Report to Houses of Parliament (1869)

Post date: Apr 15, 2014 5:17:46 PM

Extract from Report of Commissioners on Employment of children, young persons, and women (available on Google Books):

137. Mr. E. Leach, Scripture reader, and agent to the Kent Hop-pickers' Society, 30 Bermonsey New Road, S.E. -For the last seven years I have been engaged by the Vicar of Wateringbury to work as Scripture reader among the hop-pickers in his parish. The pickers who went this year to work in that parish for Mr. Arthur Fremlin and Mr. Goodwin were sent down by me from me as agent for the Society. Last year I sent some to Mr. Goodwin and all of them who go again this year want to return to him.

In that district I have seen every sort of accommodation for the pickers. I prefer wooden huts, with small partitions, such as Mr. Goodwin has, in each of which there is a sort of raised bed. His "wigwams of heather" do not protect them so well from the weather. Some of the new brick hopper-houses are very good, such as Mr. Fremlin has built. One woman was confined in one this year, and as he has put up rough wooden bedsteads, was very comfortable. He has some tents, but in damp weather these are not so satisfactory.

Some of the pickers in this district are miserably lodged. They are given straw and hurdles, and make what shelter they can. In one such hut there were 40 persons this year.

One great difficulty in the hop garden is that getting good food, and even when they have it there is often a want of a shelf or a locker in which to put it. The pickers who have been hired through the Society urge to me, as their chief reason for preferring this mode of hiring, that they have not to leave London till they have a certainty of employment; and secondly, that the character of their companions is very much improved. In consequence of this I find that a higher class of person are willing to go for the change of air, and would even pay a small sum to get a decent lodging there. Mr. Fremlin tried the plan of giving me a sum at the end of his picking to distribute among those who had behaved themselves well, and this I think, will have considerable effect.

But another advantage is that they are saved from the extortions of the bin-men or gangers. In 1866 several women told me that their bin-men never gave them any account of what they had earned, but paid them what he liked. Sometimes a costermonger takes them all down in his cart, feeds them, and gives them fixed wages, taking the rest of their profits. In other cases the bin-man expects to be treated or receive some payment for taking them down.

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141.[SUMMARY of EVIDENCE as to the mode of hiring of hop-pickers.]

Four hundred were hired through the Society; almost all the rest by letter, generally through the binman or tallyman. Four employers say they pick them up on the road. Previous agreements are rarely entered into. By the returns from West Kent, it appears that the "tally" or price for picking was paid on the second or third day after beginning at latest, or before the commencement of each separate garden. In East Kent the price does not appear to be fixed till the work is done, when it is so fixed as to give average pickers from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d.a day. Some make it a condition that in the event of any offence being given by the pickers they shall be paid off at a greatly reduced price.

Strikes are mainly complained og in the West . "Firmness and kindness" are the usual remedies recommended.

Mr. W. A. Fremlin says "No means are so powerful as the universal engagement of pickers through an agent, particularly the Society, and keeping a black book to be handed to the agent that bad characters may not be sent out another year." Other suggestions are "combination among employers not to employ those that strike; that masters should not trust so much to their baliffs" "the closing of all beer-houses during the whole of the Sabbath" and "an arrangement to be made before the bench of magistrates for the rate of payment to be made after picking."

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WATERINGBURY

Population 1,370 [ acreage under hops, 370]

92. Notes of Meeting August , 1868

Present:

Rev. H. STEVENS

Mr. THOS. WHITE

Mr. E. T. GOODWIN

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 males are wanted than in a corn growing district.

Children, both boys and girls, leave school earlier than they used, as there is a greater deman 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.

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142.

WATERINGBURY

Mr. W. A. Fremlin (300)-"Bell tents are much used. In one case I have used a large cart-shed this season, divided into small compartments for four pickers each. I have also small hopper-houses about 12ft. square for six or eight pickers each, and some new ones 7¹/₂ X 9 for four pickers. The latter are much approved for small families, and, I think, a mistake is made in building rows of hopper houses of uniform size, unsuited for families varying in number. I provide board benches with bed of coarse cloth stuffed with straw. The houses are sometimes used for storing machinery , but are cleaned and whitewashed.

[Mr. E.T. Goodwin has 15 conical huts of wood thatched with heath (12ft. in diameter at base), five or six inmates in each. A ventilating pipe always stopped up by inmates. Also a wooden moveable hut with six compartments (each about 8 X 4)for married couples, with a bed and seat in them. Very comfortable. ]

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143. [Privies were not provided in 19 cases, and in 11 in very insufficient numbers; in six they were provided and stated not to be used, in six others it was not stated whether they were used or not. In only one or two cases was any attempt made to separate males from females in the use of them.The general plea was the people hardly know how "to use them", or "they would be too dirty for others", or "there are plenty of secluded places for them in the woods or hop-gardens". The state of filth in the neighbourhood of some gardens is therefore very bad.

Cooking houses were more or less provided on 15 farms , and in 11 to a very insufficient extent. In 14 no provision was made, but they had to cook in the open air.-E.S.]