SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Between Royston and Ware the great malt-wagons tore up the roads." 

 The sessions order that in winter malt must be conveyed on pack-horses was 

 probably ineffective. "' Maltsters were beginning to make for the London 

 consumer. They were growing rich.'" With characteristic dread of a rapid 

 growth of production for distant markets, the council endeavoured to suppress 

 these unnecessary persons. In 1631 the justices of St. Albans and Cashio 

 promised to deal with them at the next sessions.'" 



The 'restraint of malt making' continued for five years, and in 1637 

 the harm involved was set forth on behalf of Baldock, Stortford, Hitchin, 

 Ashwell and Royston. ' Most maltsters are employed by gentlemen and 

 others, who send them barleys to be malted for provision for their houses. 

 Also widows and others with some small stock buy barley and hire the 

 malting. These poor maltsters are very useful to the county and pay good 

 rents ; but being restrained must turn day labourers, of whom many already 

 want work.' " The effort to repress the trade was probably unsuccessful, 

 for complaints of the rrialt-wagons were raised throughout the eastern side 

 of the county in 1646. The increase of maltsters in Ware was also 

 pointed out.'^ 



By the end of the i8th century the maltsters of Stortford had something 

 like a monopoly of the supply to London porter brewers. They received 

 their corn from Cambridgeshire and Essex as well as Hertfordshire.'' 

 Malting has remained one of the principal trades of the shire. Forty years 

 ago Ware was said to make more malt than any other town.'* 



In the 17th century the Hertfordshire labourer may have been 

 occasionally a landholder. At Tewin, for instance, in 161 8 among the thirty 

 holdings in the parish there were four of 5 acres, which suggests that their 

 owners did not live entirely by farm produce.'^ But these landed labourers 

 were an ever-dwindling number. In 1794 the Ashwell cottagers still had the 

 right to put two cows each on the common, but they were mostly too poor 

 to keep one.'^ The only way in which they obtained the use of a little land 

 was by such a custom as that of the Hatfield farmers, who used to give their 

 labourers little plots to cultivate.'^ 



The labourers' earnings did not vary much between 1600 and 1700. 

 In 1 59 1 the rates were fixed as follows: mowers received ?>d. to izd. an 

 acre for wheat or grass, and other halms proportionately down to oats at 5^. 

 an acre ; raking and cocking was 5^. or ^d. an acre. Men reaped for 6d. a 

 day with food and lod. without, and women for ^d. or 8</. Threshing was 

 paid by the quarter and varied, according to the grain, from 6d. to izd. Day 

 labourers earned ^d. a day with food or %d. without from March to 

 September ; the winter wages were probably a little less. For a servant hired 

 by the year the highest wage was £1 a year with a livery, or £z 6s. 

 without ; shepherds 3 3J. 4^. with a livery.'^ These wages may be compared 

 with those current in 1632. Mowers then had lod. to 141^. (a day ?) ; or if 

 paid by the acre, from zs. to is. for the toughest sorts of grass to 8^, for oats. 



^'' Cal. S. P. Dom. 163 1-3, pp. 66, 404, 409-10. ^8 jy^j^ 29 ];bj(j_ 1636-7, p. 404. 



'" S. P. Dom. Chas. I, clxxxviii, 43. ^''■Cal. S. P. Dom. 1636-7, pp. 323-4. 



'2 Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 86 ; cf. also ii, 24. '^ Refi. on Public Breweries (18 19), 9-13. 



^ Cussans, Hist, of Herts. \, 131. ^^ Add. MS. 33575, fol. 97. ^^ Walker, op. cit. 



" Poor Law Rep. (1831), 276. 38 Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 8-12. 



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