MARSH FEN AND TOWN ......AND CLASS PART 2 THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL CLASS STRUCTURES

Feudalism was a system where rural peasants produced food for their Lord and masters who in turn had enjoyed land rights allocated by the monarch. This was a system that dominated across much of Europe, but alongside it in England we had imported a more co-operative system of land use that thrived in the Eastern counties through to the East Midlands with a combination of common rights and strip farming with the last vestige of this remaining in the village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire into the 21st Century albeit in a modernised form to fit in with modern farming.  There is something particularly important in this history in that the individual had rights that coupled with the responsibility to tend the land in an organised manner for mutual benefit. This is different to the standard European peasant, typically of the Roman model that had fewer rights and was indeed a chattel of his master.

The sixteenth century saw the start of enclosures that grabbed land, land rights and power in many ways. Perhaps the most notorious being Henry VIII's grab of assets from monasteries and religious houses. Drainage of the Fens would see an erosion of rights of the Fenman to grazing, fishing, wildfowl, coppicing. This was echoed in many ways throughout England and the colonised nations of Ireland and Scotland. Enclosed land saw a deterioration of common rights, but as agriculture became more developed and efficient it was to free up the peasant class for other tasks. Peasants were a rarity, rather developed a paid class of rural workers. These were farm servants often hired annually in May, but also on quarter days; a regular labour force on larger farms employed throughout the year, such as shepherds; specialists such as stack thatchers,  builders, navigators (digging drains in the fens, or canals roads and rail elsewhere) employed as needed ; casual labour paid daily or on piece rate typically for such seasonal tasks as harvesting, bird scaring, planting etc.

Those that acquired landed estates not only gained farmland but also mineral rights, most notable of these in the seventeenth century being coal that was to drive the Industrial Revolution in the subsequent century. A popular history I was taught was that these people migrated to cities to work. This is a little misleading as in fact that they migrated into industry to work, not all industry was city based, especially coal mining as any visit to the former coal mining villages of the Midlands, Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland will reveal.

By the sixteenth century England was differing from much of Europe with virtually no peasants, but the rural labouring poor were tied to landowners or their larger tenants. So you see three strata, the rural labourer, the tenant farmer and the land owners. However, the more remote areas such as the Fens saw a key labouring class develop, the cottager. The cottager worked casually or seasonally for land owners and tenant farmers, but had his own house and small holding. He and his family would have some livestock, usually their own cow, but also pigs or even sheep on a small scale using common grazing rights. The cottager's wife and children would work and tend to these, especially a cow with surplus milk churned by hand into butter and sold. Calves produced typically from their short-horn cow would provide a very useful income that was often used to extend a meagre land holding.

In the Fens the "cottager class" was valued greatly as low population density and increasingly larger farms meant they and their families provided a useful source of casual labour with low obligation to house them. From this class developed the Fenman. The Fenman varied regionally from the marsh lands around the Wash, to inland waterways and fens of Cowbit, Crowland, Ramsey and into Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, Whittlesey, Wendy and Soham. These Fenmen exploited the resources of the Fens with many sources of income. Wild fowl and waders and their eggs could enjoy high value, or be in such quantities as to be a bountiful source of funds. Equally fish of many sorts with eels being perhaps the most famous, but other fish such as stickleback being processed to produce oil and fertilizer. Reeds were cut for thatch; peat was dug for fuel. Inbuilt in the Fenman was a means of social mobility, but it was often the case their life was rich and so valued that the Fenman's aspiration was to be what he was.

The Fens did have a large land owning class with three significant estates to note: Lord Carrington in Deeping Fen through to the marsh lands of South Lincolnshire, Lord De Ramsey of the Ramsey area down to Huntingdon, Joseph Banks from the edge of the Wolds into Wildmore Fens and Fleet Fen in South Lincolnshire. Reclamation saw their fenland holdings increase in value as they became pasture and arable fields of great size. These landowners did not necessarily farm the land themselves, rather they had tenant farmers. The tenancies were substantially larger than in many areas, with 300 or 400 acre tenants compared to tenancies a third of that size elsewhere in England.

Conversion of Fen into pasture and arable fields saw a new class of farmer move into the area from the time of George III (1770's). Former tenants from the Eastern Counties south of Lincolnshire and Central England migrated into the area having been tenant farmers elsewhere bought land and improved it alongside land that they rented in their new area. A new generation of self-made landowner through their own skill and ingenuity developed alongside the traditional landed gentry. Many of these self-made farmers had experience of success rearing livestock, most notably cattle and sheep and/or were very capable businessmen. The rural working class roles of grazier and shepherd grew in commercial importance and carried status. Hence we see people like Shep White ( Holbeach Marsh shepherd ) and George Wallet ( Long Sutton grazier) highly regarded. This is what is not appreciated and I feel is a particularly strong feature of rural working class more so than urban working class in that earned status can shine through the clouds that class discrimination creates far stronger.

As we entered the 19th century the rural working poor suffered a drop in fortune as increasingly their employment was affected by  the price of supply and demand. The growing industrial activity in cities saw a migration particularly of young men away from the rural economy in a trend that would continue. However, the population grew, a quarter of a million soldiers returned from War with France in 1802, and an increasing number of hungry and displaced Irish migrated to England. In most rural areas there was vast underemployment and to make things worse there was increased mechanization of Agriculture. In some regions rural unemployment stood seasonally at 50%. Poor relief was funded by landowners paying rates to the Parish on top of any tithes to the church. There was low sympathy towards poverty often on grounds of cost, but also because it was deemed a result of being poor character. It would not be unusual for a desperate man to desert his family to put their cost onto the Parish workhouse. Such desertion was regarded with contempt and rewards were offered to hunt such men down, such as this in Dowsby Parish in South Lincolnshire:

" FIVE GUINEAS REWARD

Run away and left his family chargeable to the Parish of Dowsby in the County of Lincoln.

WILLIAM GRAY  Labourer

Supposed to be twenty eight years of age, stands about five feet nine inches, very stout made, walks upright, has light-grey eyes and brown hair. Had on, when he went away, a jacket with a short smock frock - he absconded November 19th 1800.

Whoever shall apprehend the said William Gray and deliver him to the Overseers of Dowsby Parish shall receive a reward of Five guineas."

Before we judge William it should also be remembered that a common route out of such a situation for men that was held in equal contempt was suicide.

Landowners complained at the cost of poor relief as well over half the rural work force looked for relief to survive in a market where in most cases wages were dropping to below subsistence levels. I will look at this in more detail in my final section on the cost of living gap.

We see a series of riots largely dominated by poverty and cost of wheat and bread in the early nineteenth century even before the Corn Laws came into play. The Fens in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk saw disturbances as did the area towards Lincoln, most notably the navvies riot that hit Bardney and neighbouring Wragby. But the  South Lincolnshire Fens did not see the same disturbances. I put this down to the following reasons:

-  low usage of printed news. It is clear that in some parts of the country press coverage of unrest not just in urban England, but also France and Ireland seeded the idea of insurrection. This is seen in some of the words and notices posted in some areas. Local press was not common place in South Lincolnshire until the1850's and it took the arrival of the railway for the London and regional press to arrive in the area promptly. Publicly accessible reading rooms in Corn Exchanges, chapels and town halls supplied with newspapers increased from the 1850's.

- a remoteness of the Lincolnshire Fens  physically, socially and politically  from the rest of the country. This meant it avoided conflict and dispute seen elsewhere as the area is "another world”. For example, this meant it avoided much of the conflicts of the English Civil War. This has been a common thread even into more modern times. When I discussed this reasoning with a professional historian he argued that this was a flawed idea as disturbances were seen in Cornwall. Cornwall was better connected to the rest of the world due to its rural mining industry and trade. In South Lincolnshire only Boston enjoyed a similar connectivity, but being a European facing port enjoyed a better supply of food that was trickling into the area. Riots in Boston in the early nineteenth century tended to develop out of local political rivalry, for example the naval press gang was set about because it was believed they had arrived in Boston at the behest of the Conservative " Orange Blue" faction.

- shortage of labour. Fen farms were often large and remote with workers often travelling some distance to work. Agricultural pay in South Lincolnshire was better than in Norfolk or Cambridgeshire and much gang labour was still local. Indeed any incoming groups of agricultural gang labour were frequently chased off.

- the Fens of South Lincolnshire were a net exporter of food. Furthermore fenmen made greater use of natural resources.

- a developing middle class. This is seen in the popularity of the Orange and Blue faction of Conservatives. This was popular with larger tenant farmers, merchants, smallholders, cottagers - typically people of working class origins that were starting to get a foothold in property ownership. It was sometimes in conflict with landed gentry Conservatives (Blue Conservatives), but was tolerated as people looking in the right direction with a willingness to preserve social order.

- law and order enforced by local clergy. In some ways they suppressed the rural working poor. Magistrates were dominated by Church of England clergy. They could be ruthless in judgement of people's character, deeming poverty as a failing of character. They controlled the welfare and distribution of poor funds through he parishes. However, the power they had in every town and village was the high regard that the rural working class gave them. You see this erode as the non-conformist protestant religions gain popularity with the labouring classes.

- a heading off of trouble by shrewd landowners, clergy and magistrates procuring allotments for the labouring poor at low rents. " I remember the riots and the sort of set against machinery in 1830 -32. The thing which pacified the men in our district was giving each of them half an acre of land at nominal rent. Nobody can tell how much it has added to their property. It's the land which keeps our best labour at Croyland."  Mr. Thomas Hardy farmer at Crowland in 1867.

Although there was great poverty the lot of the labouring poor in rural South Lincolnshire was better than elsewhere.

As we advance to the later nineteenth century we see a caste system dictated by birth develop into a class strata that began to enjoy social mobility. In the Fens I would describe the layers as follows at the top working down:

Traditional landed gentry

Large tenant farmers, medium sized land owners (40 acres or more) , property owning merchants and clergy.

Merchant boat owners.

Professionals - lawyers, surveyors, surgeons, insurance agents, bankers.

Farm contractors of machinery. Engineers.

Skilled tradesmen

Catholic priests.

Non-conformist protestant clergy

Shopkeepers.

Owners of pubs and inns. Masters of boats.

Educated servants or people with authority such as town clerks, police,  prison wardens, station masters, post office clerks, bank clerks and teachers. Head teachers were frequently clergy.

House owners and cottagers that owned their home and/or a smallholding.  The multi-skilled Fenman (eels, decoys, wild fowl , reeds, eggs, skating). You also had independent farmworkers that owned their home and perhaps a small amount of land and had their own horse and plough for hire. Fishermen.

Specialist farm workers such as grazier's, herdsmen, shepherds. Men whose skills could make or secure a farmer's fortune. Farm managers and foremen.

Regular farmworkers retained and housed permanently by the farm. Shopworkers, junior staff and clerks.

Farm and household servants hired annually. Sailors hired as needed.

Local casual farm labour.

Transient gang labour.

The last two groups consisted of a combination of children, young inexperienced cheap labour, women, seasonal migrants and those marginalised by society.

Below group were those often outcast, such as  abandoned and orphaned disabled, soldiers with PTSD, others with mental illness or disability.

Gipsies could also belong to this group, but often they were simply outside of the conventional industrial age society and its strata holding a mixture of discrimination, rejection and respect. Seasonally in the Fens they formed an essential mix of transient labour up to my childhood in the 1970's. At that time it was common in fruit picking season to see gipsies in large numbers parked up in large numbers on the roadsides of the Cambridgeshire fens. In the 1980's I regularly saw gypsy gangs that followed flower picking from Cornwall, through Lincolnshire into Scotland and then back down picking fruit. By the 1990's they had been displaced by East European, Portuguese and South African seasonal gang labour.

The structure I describe above, whilst not an exhaustive illustration, survived in varying degrees into the early twenty-first century. But the ratio of people in each class changed with varying social mobility. The largest change was in the landed gentry which whilst they remain to this day, largely became invisible in society with their assets managed by land agents. The nineteenth century saw an increase in family farms with families amalgamating often by marriage, but also by incorporation. The twentieth century saw the development of the food and horticultural businesses in the Fens often from farming backgrounds and typically non-conformist protestant religion devotees. As we approached the end of the twentieth century  the large corporate family businesses became public Companies and/or sold out to large multinational Corporations.

Horticulture and farming in Lincolnshire weathered the recession in farming caused by cheaper imports at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, but many farms reduced in size and some tenancies struggled. World War 1 brought a respite for agriculture, but in the last two years of the War the German US boat blockade struck food supplies, especially meat. War both highlighted class differences and smoothed out some of the differences. But late in the War returning servicemen entered land settlement schemes in the Fens. This saw some farmers have some Crown tenancy land taken off them to enable these land settlements by servicemen and their families. The success and failure of these veteran's farm settlements was directly related to class and fortune. The officer class and those with more capital of their own to  invest survive with some success. Ordinary soldiers with no family money background failed. The system was well meaning and flawed with little or no grant for working capital.

The inter War depression saw migration of working class long term unemployed from the North East Sunderland and Durham into land work and land settlement schemes. Such schemes were advocated by upper and upper middle class liberals, socialists and national socialists that did not understand the pain of skilled steel workers, boiler makers and miners being denied their living and the blighting of their families. The results were tragic with suicides and suffering and very little success as denied the support of their former communities they were ducks out of water.

The numbers of seasonal workers from the struggling industries of the Midlands increased but with the larger numbers their ability to earn enough to improve the lot of their families was reduced and they were prone to exploitation. Some farmers even charged them for the sacks and straw which they used to make their rudimentary beds, charged for water and charged for the overcrowded accommodation and camps. Equally some farmers were more generous and forgiving. My impression was that the background and origins of the farmers determined how they treated their seasonal workers.

The inter War period also saw small tenant farmers collapse and a failing South Lincolnshire and their families end up in the work house.  I have had the privilege of meeting Gerald Green who aged 9 in the 1930's ended up in the workhouse in Spalding. He describes in his book "Farmhouse Aches Workhouse Pains" how this downfall happened near Gosberton in South Lincolnshire. Preservation and even increasing of rents of farmers against a recession in post War farming was a factor that hit many local tenant farmers. It personally "gets my goat" that some of these landlords were heralded as generous benefactors of society in South Lincolnshire when their behaviour towards tenants was ruthless and damaging with no regard for the consequences on people and their families. All classes of society have good and bad, but the actions of those in more privileged positions can create suffering to those below them.

Post WW2 saw great shortages in housing in South Lincolnshire. Former barrack huts that housed soldiers were occupied by squatting families on The Wreck in Spalding (this was formally called "The Recreation Ground" and was located on what is now Lime Court south of Ayscoughfee Gardens). Elsewhere in the Spalding area people were living in old buses,  railway carriages and shanty houses. Private houses were permitted by a lottery and priority was given to various designs of Council housing, the quality of which was reduced as the 1950's progressed. It should be noted that the original intention of post war council housing was that it should be of a quality that both professional and working class people be equally content to occupy. This laudable Labour policy could not produce the numbers of housing and the subsequent Tory administration took a pragmatic, if short-term, approach favouring prefabricated housing that over time had quality and durability issues. Essential workers such as gas and electricity  engineers, teachers, doctors, police and fire brigade were generally awarded better quality housing. Nurses enjoyed subsidized flats and accommodation whilst they were single. Many employers, especially farms, supplied tied housing. There were class differences but the post-war period saw a levelling between classes. Indeed by the late 1960's  the incomes of many working class households exceeded those of many middle class households. Greater social mobility was possible.

You also saw family businesses that were mindful of their responsibility to their workers. You can see similar words published from both the Geest and Adams family members, both local food industry owners, expressing how they felt this responsibility when they employed up to three generations of the same family. As their businesses expanded they invested in the community in both financial and practical ways. These businesses created a loyalty, continuity and opportunity. This was also seen in medium sized farming businesses and horticulture. Different classes of society were closer.

Into the late 20th Century and you see a change in working class fortune caused by many factors:

- many larger key employers in the local food industry ceased being family owned businesses and became large PLC's or multinational corporates.

- attitude towards employees changed. This is typified by the role that was once labelled "staff welfare" or "staff welfare officers" becoming "human resources". In the past employees were seen as individuals whilst at the same time acknowledging the need to treat them as a business asset. Going forward employees were seen primarily as a resource, not as an individual.

- housing costs increased. This happened in several ways, the most significant being an increase in home ownership by working class people that in the past typically rented with multi-generations in the same council house or tied housing. This increased vulnerability. For middle class me it created opportunity when housing crash in the early 90's saw subsequent repossessions increase and I bought one. Housing then increased in value driven by migration, both from other parts of the UK as well as from abroad. Into the twenty-first century this would inflate the growing private rental market.

- suppression of wages against increased living costs.

- energy costs. This began as an issue with the supply crisis of oil in 1973 caused by the Yom Kippur War that caused  "Arab oil producers not to simply rattle their 'oil weapon' in its scabbard, but to wield it to their utmost discomfiture on, and against the major oil consuming nations of the world."  A pattern that has been repeated with few lessons learned fifty years later as Russia achieved the same with gas. This hit business and householders alike. It is now reinforced by green energy policies that see energy loaded with green taxes

- migration from other areas, retirees cashing in on London homes and moving north; people seeking work from deindustrialised areas; massive uncontrolled immigration from Europe, especially Eastern Europe. This saw resources put under pressure, suppression of wages and increase of housing costs.

- increased reliance upon personal debt to function.

- dissolution of local services in rural villages and towns. Closure of hospitals, maternity units, doctors, police stations, magistrates courts, County courts, bus services, schools etc . all accumulate to rural family households requiring two car to function. Even in larger towns like Spalding you saw closure of corner shops that used to be essential on each of the housing estates, reducing reliance upon needing a car. In Spalding a town bus service was created but in the Thames Road estate area that had a very high proportion of elderly and disabled people this was withdrawn, despite it being a lifeline for many. The excuse given by the operator was that parked cars were holding up the service. In housing estates from the 1980's the provision of local convenience shops was a rarity, with every single service and need becoming car reliant. This had a greater effect on working class, disabled and retired people.

- a regrowth of the gang labour system.

Tulip picking in the Fens of South Lincolnshire