Employment of women and children (1868)

Post date: Feb 17, 2012 11:49:9 AM

In 1869 a Commission reported to Parliament on the employment of women and children in agriculture. The published report is within Google books from which this extract is taken. The Wateringbury evidence was based on a meeting in August 1868 of the Commissioner, E. Stanhope, with the Vicar, R.H. Stevens, and two Wateringbury farmers, Thos. White and E.T. Goodwin. The report showed Wateringbury as having a population of 1,370 and 370 acres under hop cultivation. The Goodwins farmed primarily at Canon Court Farm but also at Dann's Lane. Thos. White was not such a large farmer, at least not at the time of the Tithe survey in 1839. The tithe survey recorded a slightly lower acreage then under hops then (197 acres plus 78 acres of mixed hops and fruit) than was the situation in 1868.

Women are employed all the year in many cases and take their children, but no girls under 11 are employed and boys are not really wanted at that age, except at hop picking. Sometimes a few boys or girls of 8 or 9 are employed at weeding for a week or two, but this is the exception. Both for women and children field work is considered healthy. The women work from 8 to 6, with an hour and a half for meals; the "mates" with horses have longer hours, but, by an arrangement of staying longer one day and coming later the next, the hours of work are reduced to 12, and this being a hop country, fewer mates are wanted than in a corn growing district.

Children, both boys and girls, leave school earlier than they used, as there is a greater demand for them. The boys remain pretty well till 11, and it is thought that any compulsory restrictions beyond that age would be a serious inconvenience in farm work, and still more to poor families. Before that age, a requirement of at least 100 days' schooling in the year would not be thought unreasonable.

This report is also cited in Religion and Society in Kent , 1640 -1914 (page 107) by Nigel Yates, Robert Hume and Paul Hastings with quotations from other parts of Kent.