Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:47:34.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

VI. Agricultural Trade Unionism and Emigration, 1872–1881

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Pamela Horn
Pamela Horn
Affiliation:
Oxford Polytechnic
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Unlike their fellows in a number of other industries, English farm labourers came relatively late to the idea of trade unionism. Admittedly, unsuccessful attempts at combination had been made by some few labourers from the 1830s onwards – and particularly during the later 1860s – but it was not until the years 1871–2 that appreciable numbers of them displayed real interest in the principles of trade unionism

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1972 , pp. 87 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Earlier unions had been established, e.g. at Tolpuddle in Dorset in 1833–4 and in Kent, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire in the 1860s, but they proved, without exception, to be short-lived only. See The Martyrs of Tolpuddle (produced by the T.U.C., London, 1934),Google Scholar and Horn, P. L. R., ‘The Leicester and Leicestershire Agricultural Labourers’ Society 1872–3’ in the Leicestershire Historian, vol. I, no. 5, 1969, p. 152,Google Scholar and Horn, P. L. R., ‘The Evenley Strike in 1867’ in Northamptonshire Past and Present, vol. IV, no. 1, 1966–1967, p. 47.Google Scholar J. P. D. Dunbabin, ‘“The Revolt of the Field“: The Agricultural Labourers’ Movement in the 1870s ‘ in Past and Present, no. 26, Nov. 1963, provides a general account of the agricultural trade union movement in the early 1870s. Horn, P. L. R., Agricultural Labourers’ Trade Unionism in Four Midland Counties—1860–1900 (unpublished Leicester Ph.D. thesis, 1968) deals with the background to, and character of, the agricultural upsurge in the four counties of Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire – see especially Chapter 2.Google Scholar

2 Some increase in agricultural wages had admittedly been obtained in the 1860s, but this served rather to whet the appetite of the farm labourers than to satisfy their demands – which were modest enough anyway. See Jones, E. L., The Development of English Agriculture 1815–73 (London, 1968), p. 34, for example.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Thus, Dunbabin, J. P. D., op. cit. p. 85,Google Scholar notes that in Dorset it was claimed that ‘emigration made likely a shortage of labour in the spring of 1873’.

4 Salt, Major A. E. W., ‘The Agricultural Labourer in Herefordshire’ in Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club (1947), p. 99,Google Scholar and Arch, Joseph, The Story of His Life Told by Himself (3rd ed. 1898), p. 110.Google Scholar

5 Otago Witness, 28 Feb. 1874 (published in Dunedin).

6 Brisbane Courier, 20 Jan. 1874. In fact, as early as September 1871, the Colonial Secretary of Queensland was writing to his Agent-General in London authorizing the granting of free passages to ‘a limited number of Agricultural laborers ‘, Queensland State Archives (Q.S.A.), COL/P2, p. 223. I am much indebted to the State Librarian of Queensland for his co-operation in providing information on emigration to Queensland.

7 Ottawa Times, 20 Sept. 1873.

8 The North Herefordshire and South Shropshire Agricultural Labourers’ Improvement Society, which was formed under the leadership of a local Primitive Methodist school teacher, Thomas Strange, had, however, emigrated ‘about forty’ men to America prior to the Brazilian enterprise: Arch, Joseph, op. cit. p. 110.Google Scholar In the late autumn of 1872, Strange was also making arrangements for members of his union to emigrate to Queensland in the following spring, Q.S.A., AGE/G2, pp. 411–13.

9 Many years later Joseph Arch wrote in his autobiography that when he proposed emigration to Canada, ‘there had been, as there always is, and ever must be, men who had said, “Oh, be careful, be very careful about sending men to Canada. Look at the Brazilian fiasco; take warning by that“’, Arch, Joseph, op. cit. p. 202.Google Scholar

10 Thirty-third Annual General Report of the Emigration Commissioners, Parliamentary Papers (P.P.) 1873, xviii, 8. Most of the emigrants were farm workers and their families.

11 Ibid.

12 Report respecting the condition of British Emigrants to Brazil (P.P.) 1874, LXXVI, 3–4.Google Scholar

13 See my article, ‘Gloucestershire and the Brazilian Emigration Movement – 1872–3’ in Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Journal, vol. LXXXIX (1971).Google Scholar

14 Emigration to Brazil – Reports on the Colonies of Cananea and Assunguy (P.P.) 1875, LXXXII.

15 Royal Leamington Chronicle, 4 Oct. 1873.

16 Labourers’ Union Chronicle, II Oct. 1873. Fellow unionists also helped certain of the returned Brazilian emigrants. For example, after a meeting at Thame, Oxfordshire, in late Oct. 1873, a collection was made ‘on behalf of G. Dickens, who had returned from Brazil’; it realized £1 7s. 4½d., Labourers’ Union Chronicle, 1 Nov. 1873. ‘n Dorset the impression made can be gauged from the fact that when Thomas Hardy came to write Tess of the D'Urbervilles in about 1889 he mentioned the sad effects of the Brazilian emigration schemes: ‘The crowds of agricultural labourers who had come out to the country …, dazzled by representations of easy independence, had suffered, died, and wasted away. He would see mothers from English farms trudging along with their infants in their arms, when the child would be stricken with fever and would die; the mother would pause to dig a hole in the loose earth with her bare hands, and would bury the babe therein with the same natural grave-tools, shed one tear, and again trudge on.’ (See St Martin's Library paperback edition, London, 1963, chapter XLIX, p. 381.)

17 No. 26, Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand for 1874 – Immigration to New Zealand.

18 Toronto Daily Globe, 27 Sept. 1873.

19 Ottawa Times, 20 Sept. 1873.

20 See letter from the Queensland Agent General, dated 21 Jan. 1873, Q.S.A. COL/76, letter 502 of 1873.

21 Report of the Canadian Minister of Agriculture for 1874 to the Governor-General of Canada. p. vii.

22 Annual Report of Mr John Dyke, special Immigration Agent, dated 24 Dec. 1875, and addressed to the Minister of Agriculture in Ottawa. See also Peacock, A. J., The Revolt of the Fields in East Anglia (1968 pamphlet, London), p. 10, for evidence on the payment of 10s. per head for emigrants to Queensland.Google Scholar

23 See Horn, P. L. R., ‘Christopher Holloway – an Oxfordshire Trade Union Leader’ in Oxoniensia, XXXIII, 1968, p. 133.Google Scholar

21 Queensland State Archives, COL. 77A, letter no. 2567, and COL/Ni, pp. 677–8.

25 English Labourers’ Chronicle, 31 Aug. 1878.

26 Labourers’ Union Chronicle, 13 Dec. 1873. This was later amended. According to die 1879 Rule Book: ‘Railway Fare of Members and Families emigrating (was) paid to any port of embarkation. When two or more children under 12 years of age in a family Emigrating, 10s. to each family. When four or more under 12 – 20s. to each family.’ Rule Book at Public Record Office, F.S.7.4/154.

27 See A. J. Peacock, op. cit. for details of the Eastern Counties dispute. Also Clifford, F., The Agricultural Lock-out of 1874 (1875, London).Google Scholar

28 Daily Advertiser, London, Ontario, 12 Sept. 1874. See also ibid, for 9 Sept. 1874.

29 See Report of the London-based Agent General, Mr E. Jenkins, M.P., for the year 1875 (Report No. 36), p. 120, in which he noted that from June 1875 he had cut down on agricultural emigration to Canada because of adverse economic conditions in the Dominion. He had sent out a circular letter to this effect to Government Agents and Steamship Companies: ‘There is no doubt that this letter … had an effect in stopping the formation of a number of large parties of agricultural labourers which it was intended to send out after the harvest. Their arrival in Canada would have been attended with grievous discomfort to themselves and would have placed the Government in an extremely responsible position.’ However, official Canadian emigration agents had certainly been active in the early part of 1875 at least. One, John Dyke, addressed about 125 meetings in the agricultural districts during the course of the year – and all but 24 of these were held before the beginning of August. Of the total of 125, 18 were organized in connection with the Kent and Sussex Union; 48 with the Lincolnshire Amalgamated Labour League; and the remainder were N.A.L.U. affairs. See Dyke's annual report, no. 27, dated 24 Dec. 1875, to the Canadian Minister of Agriculture in Ottawa. A second special Canadian Immigration Agent, Mr G. R. Kingsmill, addressed 126 meetings during 1875, mostly in Lincolnshire in connection with the Lincolnshire Amalgamated Labour League. As a result of this activity, during ‘the season there went out to Canada from my district, through the Amalgamated Labour League alone, a total of 588 souls, consisting of 385 adults, 156 children, and 47 infants ‘. See Kingsmill's report to the Minister of Agriculture in Ottawa, no. 28, dated 30 Dec. 1875, and written from Boston in Lincolnshire.

30 Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression, Interview on 8 Dec. 1881 of Alfred Simmons (P.P.) 1882, vol. XIV, Q.61,113 and Q.61,372.

31 Johnson, S. C., Emigration horn the United Kingdom to North America, 1763–1912 (1966 ed.), p. 82.Google Scholar

32 Arch's Evidence to the Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression, Interviews on 4 Aug. 1881 (Q.58,422) and 6 Dec. 1881 (Q.60,354) (pp. 1882 vol. XIV.

33 Groves, R., Sharpen the Sickle! (London, 1949), p. 67, makes this estimate.Google Scholar See also Dunbabin, J. P. D., op. cit. p. 85.Google Scholar

34 Peterborough Advertiser, 22 May 1875. Arch, Joseph, op. cit. p. 254,Google Scholar suggests that 500 unionists went to Queensland in this period, while figures available in Queensland show that during the year 1874, 2,659 agricultural labourers emigrated to this colony. Information provided by the Queensland State Librarian.

35 When Arch died in 1919, a local newspaper, the Leamington Chronicle, declared that as a result of ‘his investigations between six and seven thousand men were assisted to find homes in the colonies’. The total appears far too low, however. Leamington Chronicle, 20 Feb. 1919.

36 Labourers’ Union Chronicle, 17 Jan. 1874. Gates's letter was dated 24 Sept. 1873. See also Springall, L. M., Labouring Life in Norfolk (London, 1936) for other similar examples.Google Scholar

37 Kent and Sussex Times, 11 June 1875.

38 Russell, Rex, The Revolt of the Field in Lincolnshire (1956), p. 111, notes that the Stamford Mercury of 2 Mar. 1877 contained a letter from a dissatisfied emigrant, Joseph Dixon, formerly of Binbrook, Lincolnshire. He wrote very critically from Auckland, New Zealand.Google Scholar

39 Henry Taylor first visited South Australia in 1876, at the invitation of the then Agent-General, Mr Dutton. On his return to England in 1877, he worked very successfully as an emigration agent until about 1881, when his services were dispensed with. He at once emigrated to South Australia, and after trying his hand in an agricultural implements business at Clare, he sold out and became the proprietor of the Sturt Hotel, Adelaide. He eventually died in Adelaide in Nov. 1919, at the age of 74. His obituary noted that: ‘He assisted to form the Anti-Poverty League in Adelaide many years ago… He was a loyal supporter of single tax principles right up to the time of his death.’ Information kindly provided by the Agent-General and Trade Commissioner for South Australia. See also Loyau, George E., The Representative Men of South Australia (Adelaide, 1883), pp. 242–4.Google Scholar

40 Information kindly provided by Mrs Marian Arch Fabyan, Edward's eldest daughter, who still lives in Massachusetts. See also Dunbabin, J. P. D., ‘The Incidence and Organization of Agricultural Trades Unionism in the 1870s’ in Agricultural History Review, vol. 16, pt. 11, 1968, p. 138, for further examples of union officials emigrating or acting as emigration agents.Google Scholar

41 Labourers’ Union Chronicle, 13 Dec. 1873.

42 Reports with regard to the Accommodation and Treatment of Emigrants on Board Atlantic Steamships, Cd. 2995 (P.P.) 1881, vol. LXXXII.Google Scholar

43 Brisbane Courier, 5 May 1874. For information on the Mongol's voyage, see Labourers’ Union Chronicle, 2 May 1874.

44 Deaths on British Vessels Cleared from United Kingdom under Passenger Acts, All Passengers in 1881 (P.P.) 1882, vol. LXII.Google Scholar

45 Russell, R., op. cit. p. 83.Google Scholar

46 Oxford Diocese, Clergy Visitation Returns, Bucks. Archdeaconry, 1875, MS Oxf. Dioc. Pp. c. 340, Bodleian Library, Oxford. The population of Thornborough, for example, had fallen from 687 in 1871 to 577 by 1881, and at Aston Abbots from 327 in 1871 to 290 in 1881.

47 The concessions granted by the Australasian Governments to agricultural emigrants seem to have proved especially attractive in the later 1870s. Thus, of 17,702 who went overseas in the period 1876–9 inclusive, no less than 17,045 went to Australasia. See Parliamentary Papers 1877, vol. LXXXV; 1878, vol. LXXVII; 1878–9, vol. LXXV; 1880, vol. LXXVI.Google Scholar From 1884 to the end of the decade and beyond, however, it was the U.S.A. which was to prove by far the most attractive. (See Appendix A.)

48 English Labourers’ Chronicle, II Jan. 1890.

49 Emigration was seen as one cause of decreasing rural population in the Swaffham Poor Law Union area of Norfolk and in the Thingoe Poor Law Union area of Suffolk in the early 1890s, for example. See Royal Commission on Labour, The Agricultural Labourer, Reports by A. Wilson Fox on the Swaffham Poor Law Union, pp. 95 and 96, Appendix C2, C3, C4; and on the Thingoe Poor Law Union, p. 33. Factors leading to falling population in the latter area were ‘the conversion of arable land to pasture’; ‘the inability of many farmers to employ as much labour as formerly, owing to agricultural depression’, and ‘the introduction of machinery’ (P.P.) 1893–4, xxxv, 33.

50 Shannon, F. A., America's Economic Growth (New York, 1951 ed.), pp. 507–9.Google Scholar See also Robertson, R. M., History of the American Economy (New York, 1961), pp. 343–4.Google ScholarFaulkner, H. U., American Economic History (New York, 1954 ed.), pp. 355–8.Google Scholar