 97 4 47 0 31 5 1810 106 5 48 1 28 7 1812 126 6 66 9 44 6

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The year 1812 was a famine year, but, after this time, prices never rose so high, ranging for wheat from 75s. in 1814, and 96s. in 1817 to 44s. in 1822. Though the landlords took their share and nearly doubled rents between 1790 and 1804, the farmer had reason to remember the good old times if the following story of a Hertfordshire farmer in 1807 be true:--

"A wealthy Hertfordshire farmer not long ago made application to one of the clerks in the Bank of England for the loan of L800, and offered to deposit with him, as a security, a bank note of L10,000, which he then held in his hand! The clerk refused him, saying that such a thing was unusual, at the same time told him he would change it for lesser notes.

This, however, did not satisfy the farmer, who still persevered. At his own request he was waited upon by one of the directors, who readily lent him the sum he required; and at the end of eight days he returned, according to his promise, and repaid the money. When he was asked why he had such an attachment to that particular note, he frankly replied, 'Because _I have the fellow of it at home_!'"

The old style of farmer had the laugh on his side in the matter of balance sheets compared with the farmer of to-day. Here is one under date 1770 for a farm of 300 acres at a rental of L240 (the average rent in this district appears to have been about 12s. to 15s. an acre, but was more than doubled by the end of the century). It was stocked and worked with 10 cows, 150 sheep, 30 oxen, 12 horses, four servants and boys, eight labourers (average L20 a year each), and two maids. In the annual expenditure is put down the modest allowance of L100 for house-keeping of the farmer and his family (exclusive of servants), and the total then comes out at

Year's produce . . . . . . . . . . . L1,599 13 0 Expenditure . . . . . . . . . . . . L1,146 0 0 ------------- Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L453 13 0

Trade was not so much an every day affair in those days as now, but persons obtained their supplies in large quant.i.ties and on special occasions. In harvest time therefore little was doing at the shops, and the tradesmen in the High Street were accustomed to form themselves into neighbouring groups of four or five, and, taking up their position outside their shops, smoked their pipes, while one of their number would read the news, nearly always coloured at that time by the doings of Napoleon, or the French. About the beginning of the century, Mr.

William Henry Andrews, son of the astronomer, as a man having the most talent for reading, was in particular request at these quiet siestas between the intervals of trade.

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They discussed agriculture and the weather with a relish over their "sixpennyworth," and often laid wagers as to the result of the harvest.

Here is an item in Royston--

"1795. Aug. 25--Mr. Bottomley lays S. c.o.xall sixpennyworth that the price of a quartern loaf will be as low as sevenpence the best sort in two months--24th Oct. paid."

Who had to pay there is little doubt, for the bet was a rash one in a season which had seen wheat at 113s. in that very August. The crop did not realize Mr. Bottomley's expectations, for the official average for the year was 75s. 2d. per quarter, from which we infer that Mr.

Bottomley paid his "sixpennyworth."

Royston Market is spoken of in official announcements at the end of last century as "an exceedingly good market town." Though the market was open, the inns and inn yards were freely resorted to, especially in inclement weather, and the Green Man Yard was made to do duty to some extent as a Corn Exchange, for in 1785 when the house was to let, we find it stated that it had "large garden and stables and ten corn shops." Barley was the chief item of sales, and it is said as much as 4,000 quarters has been sold here in a single day.

I do not happen to have found any earlier official statistics of corn sales in Royston market, but for the year ending July, 1839, I find the following--

Total Per qr.

amount. avge. price.

Quant.i.ty. L s. d. L s. d.

Wheat--21,554 qrs. . . . . . 78,233 10 0 3 12 7 Barley--6l,556 qrs. . . . . . 122,402 13 0 1 19 9

Here then we get a sale of 1,200 quarters of barley a week and between 400 and 500 quarters of wheat per week.

Time was when the Royston market had commenced at a late hour, as it does now, but owing to the necessity of being late home, or the felt want of a jovial gathering at the market ordinary in times when the farmer himself worked and needed one day's relaxation, the fiat for change went forth on the 23rd October, 1782, and the hour was changed from 3 p.m. to 11 a.m.--an arrangement made possibly with a view to the pleasures of the market ordinary, and one under which, at any rate, that inst.i.tution flourished most famously for fifty years or more.

At one time the grain was "pitched," that is brought to the town in bulk and stored at the various inns ready for sale in the market. The attendance of farmers, maltsters, and corn buyers was so large that the whole of the open s.p.a.ce of the Market Hill was covered by crowds of buyers and sellers of farm produce, presenting a busy scene more worthy of the past traditions of the market than anything seen now. {109} The market beginning then in good time, by mid-day most of the business was finished, and, regularly at one o'clock there came out of an upper window of the Green Man, the well-known form and features of Mrs.

Smith, the landlady, ringing a h.e.l.l with all the energy and prompt.i.tude of one who had evidently been accustomed to have that summons respected and as promptly responded to! The bell from the Green Man is answered by that from the Bull and the Red Lion, and the trio goes on ding dong, ding dong! The current of business and bargain-making slackens; plump portly farmers in top boots, millers in grey suits almost flour-proof, maltsters carrying riding whips--all the busy a.s.sembly of men of shrewd common sense and well filled nankeen purses suddenly puts up its sample bags, drops its business air, and, like boys out of school, melts away in three different directions according to individual preferences. For behind that well understood signal of the bells is the typical inst.i.tution then in its palmiest days--the "Market Ordinary." Leaving the market to the cheap jacks and ballad mongers, the solid element of the market day gives a jovial account of itself in the market rooms of the well-filled hostelries--now learning from the paper the news, so far as it concerned prices and the continuation of war--now discussing crops with a loyalty to the three-course system which no enclosures had yet upset--now with equal loyalty toasting "the King, G.o.d bless him,"

and generally disposing of enough liquid to make the ride home behind Dobbin a self-satisfied consummation, finding expression in s.n.a.t.c.hes of the old chorus--

To plough and to sow, And to reap and to mow, And to be a Farmer's Boy!

Ah, me! who would not be jolly with a good market this week and the prospect of higher prices next?--with the guarantee of the State that the farmer should not have less than 70s. a quarter, and the certainty of higher prices if the war lasted! But these farmers in the leather breeches and top boots--these self-satisfied men are already in the fading glory of the "Good Old Times"--always applying those words, in so far as they have any meaning at all, chiefly to the farming and land-owning cla.s.ses. Before the century is much older we shall see the same cla.s.s harra.s.sed, embarra.s.sed, and eaten up by a rotten and immoral poor law system, about to be mended, and their prospect of high prices growing less and less, as sliding scales and all artificial props are removed out of the way of things finding their own level--down, down, down towards the present unsupportable level of prices when the consumer has as complete a monopoly of advantages as had the producer in the old days!

But it was not only of the results, but of the place itself also, that the farmer had a pleasant memory. So much attached were its habitues {110} to the old style of an open corn market that when, in later times, the Corn exchange came, many complained that they could not tell a good sample of corn in a building like that, so well as in the open air. Indeed, so wedded were they to the old custom of open market that when the Corn Exchange was erected by the then Lord Dacre, they showed such an obstinate preference for the open market and the convenience of the inns, that they refused for some time to use the new building provided for them! But they got used to it--those that were left to carry on the business of a market, whose traditions, nay, whose history, speaks to us of a former greatness and reputation for trade, in the centuries that are gone, which we can hardly now understand.

CHAPTER XI.