There were differences between women’s work on the crofts and small farms, and that on the large farms. On the small crofts women turned their hand to almost any job when the men were away at the herring fishing in summer. On large farms there were servant girls to help in the farmhouse and on the ‘streeet’ (i.e. farmyard). There were differences too as village shops appeared in the 19th century and people no longer had to provide nearly everything they needed for themselves.
Household Tasks
Many things that were later bought in a shop, such as soap and starch, were made at home. Soap was made at home by boiling mutton fat and soda with some herb soapwort. This mixture turned to a jelly and was left to harden. Starch was made by scraping a large potato, soaking it in water and collecting the sediment which collected over night in the bottom of the container. This was the starch and it was often hung up in a pig’s bladder. There were many other essential items women had to make at home.
The equipment for tasks like washing and ironing was clumsy and heavy. Large boilers where the clothes were turned with the ‘dolly’ and massive mangles were the equipment used in later times. Families were large and wash-day very demanding. Clothes were often put out to dry on bushes or hedges. Ironing in the 18th century was done either by rolling the clothes with a rolling pin or folding them inside a clean coarse apron and beating them. In the 19th century box irons made by the local blacksmith were used. The irons were often from old cart axles. The ‘heaters’ were sometimes made from horse shoes. The ‘heaters’ were put in the fire, then placed inside the box iron, which had a sliding metal flap at the back. Fashions did not make the work any easier as a special crimping iron had to be used to crimp night-caps and ladies frilled caps.
Keeping the house clean was very difficult, yet even poor people with earthen floors would put down sand and sweep with a broom made with ling, broom or bent. A rubbing stone made of plaster of Paris and whiting, was generally used round the floor or flagstones to decorate the edges. The bare table top would be scrubbed white with sand. A goose wing was used to dust and clean around the hearth.
Women continued working well into the night. Flax and wool spinning still went on in early Victorian times. Crofters’ wives in later times knitted ganseys and socks with wool supplied by fishermen. Teasing (opening out the fibres) of sheep’s wool was a frequent winter task by the fireside. Other tasks were making rag mats using a pointed sheep’s bone and making patchwork quilts. Children’s clothes, including suits for little boys, were often made at home.
Work on the Street
Looking after the poultry was always the concern of the women. A farmer’s daughter would not receive wages, but would be allowed, say, the money from the sale of the turkeys, to buy clothes. The eggs were gathered daily and the money from the sale of these would perhaps be the only house-keeping money. Geese were kept by most people. Sometimes a crofter’s geese were brought in to hatch the goslings beside the ‘chiollagh’. If the nest was outside an old ploughiron was often put in it to keep the eggs warm whilst the goose went to feed. Geese and goslings were often taken to the mountain pastures in summer to save the grass around the cottage for the cow. Feeding of the pigs had to be attended to.
Potatoes would be boiled in the big three-legged pot and often the green sunburnt potatoes were used for this too. The calves, separated from their mothers so that there was milk, had to be fed. The cows had to be milked twice a day and the milkers would rise by 6am for the morning milking. When the men were all busy in the fields, women would feed the cattle as well.
A girl who was a farm servant often rose at 5.30am and worked until 10pm. She would help in the house and on the street and also take out food to those working in the fields. The mistress, on a large farm, would summon the field workers to dinner by ringing a bell or blowing a horn. Flailing corn and winnowing were often additional women’s ‘street jobs’.
Working in the Fields
Widows and crofters’ wives often had to tackle every kind of fieldwork. In the days before drills were used, it was the women who sowed the flax seed because of their ‘light hand’. After seed-sowing time, the next special women’s field job was planting the potatoes in the ridges. They cut each potato into two ‘sets’, each with ‘eyes’, before planting.
Weeding crops and thinning turnips were jobs done entirely by women and children. Turnips were thinned out by hand at an early stage in their growth, getting rid of many overcrowded plants and making the soil firm around the best ones selected to go on growing. The turnip thinners wore a piece of fine sacking round their waist called a ‘rapron’ and crept along in rows. At haytime women worked with rakes gathering up for ‘ruck’ making and finishing off the ‘rucks’. Clipping sheep was quite often done by women. During the corn harvest they lifted the corn – sometimes they also cut with the sickle.
In autumn, they picked the potatoes. The potato ridges would be opened with a plough on larger farms; on crofts a man dug them up with the ‘grep’ and the women picked them into baskets. The field would then be harrowed, turning up more small potatoes which were taken home to feed pigs and cattle. The main crop of potatoes would be put into long ‘butts’ in the field, covered with straw and soil. Later, in the winter, they would be sorted and bagged. Women were there at each stage of the potato harvest. Also, at that time of year, the turnips were ‘docked’ by the women. ‘Docking’ meant pulling them up and chopping off leaves and root tip.
Babies had often to be brought to the field – wrapped in a blanket by a hedge in summer – placed in a ‘cridle’ in a sheltered place when lifting potatoes. When the first prams came into use, women greatly appreciated them for taking babies out into the fields.
Going to Market
Markets were held traditionally in the four towns; Castletown, Douglas, Ramsey and Peel. Douglas Market became the chief of these once tourism became important in the 19th century. In earlier times women walked to the markets carrying their eggs, butter, dressed poultry, cheese etc in ‘creels’ or baskets. Sometimes they walked barefoot, only putting on their shoes when near the town. Women carried groceries home in their basket. When the steam trains to Port Erin and Ramsey started in the 1870s, most people were able to come to Douglas Market with their produce.
The old Douglas Market was an open-air one stretching from Duke Street to James Street. Business began at 8am so people started at an early hour to get the best stalls to sell from. The market went on into the evening with light from flares. Some brought wild flowers and royal ferns to sell as well as their farm produce.
Children
We can get some idea of the kinds of farm work children were doing during the late 19th century from the following entries taken from the log book of a Manx Country School for the year April 1874 to April 1875.
- 1 April 1874 – A great many absent in the turnips
- 27 April 1874 – A great many of the children absent setting potatoes and picking stones
- 1 May 1874 – A great many of the children absent today in consequence of the fair at St Johns and at the mountain assisting in turn cutting. Had a half holiday in the afternoon
- 8 May 1874 – Attendance short (48) employed in turf mountain and field work picking stones
- 15 June 1874 – A great many of the scholars absent today (only 47 present) employed in field work
- 30 June 1874 – Attendance very small this week, children employed in field work, haymaking and weeding
- 7 August 1874 – Attendance very small this week, children kept home to begin harvest
- 18 September 1974 – A great many of the children absent this week in consequence of harvest. Not closed
- 2 Oct 1874 – Children very slow ‘coming in’ after harvest. A great many absent 21 Oct. WK and TK were absent this morning picking potatoes
- 30 Oct 1874 – Attendance on the whole very small this week in consequence of the children employed picking potatoes
- 6 Nov 1874 – Gave RH leave of absence to pick potatoes
- 25 Apr 1874 A great many of the children absent this week employed in agriculture. Setting potatoes and spreading manure
Types of Work
The schools broke up for their late summer holiday, then always called the ‘Harvest Holiday’, according to when the corn was ripe in their area. We hear of the schoolmaster cross-examining the children about the ripeness of the corn at home so that he could close the school at the proper time.
Here is a memory of days before Word War 1:
“We kiddies (aged 10-12 years) were working alongside the men at such jobs as spreading dung, picking potatoes, thinning turnips, docking turnips, packing loads of corn and hay; cutting thistles, cushags (ragwort) and docks with sickles; picking stones, picking harrowings of potatoes, driving carts of corn, hay and manure’.”
The man who gave this list of children’s jobs in the country told the following story which shows what responsible tasks someone of school age might have to cope with:
“Some idea of the work a crofter had to do can be gathered from this true experience. A chap about my own age (he was then about 14 years old), lived with his mother, there was just two of them, and she got a living by keeping some animals and cropping. When he was still going to school – we left at 14 years – he cut with a scythe four and a half acres of corn, his mother lifted and tied it and they brought it in with a wheelbarrow.”
Source: Manx Farming and Country Life (1991) by Manx Heritage Foundation, part of a set of teaching pamphlets issued to schools. Photograph courtesy of imuseum: farmstead near Ballaugh, possibly Ballakinnag near Shore Road.