Local History Archives

In the 1820s and 1830s, desperate agricultural labourers in England began to revolt. There were a few factors involved in causing this unrest but Land Enclosure is considered to have played a large part.

Before Enclosure

Before enclosure, villages used an open field system of farming. Large open fields were divided into strips that would be farmed by its owners. They were often scattered, and there were no fences or hedges to divide them.

There was also an area of common land used for grazing. This was not open to the general public but was land (controlled by the lord of the manor) that people from that village had rights to use. The land would be used to pasture cattle or keep livestock such as geese, and collect turf, firewood, fruit or berries. There would be a communal consensus for when and how the land would be farmed.

After Enclosure

After enclosure, the separate strips were consolidated so that owners had unified pieces of land. These were marked out through fences or hedges with absolute property rights. No communal consensus was needed – owners could do with their land as they wished.

Enclosure of land was not new, but in the late 18th century it was now being formalised with parliamentary acts. A landowner wanting to enclose land in their parish would obtain a private Act of Parliament. Commissioners would then visit the parish to survey the area and hear claims of other land holders or those with rights to the common. The commissioners would then enclose the open fields, allocating a plot of land that was equal in size to the total strips of land a landowner previously held. The common would also be divided and given to landowners depending on their total landholdings in the parish and access they had to the common.

People who previously had common rights lost the ability to use that land to make ends meet and those who still had some rights, such as tenant farmers, were increasingly asked for rent in cash rather than stock or produce.

How were agricultural labourers affected?

Consolidating the land meant that less workers were needed. It became more common for labourers to be paid by the day or week, or employed for short periods such as harvesting, hedging, ditching and threshing. Farmhands became casual labourers with no guarantee of work, and rates of pay dropped because there were so many available workers. The problem grew worse in 1815 when the Napoleonic Wars ended, and many thousands of soldiers returned to the rural labour market.

A Horse Gin in Use (The Illustrated Exhibitor, 1851)

The introduction of threshing machines aggravated the situation. Farm labourers who had previously been employed to manually thresh grain over the winter months, were replaced by cheaper and more efficient horse-powered machines. Groups of agricultural labourers began to rise up, setting fire to farms and destroying machinery.

If captured, the rioters faced imprisonment, transportation, and even execution, so it was not an act to be taken lightly.

If you have ancestors who were agricultural labourers in the 1820s and 1830s, they may well have been involved in the protests.

Sources:

Norfolk County Council: Enclosure

In Our Time: The Enclosures of the 18th Century

Wheatley Village Archive: Agricultural riots of 1820s and 1830s

Black and white photo of the church showing the bomb damage — Stowmarket Congregational Chapel after the bombing 1941 (via SuffolkNews)

At around noon on Friday 31st January 1941, a lone German bomber was seen flying towards the town of Stowmarket in the heart of Suffolk. Enemy aircraft tended to fly low in the area to avoid the guns at nearby Wattisham Airfield, and this plane was flying so low under the clouds, that its swastikas could be seen from the ground.

The plane flew over Stowmarket from the direction of Combs Ford, firing its guns, before circling around to fly over again, and drop a stick of bombs in the general vicinity of the market place in town. Thankfully, the busy market place was missed, but a direct hit was made on Stowmarket Congregational Church, destroying the building. Houses behind the church grounds were also struck, killing one of the residents.

Sepia photograph of victorian gothic church with iron railings, trees and lamppost infront — Stowmarket Congregational Chapel (via Stowmarket Local History Group)

I learnt about this event through “The Bombing of Stowmarket Congregational Church” by Steve Williams (2004). The book is a compilation of many reports and eyewitness accounts of that day and I found it so fascinating that I devoured the contents in one sitting! The recollections are presented in such a way that you start to feel like you know the inhabitants and their various connections to each other.

Mrs Rhoda Farrow (nee Hearn), lived at ‘Marron’ (9 Kensington Road), behind the Congregational Church. In the 1939 register, Mrs Farrow was recorded at the address with her son Ronald, daughter Marjorie and new son-in-law, Roland Wilden. Marjorie had actually married at the Congregational Church, only a month prior to the register being taken. (Her father, Rhoda’s husband Charles Farrow, had died only a few months before.)

Clipping of part of register — 1939 register for Kensington Road showing the Farrow, Capp and Smith families

After the bombs fell on 31 January 1941, Bernard Moye, then 16 years old, accompanied the town’s surveyor, Mr. John Black, into town to assess the damage…

When they learnt that another bomb had fallen on Kensington Road they went to the scene and found other members of the rescue party who had already managed to get two ladies out, one of whom was Mrs. Capp, who had the flower shop in the Market Place next to Woolworth’s. They had saved themselves by sheltering under the stairs of Mrs. Capp’s house, which was named ‘Floral-Dene’.

Bernard remembers seeing the roof seeming to be suspended in mid-air with nothing much supporting it. They were then told that there was no-one in next door at ‘Marron’ and that Mrs. Farrow was at the railway station seeing her son off from Forces’ leave. This tragically was not the case as Bernard remembers being in the party which, after clearing some rubble from the passageway of Mrs. Farrow’s house, they then lifted the door that lay amongst the debris and found her body laying there. Bernard commented ‘she unfortunately appeared to have arrived home at the wrong moment.'”

(excerpt from The Bombing of Stowmarket Congregational Church (2004), pp15-16)

Mrs Beatrice Smith, who lived at number 7, had been at the first aid centre on 24-hour call with the Red Cross. She would serve in the Red Cross for 51 years. In 1975, on the occasion of her retirement, The Bury Free Press (7 Nov 1975, p2) remarked that her devotion to duty had probably saved her life. The book holds quite a few of recounts of near-misses and it appears extremely fortunate that Mrs Farrow was the only person killed in the attack.

The new Stowmarket Congregational Church was completed in 1955.

A new ultra-modern building was finally completed on the same site in 1955 and still exists (now known as the United Reformed Church). The new church’s contemporary look was very different from the previous church’s Victorian Gothic style and received mixed reactions. I can’t help but think that Stowmarket town centre would have a very different feel if the old building was still around today.

I also can’t help but think that it’s somewhat of an eerie coincidence that I was given this book and learnt of the bombing for the very first time, only a few days before the 83rd anniversary of the church’s destruction, and the death of Rhoda Farrow.