THE 



COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE 



OCTOBER 1872 



THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER LN THE SEVENTEENTH 



CENTUR V. 



JN his " History of England," Lord Ma- 

 caulay gives an exceedingly interesting 

 account of the wages and condition of the 

 English agricultural labourer two hundred 

 years ago ; and as we have not yet seen it 

 reproduced, and think it will be a valuable 

 contribution to the agitation which has lately 

 taken place among the rural population, Ave 

 have transcribed it. Of course there are 

 many circumstances — the mere distance of 

 time being the principal — which make the 

 account obsolete ; but as a faithful picture of 

 the condition of the agricultural labouring 

 population in the seventeenth century it is 

 worthy of careful perusal : — 



" The great criterion of the state of the 

 common people is the amount of their wages ; 

 and as four-fifths of the common people were, 

 in the seventeenth century, employed in agri- 

 culture, it is especially important to ascertain 

 what were then the wages of agricultural in- 

 dustry. On this subject we have means of 

 arriving at conclusions sufficiently exact for 

 our purpose. 



"Sir William Petty, whose mere assertion 

 carries great weight, informs us that a la- 

 bourer was by no means in the lowest state 

 who received for a day's work 4d. with food, 

 or 8d. without food. 4s. a week, therefore, 

 were, according to Petty's calculation, fair 

 agricultural wages. 



"That this calculation was not remote 

 from the truth we have abundant proof. 

 About the beginning of the year 1685, the 



VOL. IX. 



justices of Warwickshire, in the exercise of a 

 power entrusted to them by an Act of 

 Elizabeth, fixed, at their quarter sessions, a 

 scale of wages for the county, and notified 

 that every employer who gave more than the 

 authorized sum, and every working man who 

 received more, would be liable to punishment. 

 The wages of the common agricultural 

 labourer, from March to September, were 

 fixed at the precise amount mentioned by 

 Petty, namely, 4s. a-week, without food. From 

 September to March the wages were to be 

 only 3s. 6d. a-week. 



" But in that age, as in ours, the earnings 

 of the peasant were very different in different 

 parts of the kingdom. The wages of War- 

 wickshire were probably about the average, 

 and those of the counties near the Scottish 

 border below it ; but there were more 

 favoured districts. In the same year, 1685, 

 a gentleman of Devonshire, named Richard 

 Dunning, published a small tract, in which he 

 described the condition of the poor in that 

 county. That he understood his subject well 

 it is impossible to doubt ; for a few months 

 later his work was reprinted, and was, by the 

 magistrates assembled in quarter sessions at 

 Exeter, strongly recommended to the atten- 

 tion of all parochial officers. According to 

 him, the wages of the Devonshire peasant 

 were, without food, about 5s. a-week. 



" Still better was the condition of the 

 labourer in the neighbourhood of Bury St 

 Edmunds. The magistrates of Suftblk met 



Q. 



