A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



About 1830 agricultural unemployment in the southern counties was 

 said to have reached its maximum. But in 1848, in spite of repeal, the 

 increase of population and the increased use of agricultural machinery, the 

 Hertfordshire labourers were in good and steady work." 



In 1846 Feargus O'Connor acquired Heronsgate, or Herringsgate, near 

 Chorley Wood, for ^(^2,344 in the interest of the future National Land 

 Company.^^ After 19 acres of coppice had been grubbed up for arable the 

 whole 103 acres were laid out for agriculture on O'Connor's plan. The 

 thirty-five allotments varied from 2 to 4 acres. Thirty-five cottages were 

 built ; at first the 2-acre houses were built with three rooms, the 3-acre 

 houses with four and 4-acre houses with five.^* Later all the cottages were 

 built on the same plan ; each had a flagged day-room with a bedroom on 

 each side," a back kitchen, dairy, cowhouse, henhouse and pigsty.'^' They 

 were well built. The schoolhouse built by the company had 2 acres of 

 ground attached ; in addition, the master was paid by the parents.*" The 

 cost of these buildings and the clearing and manuring of the ground was 

 about £6,joo.'"' 



The directors expected to ' reproduce ' this sum by the profits of the 

 sales of the allotments, the prices of which would rise through the labour 

 put into the ground by the tenants." In the meantime the tenants were to 

 pay as rent 4 per cent, on the outlay, or ^^9 los. lod. on a 3-acre holding." 

 But after some had been settled for twelve months the calculations necessary 

 to fix the cottage-rents had not been begun." The allotments were to be 

 cultivated by hand labour. Herringsgate, or O'Connorville, was fully settled 

 in about a year. The mistakes of the promoter were at once revealed. 

 The men who came to take up the holdings were small tradesmen, merchants 

 or weavers from the manufacturing towns. They understood the ground as 

 little as their wives understood the henhouse or dairy ; they even had to buy 

 bread because they knew not how to bake. After nearly a year's settlement 

 they had made no provision of manure, except in so far as a landowner allowed 

 them to collect rotten leaves in the woods. They put in their potato harvest, 

 saying that they must take their chance. They could not bear an out-of- 

 door life and hired at 12s. a week labourers to whom the farmers paid 8j. to 

 9J-.'* The prospect for the poor settlers was rather the workhouse than the 

 idyllic homestead. 



This mistake was a gross one, but the next was ironically near the truth. 

 The settlers were engaged to cultivate the land, by spade and fork, for 

 the same crops as farmers of 100 acres. Evidence taken before the 

 committee proved that vegetables were profitable on such holdings. The 

 proximity to London was another argument in favour of what we should 

 call French gardening or intensive culture. But it was madness to put men 

 who were not even labourers into competition with farmers, spade work into 

 competition with the plough in arable farming, handwork into competition 

 with the best machinery. ^^ Moreover, Herringsgate was pasture land." 

 What the scheme represented in the country-side is shown by the attitude of 



" National Land Co. Rep. iv, 33. «' Ibid, i, 1847-8. «« Ibid, ii, 42. 



« Ibid, iv, 24. «8 itid. iii, 27. «9 Ibid. '» Ibid. 



" Ibid. " Ibid, iv, 23. 7' Ibid, iii, 27. ''* Ibid. 



" Ibid, iv, 3 1 et seq. '' Ibid. 



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