What Did Your Marlow Ag Lab Actually Do?

 

Above: fields in Happy Valley, Marlow in the modern day.

So many people with Great Marlow ancestors will find that they have what the census enumerators usually write up as an "ag lab" in their tree. That is an agricultural labourer. But what did they actually do all day?. Below is a list of tasks I find reference to Marlow or Little Marlow farm workers performing in the 1800s. I am writing here of those who were general labourers rather than the senior farm servants who had specific job titles such as cowman or carter.

You may occasionally find female ancestors described as ag labs too, especially poor widows. Their tasks are listed separately. Women's work was more seasonal so they are less likely to be captured on a census in that role.

Boys (other than those specifically working as plough boys or carter's boy) employed by the farmer or sons of the farmer:

Scaring birds from the fields. Those in their mid teens might already be given guns to shoot at rooks or crows. At least twice this lead to boys accidentally shooting themselves.

Holding a horse steady while a cart or wagon was loaded.

Picking stones from the fields.

Shooting rats or catching them with dogs (teens, especially sons in farming family).

Running errands into town (on foot) to order and pay for items like tar, seeds and pest control items. It was nothing for boys to be sent from Little Marlow down into Marlow to do this. Older boys who were capable of it also drove wagons to fetch items needed when these items were light enough for the boy to manage alone.

Delivering eggs to customers (on foot).

Helping with harvest.

Grooming horses.

Watching sheep where no shepherd kept or was busy elsewhere.

Hop picking holidays in Kent etc see under men below.

Girls (employed).

Picking stones from fields.

Hop picking holidays in Kent, see under men below.

Girls (farm daughters- these won't describe themselves as agricultural labourers on censuses but as Farmer's Daughters).

Feeding farmyard livestock, especially poultry.

Helping her mother to raise chicks.

Gathering eggs.

Helping her mother to make meals for live in employees.

Helping her mother to give first aid to farm workers if they were injured. Deaths from tetanus were a serious and sadly regular occurrence for local agricultural workers.

Men

Milking cows.

Loading / unloading carts and wagons.

Mending fences (a skill that not all had).

Gathering walnuts and fruit from trees. A dangerous job - several Marlow men died after falling from trees doing this job.

Gathering hay and making hay ricks to keep it properly.

Making deliveries if the carter was busy elsewhere.

Threshing wheat etc by hand or with a steam threshing machine later.

Also as a working holiday hop picking in Kent or elsewhere (still something some Dean Street people did in the 1940s). 

Women (employed)

Picking stones from fields.

Working holidays hop picking, see under men's listing.

Elsewhere women are recorded as bird scaring but I have not heard this in Marlow.

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