Seminar: The Agricultural Labourer's Tale

Almost all of us number agricultural labourers among our ancestors, yet the voices of those men and women are not often heard. One family, working on Sussex farms for generations, handed down their stories in a great oral story telling tradition. These stories included body snatching, the press gang, a murder of 1735, remedies for whooping cough and Spanish flu, plus daily life and concerns of agricultural labourers in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. They talked not only of dramatic events but of daily tasks and worries, ditching, harvesting, taking in washing, trying to make ends meet, avoiding the workhouse and much more. The challenges, sorrows and joyous moments of this family, recalled across the centuries, are probably not dissimilar to those experienced by agricultural labourers across the country, but lack of opportunity meant they were not often recorded. This family’s story is a window into the lives of our ancestors.
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