« Reply #44 on: Sunday 29 November 09 12:22 GMT (UK) »
I just chanced upon this thread and stayed to read the absorbing facts. Coincidentally I was born and bred in Hull and my grandfather's ag. lab. family were originally from Norfolk but some (like yours) had to migrate in the middle of the 19th century. There's a website (below) which outlines the cause of the migration (war, bad harvest and overpopulation in Norfolk) and describes the feeing fairs which were held around Britain on Michaelmas Day. The same fairs were held across mainland Europe too. I can't find it now but there's a jpeg online of an annual labour fair/market held in Glasgow.
http://www.cambridgeshirehistory.com/People/agriculturallabourers.html It was the normal custom for hiring to be done once a year, at Michaelmas (29 September), the place of hiring almost always being a country fair, or, less often, a market. The fairs were frequently called 'hiring fairs' (although other business and sales would also be transacted), and they were common throughout the county (eg. 25 were held in 1762). The labourers would stand on a platform, or in an enclosure, to be 'looked over by the prospective employers for features such as strength, general appearance and character (and, in the case of girls, probably their attractiveness as well!). They would then be questioned about their skills and abilities, their previous employment and their liabilities (which might well include wives and children
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie: Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke