This is the beginning of my seventh month of blogging and I
have not missed a day. Phew.
Yesterday one of the things I did, while The Man was at
work, was a bit of family tree ‘stuff’
and I registered an interest of a site called Curios Fox. I really did not
think it would come to much, but this morning in my in box was a message from a
local history group with a positive response. This gives me the names of my
paternal three times great grandparents. So when I used those names to do a search
of the 1841 census there they were with four of their children. Haven’t had a
win like that for ages and ages. Not only has that it seemed that there is
information about others in the family. For a small donation, which I will
willingly make. They will email it to me.
They were Ag Labs, agricultural labourers to those unused to
the census terminology. Must have been a hard life back then in the mid 1800’s
but at least they would have been out in the country and not as later
generations were, working in polluted cities.
They were not without their troubles though. As the enclosure of public
or common grazing/farming land increased they would have lost their ability to
provide food and to create an income. This act of parliament removed existing
rights of local people to use these tracts of land. Wealthy and greedy
landowners could apply to have the land enclosed. Worse still, in 1845 another
act of government allowed for the appointment of commissioners who could
enclose land without submitting a request to parliament. Combine that with the revolutionary
new mechanised harvesting machinery, and the poor Ag Lab was even worse off. It
was no wonder that there was a huge upwelling of protest which culminated in riots
and the destruction of farm machinery. Many, like my ancestors moved to the cities.
Strong Ag Labs made good labourers. Life in the cities must have been a huge change
for the country folk, and mostly not for the better. Despite being able to earn
better wages, the cost of living, as it is today would have been higher and
generally living conditions would have been much worse.
That’s progress for you
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