SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



calculation of property. Such an agreement was made at Aylesbury m in 

 1831, when it was definitely stated that if a farmer employed any labourer 

 in excess of those due on his farm, he should only pay half the usual wages 

 and send him to the overseers for the remainder of the wages due. 



The effect of this system was not only to depress the rate of wages, but 

 to increase the rates to such an extent that farming became unprofitable. At 

 Adstock agricultural profits were completely consumed by the rates ; near 

 Aylesbury forty-two farms were untenanted, and at Thornborough 600 

 acres were vacant in the hands of the landlord, whose other tenants had 

 mostly given notice to quit. 



All such assessments of labourers on different farmers were made at 

 vestry meetings in the parishes, and no arrangement could be found that did 

 not press very unfairly on some employers. If the assessment was made by 

 the rateable value of a man's property, tradesmen, &c., had labourers sent 

 them for whom they had no employment ; or if it was made by the number 

 of acres in a farm, a large pasture farm, where little labour was needed, had 

 more men assessed to it than an arable farm, where double the number could 

 be employed. 



On the labourers the poor law had an even more deplorable effect. 

 It was almost impossible for anyone not getting relief to obtain work, since 

 farmers could not afford to employ those for whom they were not bound by 

 law to provide.* 18 At West Wycombe it was said that the notion of wages 

 as a contract beneficial to both parties seemed to be entirely obliterated. 



The system of paying part of the wages for surplus labourers or for 

 roundsmen does not seem to have been universal in the county. It was the 

 prevailing practice in Adstock and the neighbouring parishes, Thornton and 

 Steeple Claydon, in the hundred of Buckingham ; and a general report 

 made for Ashendon Hundred stated that it had spread extensively in that 

 part of the county." 7 



In various parishes in Aylesbury and Newport Hundreds also it was the 

 custom to make up the wages out of the rates, but in the Chilterns they 

 were apparently little used for this purpose, no case occurring among the ten 

 parishes making returns. 



An allowance from the parish made according to the number of children 

 in a labourer's family was not considered as paying part of his wages, and 

 was a very common custom. In the case of labourers working for individual 

 employers this allowance did not, as a rule, begin unless there were four or 

 five small children, but at Adstock a labourer with only two could claim an 

 allowance. 



In fixing the rate of all wages, whether given by overseers or individual 

 employers, the size of the labourer's family formed the basis of calculation. 

 In the southern part of the county the scale fixed by the magistrates at 

 Aylesbury was very generally adopted, namely, 6s. for a man and his wife, 

 and is. more for each child, but at West Wycombe the scale began at 5*. 

 At Cholesbury is. each was not given for more than two children, and, 



" Gibbs, Hist, of Jjlaburj. 



"* Sir H. Verne7 mentioned the case of a labourer who, being an old soldier with a pension, could 

 obtain no work at all from the surrounding farmers. 

 117 It was not the case at Oving. 



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