There are names that came from nowhere, without an explanation, and Hickerton is one of these. It was not necessarily made up for any reason for there are no villages or parishes, geographical features, trades or nicknames that explain the arrival of the surname Hickerton into Wiltshire in the 1700s. Maybe at the Chippenham Hiring Fair in the noise of the day the name came from a lack of understanding of a strong West Country accent, or another accent from elsewhere; perhaps it was a Parish Clerk unable to understand the name given to him as he wrote. But around 1796 the only known Hickertons in the World – Thomas, his wife Mary (nee Marsh, from a Salisbury family) and their daughter Elizabeth Hickerton arrived from Box, Wiltshire into Lower Stanton St Quintin. Later census returns show Thomas Hickerton to have been born in Box around 1770 while daughter Elizabeth is shown as born in Corsham in 1795, both places on the outskirts of Bath, ten miles to the South-West. There is a record of a Thomas born in Box in 1770 to James and Betty Richerton, but the surname Hickerton had arrived in Stanton, and was here to stay. For this reason, Hickerton is a potential subject of a One-Name Study. Until anyone proves me wrong it seems that every Hickerton that there is in the World today started around 1795, here in Lower Stanton St Quintin, with Thomas, Mary and their daughter Elizabeth and their subsequent family. And although many of their children moved away they were still there 50 years later. The 1841 census confirms the nature of the villages showing Upper Stanton St Quentin containing a farmer and his family, 2 sawyers, a basket maker, a carpenter, the Curate Charles Cotes and 15 more households of agricultural labourers. The same census shows Lower Stanton St Quentin households contained 3 farmers and their families, a shepherd, a shoemaker, a mason, an innkeeper (shown as a carpenter at the Carpenters Arms), 2 households of farm servants, 3 aged/retired and 30 households of “agricultural labourers”. One of these families was Thomas and Mary Hickerton, now in their 60s living with their youngest daughter Rebekah who had two children Jane and Ann born out of wedlock.
The title “agricultural labourer” was not one a term people generally used to describe themselves before it was used widely in the 1841 Census. Whilst every minor difference in employment was identified in industrial areas those in the countryside were largely put under the one heading. It was only if they held a particular skill that they were identified differently, and this happened inconsistently across the country. So in most cases, wheelwrights and blacksmiths were specifically identified, as were masons, carpenters or sawyers, occasionally shepherds. The remainder were called Agricultural Labourers.
The title however covered a wide range of activities from cowmen, horsemen (as opposed to the Ostler), ploughmen, hedge-cutters, ditchers, and there were general labourers who turned their hand to any work that was available. There were those who worked in the Brew House, the Buttery or the Dairy. Children were stone-pickers or bird-scarers or fruit-pickers until they could manage more. Some were farm labourers and some were farm servants and these were not always separately identified. Farm labourers were generally married, living separately from their place of work with their family on a fixed wage with greater security of employment. And they could be there for life or alternatively they might be itinerant moving from place to place each year. Farm servants tended to be young single men who lived in the farmhouse for a set period, with no set hours of service having to be available when required. Often the first year was spent close to home and then with experience they moved further afield through the Hiring Fairs. And other activities went on when not working on the farm members of families might supplement their income by straw-plaiting, basketry, button and glove making, even boot making, or nail making for those near to towns or where a forge could be maintained.
Hiring Fairs were what we know as Mop Fairs today. Their fore-runners probably existed before Edward I formalised them by passing the Statute of Labourers in 1351. In 1563 the Statute of Apprentices legislated for a particular day of the year when local constables would proclaim the stipulated rates of pay and conditions of employment for the following year and the existing Fairs became the place where workers and employers would assemble to be matched with each other. These tended to be held at the end of September each year because although domestic servants were also hired at these events, the agricultural calendar was deemed to start and finish on the quarter day, the 29th September, or Michaelmas Day. They were held after the harvest had finished in market-places across the country where there was often a livestock market as well. In 1677 the bonds agreed between masters and servants at Hiring Fairs were endorsed by Act of Parliament, so Hiring Fairs became also known as Statute Fairs.
In some places a second “Mop Fair” or “Runaway Mop” was held a month later to give still un-hired servants and labourers a second chance of employment, but also to give another opportunity for those whose contract had not worked out and the employer and employee had parted company for whatever reason.
The yearly hirings often included board and lodging but not always. Wages could be paid at the end of the year’s work, but in some places they were paid more regularly. Annual contracts inevitably became linked to the Settlement Laws where a servant or labourer would “gain” recognition of Settlement if he/she worked consistently in one place for more than a year. Where employers were also required to pay rates to cover a Parish’s Poor Relief there could be the temptation to deliberately cut short the employment in order that the labourers would not qualify for Poor Relief in times of sickness or unemployment. It was common both for hired labourers to remain and become settled in a community, or they may spend a year in one village, and the next year perhaps to move 20 or 30 miles away to another.
The tradition was that the workers would gather in the street often carrying a badge or tool indicating what sort of work they did – shepherds carried a crook or a tuft of wool, dairymaids brought a milking stool, and yes, housemaids brought a mop… and they would be approached by potential employers. It could be a two-way process in that workers for hire would be told by others whether particular employers were good and fair, and similarly the employers would look for references from the potential employee. Once the decision had been made the employee would remove their symbol and wear bright clothing of some kind. They would receive a “hiring penny” (maybe a shilling) which they would likely then spend at the Fair. Many a marriage match was made at the Hiring Fairs after the bargain had been made, as there was money in pocket and the temptations of the ale-house or the other entertainments took hold. Increasingly as the 1800s moved on Fairs became more for amusement and pleasure than for hiring. Drunkenness, pickpockets, immorality and sometimes violence became common. By 1900 there was no doubt that the main function of these Fairs had become entertainment rather than the hiring of labourers.
As with the differences in the seasons, throughout their lives agricultural workers suffered periods of surplus followed by periods of low incomes often coupled with high costs. Wages were better in the North where competition with the newly industrialising towns kept wages higher. Many people and organisations tried to make a difference. The Speenhamland System of 1795 set a minimum income for agricultural workers that varied with the size of family and was directly connected to the price of bread. The boom period in the Napoleonic Wars was followed by a depression by 1815 increasing the impoverishment of countryside labourers. By 1834 the Speenhamland System was in disrepute as it was found to encourage idleness, young marriage and large families. Additionally employers could pay low wages knowing they would be made up by the System or from the Poor Rate. Increasingly workers found themselves under the control of the landowners who also acted as not only the local magistrates but also the Justices of the Peace. It was the same landowners and landlords who demanded rent and who appointed the churchwardens who insisted on church attendance, and additionally they were the overseers of the poor to whom applications for Poor Relief were made. Whilst those on a fixed wage, working on an estate for their lifetime had some protection, those outside this arrangement had none. There were advantages and disadvantages both ways. The closed village (or estate) restricted residence to those less likely to draw on Poor Relief. In open villages there might be a number of landlords, less control, more rowdiness and higher rents. But at every turn it was the workers who suffered. Job security was non-existent. Poaching and burglary became commonplace but risky and could result in prison or transportation. For all workers any wrongdoing meant risking losing their livelihood, and there was no-one but the Poor-Rate or later the Workhouse to turn to when times were hard – as they often were.
In 1830 farm labourers in the Southern counties rose up in revolt in The Swing Riots, an insurrection largely led by the village craftsmen, the Wheelwrights, the Blacksmiths etc. The riots started in Kent and spread all the way along the south coast and as far North as Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Norfolk. They demanded higher wages and an end to the threshing machine that had been increasingly introduced from 1785 and which significantly reduced their chances of Winter wages. They rioted, burnt ricks, destroyed machinery and threatened farmers.
Over 2000 men, women and children appeared before the Quarter Sessions in the Assize Courts. A minority were hanged but over 40% were bound over to keep the peace. The Tolpuddle Martyrs from nearby Dorset were initially transported to Australia. Their crime was the formation of a union of workers – they were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of The Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. They were brought back two years later after public pressure, and they continued to campaign but it was another 40 years before the Agricultural Workers Union was founded by George Edwards in Norfolk (who subsequently lost his job for participating in strikes) and finally led by Joseph Arch a farm labourer and hedge-cutter from Barford near Warwick.
By 1837 when Victoria came to the throne, in the height of the industrial revolution, more than half the population of England were still reliant on agriculture for their livelihood, unaffected, and sometimes (perhaps mostly) unaware of events in the outside world. Although newspapers were becoming available they were an expensive luxury for the countryside labourers many of whom could not read or write anyway. News was instead spread verbally at the Hiring Fairs and other markets, or in the village inns from travelling chapmen, pedlars, hawkers and penny-readers, or perhaps from other travellers stopping in Coaching Inns bringing news from afar. From 1860, increasing mechanisation was even reaching Wiltshire, and coupled with national economic stagnation in the last quarter of the 19th Century meant a dim outlook for many still employed on the land and mass migration onto regular work in the towns started to increase.
But Came They All to Birmingham 