Kith and Kin – Borders Family History Society
WHEN looking at farm servant ancestors who lived and worked in the late 18th or early 19th centuries, it can be difficult to find out much about their working lives. If they were recorded in the 1841 census, their residence and the occupations of their family provides some additional information which can be useful.
Old Parish Registers entries for Baptisms, Banns and Burials may include occupation or place of residence but there was no guarantee that anything more than some basic information would be recorded.
The Statistical Accounts published in the 1790s and again in 1845 often have descriptions of the economy of the Parish and the Rates of Pay for the main groups of workers.
For the largely agricultural parish of Chirnside, the later Statistical Account written in 1834, reports that the benefits earned by farm servants or hinds included 10 bolls of oats, three of barley, one of pease, also their food at harvest, the keep of a cow, a drill of about 1200 to 1400 yards for potatoes, three or four double horse cart loads of coals driven home, a pig kept by themselves and a piece of land for the garden.
Day wages for common labourers were 1s 8d, wrights and masons 1s 8d and for shearers in harvest 2s 2d with victuals. Comparative daily rates “during the war”, the Napoleonic wars which lasted until 1815, were higher for common labourers at 2s 6d, wrights and masons 3s, shearers in harvest 2s 6d or 3s with victuals. These rates may have been common but there would probably be variations from farm to farm, depending on the quality of land and the main crops produced.
The farm of East Blanerne lies within the parish of Bunkle and Preston but its boundary is with Chirnside parish. It was tenanted by William, David and John, members of the Blackadder family who left a rich legacy of documents. In the Harvest Book, the names of those employed at harvest time are listed, with the number of days worked and the wages due. Some of the harvest records are more complete than others but the years 1832 and 1836 are useful for comparison with the Statistical Account.
Wages were paid to 20 women and seven men in 1832 and 10 women and six men in 1836. It would appear that the majority of the men were paid 2s 4d per day and women 2s 2d. Other day rates paid to women were 1s 2d up to 1s 10d. September 27, 1832 saw the harvest “secured in good order in the stackyard on great crop and good quality”. The 1836 harvest was all in the stackyard on October 8 “after a long and tedious harvest”. There had been a severe snowstorm from north east on September 29 when “every kind of out work stopt except feeding cattle and sheep”. It had been a “very expensive harvest”. These records provide such an interesting insight into the working loves of our ancestors.