Duties of a bailiff in 1870s

[Mart 'n' Al]

I have a person who describes her father's occupation on her marriage banns in 1874 as 'Bailiff'.  He is not listed as deceased on the document, so might have been up to 73.  In 1841, aged 40 he was an agricultural labourer in Suffolk.  Can anyone tell me what his bailiff duties might have been?  I doubt that he was an educated man.  It seems an odd career move.

Thanks in advance, Martin

[stanmapstone]

From the Dictionary of Occupational Terms: Bailiff, farm bailiff, farm manager, farm steward. A manager or head worker on a farm or farms who is mainly engaged in supervision and allocation of duties; superintends the work of agricultural labourers e.g. carters, cowman; is often placed in charge of a subsidiary farm under the direct supervision of the employer and manages the farm in the absence of the farmer; he may buy and sell produce and equipment in market on the owner's behalf.
Stan

[arthurk]

The Old Occupations site has a rather more restricted definition for Farm Bailiff -
http://www.rmhh.co.uk/occup/f.html

As I read it, he would be employed by an estate owner to keep an eye on the tenant farmers and make sure they paid their rent and looked after the farm. Seems a feasible transition for someone who was getting a bit old for actual farm work himself, though obviously dependent on the goodwill of the estate owner.

[Grameka]

Some sort of 'caretaker' working on behalf of a land owner. Collecting rents, ground rates... a general middle man between the land Lord and his tennants.

edit* as above 

[stanmapstone]

This question has been asked before on RootsChat
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,297464.0.html

Stan

[stanmapstone]

His duties would depend very much on the size of the farm.
From the Bury Free Press - Saturday 09 October 1875

[Maiden Stone]

I have a person who describes her father's occupation on her marriage banns in 1874 as 'Bailiff'.  He is not listed as deceased on the document, so might have been up to 73.  In 1841, aged 40 he was an agricultural labourer in Suffolk.  Can anyone tell me what his bailiff duties might have been?  I doubt that he was an educated man.  It seems an odd career move.

Thanks in advance, Martin

My GF was an ag. lab who became a farm bailiff (1890s-1902), then a tenant farmer. His employer was a businessman who owned several farms. GF managed the "home farm" attached to the Hall, his employer's residence. When he wanted to set up on his own his boss offered him choice of 3 farm tenancies. GF had basic education. He must have been competent with figures and keeping accounts. Other qualities needed: range of knowledge and experience of farming and willingness to learn more and keep up-to-date with new ideas; intelligence; energy, reliability; hard-working; honesty. He was also innovative. His boss put into practice some of his suggestions, which required major capital outlay.
If the advert posted by Stan had been 20 years later he could have applied.

[Sinann]

My great grandfather was an Estate bailiff, unfortunately it was during the Land War in Ireland so he had to attend evictions, pointing out the house to the eviction party and appearing in court for waste hearings. He was of course not popular with his neighbours and his family suffered because of it but he did get to give evidence against the Land Agent as well. One of the families evicted at the time was his future son in law's family.
Waste is a charge of making alterations to farm/farm buildings on you farm without the landlords permission. They were adding chimneys etc to barns to house evicted families.

[Mart 'n' Al]

Thank you all, especially Stan.  His job was quite different from how we see bailiffs today, which was what I expected, but I didn't realise that it was probably a common progression from ag lab.

Martin