Stanford Rivers: High Country History Group talk

High Country History Group

The Agricultural Depression in Mid-Essex
c.1870-1901

Village Hall, Toot Hill
8.00pm, Thursday, 25 February 2010
Members: £1. Visitors very welcome: £2

The talk looks at the background to the Agricultural Depression in Mid-Essex in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The talk relates soil type, the primary influence, to the responses that farmers made to the acreage of land under wheat and permanent pasture, along with the number of cows in milk.

There are resonances with more modern times; the importation of cheap foreign produce; the reaction to imports; and alternative sources of livelihood. Another strand that links in, relevant to the present day, is the demonstration that with hard work and perseverance life can carry on; these ancestors are fine examples of how adversity can be faced. In these new austere times can we look to the past for inspiration, realising that we are not so badly off today?

The studied area is the parishes that made up the Chelmsford Union. Many Scottish farmers came to this area in this period! The talk demonstrates what it is possible to achieve by using the National Archives and resources accessed through the Essex Record Office.

BLACKMORE HISTORY NEWS - October 2009

Welcome to this month’s round-up of local history and heritage in and around Blackmore, Essex.

A Farming and Family Centenary Celebration

Descendents of Arthur Henry Smith had a party recently to celebrate one hundred years of farming at Jordans Farm in Mountnessing. It was to there, in 1909, that my grandfather became a tenant farmer on land owned by Lord Petre. My cousin still farms the same land which is a great achievement and cause for celebration. The gathering, attended by many family and friends, provided an opportunity to view photographs and other memorabilia. Those into family history displayed their research and in preparation for the occasion I researched Arthur’s ancestors.

Researching a Smith family line at first sight sounds a daunting task given the fact that the name is common so I went with an open mind to the Essex Record Office one Monday morning. I had already obtained the census record for 1901 (when Arthur, aged 16, was living with his family) and the free listing of the 1881 census (obtainable from Ancestry.co.uk). But within the space of three hours I had established the name of my gt gt gt gt grandfather, Henry, through using census records back to 1841 and parish registers copied onto microfiche. Why? It quickly became apparent that my family had lived throughout the nineteenth century in the parishes of Stock and Buttsbury.

I will be posting my findings shortly on http://www.blackmorehistory.co.uk/smith.html.

This month’s photo is of Jordans Farm, taken in 1954, with thraves (known as stooks elsewhere) of corn in the foreground.

Early Essex Parish Registers Online

In April 2009 ‘Blackmore Area Local History’ reported that the Essex Record Office had embarked on a project, called ‘Essex Ancestors’, to digitise and put on-line through SEAX (the catalogue of archives) colour images of original Anglican Parish Registers (except marriage registers less than 50 years old). Early Parish Registers for local parishes are now available to view through SEAX (http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/default.asp). ‘Blackmore Area Local History’ will monitor progress and hopefully provide links this autumn to images through the ‘Parish Registers’ page of the main website. In the meantime Registers can be viewed on microfiche at the Searchroom.

The major advantage is that wherever you are in the world you can look up ancestors from the comfort of your armchair without going to Chelmsford. Those American friends, for example, looking for the Smyth family in Blackmore can see the original register entries for the first time and no doubt copy extracts. In this respect this is a marvellous innovation.

But is there a downside? If all Registers and Census material goes online will this mean a reduction in the footfall of visitors to archive searchrooms. As someone said to me when I visited the Record Office recently, this can be no substitute for talking with others during your coffee break as often other ideas come to the fore through networking. At a time when the National Archives (at Kew) is likely to close to the public every Monday, in order to make cuts, I am quietly concerned that access to original documents – e.g. church records, wills, inventories, house sales – could become more restricted. I can see the dilemma: an attempt to increase access to records and make cuts to the front line service. Taken to its extreme there must be a danger that these vast store houses of history and local interest become the preserve of academics, frightening off casual visitors and enthusiastic amateur historians. I trust that those responsible for our heritage have a policy which ensures that these records continue to be available for all, and attract people from all walks of life to learn about the past.

This is not a criticism, just an observation. At present I have found most archivists to be very approachable and only too willing to point people in the right direction.

Historic Villages advertised by Beresfords Estate Agents

An innovative way of advertising local properties, amenities and, for this site, history has been created by Beresfords, a local estate agent. Local villages are covered in short ‘You Tube’ presentations.
For Writtle, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRSN99s1fJk
For Ingatestone (and a quick mention of Mountnessing, Stock, Fryerning and Blackmore) go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUnoKY2fivU&feature=related
For Shenfield, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_xswZXg0G4&feature=related
For Brentwood, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qg0fnqTAB4&feature=related

Runwell

David Mallinson, from Denver Colorado USA, wrote on 13th September 2009: “I read with great interest your blog entry (http://blackmorehistory.blogspot.com/2009/07/runwell-revd-suckling-memorials-1845.html) with respect to Fleming's (or Flemyngs's) Hall [Runwell] as my family owned the property from 1908 to 1986, and I myself lived there from 1967 until the property was sold in 1986.

“I note the source for the excellent rendering of the front of the house is the Rev Alfred Suckling's work 'Memorials of the antiquities and architecture, family history and heraldry of the County of Essex’ (John Weale, London, 1845). I would imagine that copies of the above work are hard to find nowadays, having said that do you know the whereabouts of any copies?”

The book itself is very rare but available through the Essex Libraries Network. The Essex Record Office has a copy. I purchased a very tatty copy, minus cover and all plates, from E bay a couple of years ago for about £20. I believe that in the book business this copy is called a "breaker" - all the good bits removed and sold on as framed pictures, unless, of course, one is interested as much in the text. Either that or I have just invented a new word for the Oxford English Dictionary.

London Underground

A sightseeing site in Botswana has been quick to pick up the reference in the Mangapps Farm Railway Museum item to the London Underground. It has added it to the numerous links on its history. See http://www.sightseeing.co.bw/search/History_Of_The_London_Underground_.html

Links

For an extensive list of links to other sites go to: http://www.blackmorehistory.co.uk/externallinks.html

Blackmore: Life as an Essex Agricultural Labourer

Two years of research has gone into this work which began in an attempt to understand what life would have been like for my ancestors, who were Essex agricultural labourers. The booklet (44 pages) is available price £1.50 +P&P. Contact me for information.

In the following extract the agricultural depression is explored.

Growing industrialisation abroad meant that by 1875 England was being inundated by cheap grain from overseas, mainly America. There were also a series of bad harvests, especially in 1878 and 1879. Consequently there began an agricultural depression.

Lord Ernle wrote that, “Land deteriorated in condition. The counties which suffered most were the corn-growing districts, in which high farming had won its most signal triumphs. On the heavy clays of Essex, for example, thousands of acres which had formerly yielded great crops and had paid high rents, had passed out of cultivation into ranches of cattle or temporary sheep-runs” [Ernle. English Farming. Past and Present (1936) p382]. These heavy clay soils required ‘three horses’ to plough and were therefore more expensive to cultivate.

During the period 1875 to 1893 the acreage of wheat in Essex fell from 200,670 to 118,187. Farms went out of business and work in rural parishes dwindled.

The price of wheat was especially low in 1894 and 1895 but showed signs of improvement in 1897. It was not until 1907 that the price rose above 30 shillings (£1.50) per quarter but by then the acreage farmed had declined. In Essex in 1904 there was a reduction of over 21,000 acres of wheat (20.9%) against the previous year.

It was observed, “There seems no doubt that corn-growing on heavy clay soil cannot be made to pay under present conditions; the cost of production is too high, and the market value of the produce too low. Dairy farming is the only kind that is really profitable, and yet Essex is far more suited climatically for wheat-growing, being sunny and dry in the summer – too dry for the best pasture” [Victoria County History. Vol II (1907) p341].

Between 1871 and 1901, one-third of the nation’s male agricultural labourers (including foreman and bailiffs) left the land to find employment elsewhere whilst the population rose by 43%. “The townward pressure was relentless” [Ensor. England 1870-1914 (1936) p286]. Agricultural wages between 1871 and 1901 had risen by 20% but the price of wheat had slumped.

In 1907 wages were “13s.9d., and average extra earnings by piecework 3s.2d., so the total amount received per week is 16s.11d. (84p)” [VCH p328]. With the price of wheat lower, the author of Victoria County History commented that, “the labourer’s position is better … than it had ever been before” [Ibid p328].

During the nineteenth century, baptism entries recorded at the parish church of Blackmore exceed the number of burials by a proportion of two to one [ERO T/Z 227/12]. This data suggests a large growth in population. However census returns show the population of Blackmore declined from 709, in 1841, to a low of 571, in 1881 [Victorian County History Vol. II (1977) p345].

Other summary data gives clues to Blackmore’s economic well-being. The Census records the number of households inhabited and uninhabited.

Between 1841 and 1901 the number of dwellings gradually reduced from 158 (in 1841) to 145 (in 1901).

The level of under-occupation is greatest in the 1881 census, attributable to the onset of the agricultural depression from which Blackmore was not immune. (14.7% of properties were uninhabited.) The previous decade shows the greatest fall in population perhaps accelerating markedly towards the end of the period when the depression really started to have an effect.

© Andrew Smith

Mountnessing: On Jordan's Farm

A Binder on 'Lower Ten Acres' in 1969