Berkshire Folk Tales by David England

Author:David England
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752492889
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

The Father’s Tale

There were poor harvests in 1829 and 1830, causing a rise in the price of bread and in unemployment among rural labourers. Father and me were laid off during the bitter winter months from our work on Tom Tull’s farm.

On top of all the suffering my father described, we faced a new threat when farmers started bringing in horse-powered threshing machines. During the months after the harvest was gathered in, we had stayed in work to do the threshing. Now, when our one-week contract finished after harvest, we were laid off and had no wages coming in. We had Poor Law relief, but each person needed 3½ gallon loaves11 each week to keep body and soul together, and the Poor Law only gave us enough money for two loaves. We starved.

Then, one day, these big tough men arrived from Kent, with their angry and powerful words. They told us about their leader, Captain Swing, who was stirring up protests against the poor living conditions of agricultural workers – the ‘oppressed poor’ they called us. This Captain Swing wrote letters to the landed gentry – opulent landowners, farmers, magistrates and clergymen – demanding an end to starvation wages. When there was no response, Captain Swing called on the workers to riot, with the slogan ‘Bread or Blood’.

Well, the condition of us agricultural workers in the villages around Hungerford was no better than in Kent. Since the enclosure of our common land, things had gone from bad to worse, as my father has described, and now the new threshing machines were reducing the need for our labour.

So, the words of the Kent men made a powerful impact on us, ‘Bread or Blood’. Their words worked like fire in a hayrick, internal combustion slowly warming up until the whole rick burst into flame. Once it starts, there is no damping it down.

Captain Swing letters were written to all the landed gentry. We knew by this time that ‘Captain Swing’ was just a made-up name, to protect the letter writers. The letters had an effect, though. The gentry was worked up, fearful about what had happened in Kent: rioters burning tithe barns, demanding money with menaces, wrecking threshing machines.

The gentry called a Vestry Meeting right away and agreed an increase to our agricultural wages, from 9s to 10s per week, and an increase to Poor Law relief, for a married man with more than two children, by the cost of an extra gallon loaf for each child above his second.

Meanwhile, a crowd of us had gathered outside Hungerford Town Hall to give support to our demands. John Willes, a county magistrate, met our spokesmen, which included me. He told us about the increases the Vestry Meeting had agreed, to which we gave our assent.

Mr Willes then complimented the conduct of the rural labourers, which, he said, was marked by restraint and civility in the way we expressed our sense of the suffering and hardship we had endured and our repudiation of any intention to provoke riot or disorder.

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