In 1851 my 3x great grandfather was a farm labourer in Ketteringham. In 1861, aged 65, he had moved to Earsdon Northumberland with his wife, the youngest of his 14 children and a grandson. He remained a farm labourer but the two young men were coal miners. Other members of his family, sons, daughters, nephews and nieces also travelled North, settling in either Northumberland or County Durham. In each case the men worked as miners or as labourers in related industries. Some moved with their Norfolk spouses others found partners in their new home.
I haven't followed all the families but so far I haven't found a record of any returning to Norfolk. (The exodus seems to have escaped oral history-my late mother was unaware that any of the family had ever left the county. )
I assume that changes in agriculture and lack of employment opportunities drove the families northwards. Presumably it was fairly easy to travel in returning coal barges.Was this a common occurrence or were my ancestors unusual?
Hello Janfurness,
It was extremely common for the starving labourers of Norfolk (in particular) to be recruited by the agents working for the mills, mines, and docks further North (and South).
The would be new employers paid for the removal of the family and sorted out such things as legal documents for settlement. Settlement certificates were a must in the 19th century. Without one, you could not stay. This outlay had to be repaid, however, and there are many tales of wives whose husbands who later died or were injured, but the family still had to pay back those removal expenses.
That, and the fact that many men were paid in company tokens which they could only spend at the company owned shops, meant that families were in hock for generations. Hence, few of them were able to return to Norfolk. Some, like my grandfather, Robert Dack, however, managed to escape. I am still trying to work out how he was able to take his wife and large family from Newcastle to London in 1878-1881.
The company token scheme was eventually outlawed by the introduction of the Truck Acts which made it illegal not to pay someone in Coin of the Realm if they so demanded. This part of the Act was removed under Margaret Thatcher's regime to "facilitate cashless pay". Nowadays, one cannot insist on being paid wages in cash.
It was not changes in agriculture that caused this exodus, but the fact that Norfolk was extremely poor in general, the soil particularly barren, and many people starved or died very young of disease in the 18th and 19th centuries. A look at church registers will tell you that. Most aglabs were dayworkers and/or owned a small amount of not very good land upon which they and their large families subsisted. The mine, mill, and dock owner's agents were a godsend to many of them.
A complicated subject but I hope I have pulled away some of the mystery.
Vicwinann
