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Low Pay, Underemployment and Multiple Occupations: Men's Work in the Inter-war Countryside

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Stephen Hussey
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Extract

On a tour of the Chiltern hills upon the eve of the Second World War the rural commentator Henry Massingham came across a Buckinghamshire farmer. As rural ‘characters’ are wont to do in Massingham's books, the farmer was able to recite a piece of rustic wisdom, on this occasion concerning the type of country worker that he always sought to employ, saying ‘A man as can't do more'n one thing baint good for anything’. As an employer of men the farmer simply meant that all his charges should be of sufficient calibre to prove themselves versatile within an industry that called on them to change tasks by the hour, day, week and season. In short, in the eyes of the farmer an adaptable labourer was an efficient labourer. However, there was another side to this equation, as the aphorism also held resonance with workmen across a wide range of trades and not simply agriculture. For it was the man who was able to vary his work patterns, switching between employment sources, going beyond his central occupation if necessary, that was best able to ride-out the vagaries of the rural labour market.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , October 1997 , pp. 217 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh Mathematical Society 1997

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References

Notes

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