220 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



year had wearily to pass before this became the standard 

 wage recognised by the Farmers' Federation. 



The farm workers of other counties besides Norfolk were 

 demanding better wages and shorter hours. The men of 

 Wiltshire, Herefordshire, Kent and Bedfordshire showed 

 great signs of a newly awakened sense of solidarity. 



A strike at Trunch, near Mundesley, in Norfolk, for a 

 shilling or two rise and a shorter working day is worth re- 

 cording, because the settlement showed how keen was the 

 growing demand for more leisure. The farmers refusing 

 to grant both more wages and shorter hours, gave the men 

 their choice, and the men chose the shorter hours. 



However, the most surprising and dramatic rural revolt in 

 the spring of 1914 was the Burston School Strike. This 

 strike of the children of farm labourers was one of the links 

 which drew the industrial and agricultural workers closer 

 together ; and illustrated the innate love of justice in the 

 breast of the English labourer. The strike took place on 

 April I, 1914, in this Norfolk village close to Diss. 



The reason why this strike should find a place in this 

 history of the agricultural labourer is because the labourers, 

 their wives, and even their children, knew that it was not the 

 trumped-up case of the caning of aBarnardo child, or even 

 discourtesy to the Rector's wife and the Rector's daughter, 

 but the determination of the " powers that be " to get rid 

 of a school teacher who deliberately set himself the task 

 as a labour of love to organise the ill-paid Norfolk labourer 

 and to remedy the bad housing conditions. Not only 

 had Mr. Higdon committed these offences, but he also 

 helped labourers to get elected to Parish Councils, to 

 manage their own village affairs, and had thus turned 

 out old Parish Councillors who were also school man- 

 agers. In fact the whole trouble, the conflict between 

 the schoolmaster and his school managers, began at the 

 Parish Council Election in March, 1913. Mr. Higdon at 

 this election was the acknowledged leader of the labourers, 

 who defeated the farmers and churchwardens who sat on 

 the Council, and brought about a " Labour " victory. The 

 Crown Inn was crowded that night of the election, and great 



