Introduction Rural women workers: the forgotten labour force

Summary

I have seen many a Poor woman go to the fields in bitter winter weather, cleaning turnips and beet for the sum of ten pence a day. They would come home up to there knees in mud and whet, and then they would have the housework to do, washing cooking mending, and all the other jobs which come along when there is a big famely to do for, and famelys mostely were big in them days.

If life were hard for the men, it were harder still for the women. They often worked side by side with their menfolk in the fields all day, then went home and while their husbands fed the pig or fetched a yoke o'water, they'd get the meal going. But most men could rest a while after tea, at least in winter, but the mother had to set about preparing for the next day, getting the children washed and off to bed, and making and mending clothes and what bits o' furniture and linen they had in the house. Then they'd have to be up with the lark in the morning to sweep and clean the home afore it were time to go to work again.

These two contemporary autobiographical accounts from the Fens offer us a rare glimpse into the reality of life for many women living in the English countryside in the second half of the nineteenth century. Those women who were married with a family were confronted with the familiar – and recognisably modern – dilemma of balancing domestic and childcare responsibilities with contributing financially towards the meagre household income.