Farmers & Agricultural Workers in 19th C. Crayford
It is surprising how much information about a town or village may be obtained from studying the trades and professions listed in a Census return. The following notes on 'Farmers' and 'Agricultural workers' - just two of the classes of workers in Crayford, were culled from the 1851 Census.
GROUP I. Farmers and Market Gardeners
Of the twenty four farmers and market gardeners recorded in the 1851 Census returns the three principal landowners (or tenant farmers?) were Edward Stoneham, John Burnett and Joseph Paine who, between them, farmed 1,780 out of a possible 3,000 acres of agricultural land in Crayford and its surrounding districts. Eight persons are described as 'farmers', the remaining sixteen being designated 'market gardeners'. The total area farmed was about 2,330 acres, whereas the total area devoted to market gardening was probably less than 700 acres - divided between sixteen people.
The farmer working the most land and employing the largest number of men was Edward Stoneham and he, with the assistance of his son and a labour force of sixty three workers, farmed 850 acres. The Post Office Directory for Kent, 1855, describes him as 'farmer and hop-grower' of Perry Street and he was almost certainly a member of a well-known farming family of that name which had farmed land lying between the outskirts of Dartford and Crayford for several generations. It is interesting to note how regularly the name occurs in the local records of the 19th C., in connection with various schemes for the improvement of amenities in the district. In 1845 a Stoneham's omnibus was plying regularly between Dartford and Bexleyheath. An Edward Stoneham, together with other notable residents of Crayford, was one of the Navigation Commissioners who, in 1840, were involved in a plan to reduce the number of bends in the Crayford and Dartford Creeks and which gave them the power to levy tolls on goods carried on these waterways. In 1909 Messrs. Stoneham offered 4,835 feet of land from the Stoneham estate and £500 towards the cost of building a new road from Dartford to Erith. However, it was not until 1923 that the lower road between the two towns was finally completed. There is a monument to Edward Stoneham in Crayford churchyard (St. Paulinus). The old Russell Stoneham Hospital had obvious connections with the family.
The second largest landowner was John Fassett Burnett, described in Greenwood's History of Kent 1838 as 'a gentleman' and the census returns show him to have been a 'distiller' also. (Burnett is another well known family in the Bexley area). He owned 700 acres of land and employed twenty four labourers. He was born at Southwark in 1768 and at the time of the census had lived at May Place, where there was also a large staff of domestic workers, for a number of years. His two sons, aged twenty seven and twenty nine respectively, are described as a 'merchant' and a 'rectifier'.
Joseph Paine, aged fifty, who came originally from Cannington in Somerset, was the third largest land-holder and he worked the 230 acres of Manor Farm with the aid of twelve labourers.
There were three women farmers, all widows - and presumably carrying on the work of the farm after their husbands had died. Two had adult sons to help them. One of these women, Elizabeth Colyer, aged seventy seven, managed 140 acres at Northend and employed a labour force of eighteen. It is perhaps coincidental that she lived in Colyers Lane and one must speculate as to whether the lane took its name from past charcoal burnings in the area or from a farming family of many years standing. The only market gardener in the 1851 census returns whose land holding in acreage has been noted is a George Audsley. He worked 39 1/2 or 31 1/2 (unclear) acres and employed five men and one woman. One might assume that as he was the only market gardener whose land holding was noted by the enumerators, other market gardeners probably worked less, rather than more, land than he.
Joseph Paine, aged fifty, who came originally from Cannington in Somerset, was the third largest land-holder and he worked the 230 acres of Manor Farm with the aid of twelve labourers. There were three women farmers, all widows - and presumably carrying on the work of the farm after their husbands had died. Two had adult sons to help them. One of these women, Elizabeth Colyer, aged seventy seven, managed 140 acres at Northend and employed a labour force of eighteen. It is perhaps coincidental that she lived in Colyers Lane and one must speculate as to whether the lane took its name from past charcoal burnings in the area or from a farming family of many years standing. The only market gardener in the 1851 census returns whose land holding in acreage has been noted is a George Audsley. He worked 39 1/2 or 31 1/2 (unclear) acres and employed five men and one woman. One might assume that as he was the only market gardener whose land holding was noted by the enumerators, other market gardeners probably worked less, rather than more, land than he.
Of the twenty four people listed as being either farmers or market gardeners, fifteen were born in Crayford, four elsewhere in Kent; the others came from the counties of Norfolk, Sussex, Somerset, Essex and Buckinghamshire. There were two in their twenties who owned their own business - which seems unusual in an era when most men, especially young men, worked for an employer. Six men were in their fifties and this appears to be the peak age for farmers. Before the age of fifty they were probably not fully established; after that age they may have been too old to run their business at full efficiency. Nine farmers had servants or employees living in and Hezikiah Bull, farming 63 acres at Northend and employing five men, also boarded his bailiff, Joseph Digby.
GROUP II. Agricultural Workers
The number of agricultural labourers, i.e. 197, can be fairly readily divided into two parts. 'Heads of household' labourers who were married (and 98% were) and agricultural labourers unmarried (also about 98%). Of the heads of households (about 100) only twenty two were born in Crayford, and there were only twenty three local born wives. Most of the other men and women were born in the county of Kent but a few came from Sussex, Essex and Ireland. Sixty eight couples had children, so it is not surprising that there were only sixteen working wives - though there were about nineteen women classed as agricultural labourers. A few of these women labourers were married to men working in other employment. The average number of children in a family was four though naturally with the couples in their twenties and fifties the families were smaller. The women followed a variety of trades. These included working in the local fabric-printing factory, farm work, dressmaking and there was one governess who was married to a gardener. There were three gardeners, one garden labourer, three thatchers - elderly men in their fifties and sixties, one hay binder, one dealer in hay and a seventy six year old shepherd from Guildford.
A surprising number of men (20) were married to wives older than themselves. It is not clear from the information available whether many of these were second marriages, though occasionally step-children are mentioned. One forty one year old wife had a husband of twenty nine. Nine families took in lodgers and three employed a servant (one a nurse, one a housekeeper and one a domestic.) The second category of agricultural labourers, i.e. those who were not heads of households, is very interesting. Of the ninety seven listed most were boys and men in their teens and twenties. (33 over 12 years and under 20 and 37 in their twenties). Of the remainder three were under the age of twelve and at the other end of the scale was an old man of eighty five. Thirty seven were born in Crayford and forty elsewhere in Kent. Others came from Essex, other counties and Ireland. Nearly half the men in this category had fathers who were also agricultural labourers. Many lived at home with their parents but thirty eight 'lived in' with their employer as a 'servant' or 'lodger' with a family.
It is difficult to assess from the census returns the type of crops grown on the farms listed, but a few inspired guesses can be made. It seems fairly clear that the 700 acres owned by the only 'gentleman' farmer, John Burnett, must have included a good deal of meadow land needing relatively little attention and cultivation. In comparison with Stoneham's 850 acres, which required 63 men's labour (and probably more at hop harvest time) the twenty four men employed by Burnett seem very few. Joseph Paine, of Manor Farm, needed only twelve labourers to work its 230 acres, whereas Mrs Elizabeth Colyer paid eighteen labourers to work on 140 acres. Mrs Rebecca Mace, however, managed to run a farm of 163 acres with half that number - her two sons, three men, two women and two boys.
If one can venture to equate the type of agricultural produce grown in Crayford in the 1850's with those crops grown in nearby districts one must list, in probable order of importance: soft fruits, ie. gooseberries, currants, raspberries - also cherry, damson and plum trees, wheat, hops, grass and cattle fodder and a very small amount of land given over to sheep rearing and milk and meat production.
Due to their close proximity to London, the Covent Garden market and railway links with the north of England. Erith d Plumstead were famous for their wheat, cherries and t fruits. Crayford, being similarly situated, probably o owed their example.
Between 1850 and 1860 there was a dramatic fall in the price of sugar and cheap sugar led to the rapid expansion of the jam and preserves industry. With a constant demand for more and more soft fruit the farmers of north-west Kent were also able to expand and by 1900 this part of the country dominated the soft fruit industry. The vast raspberry fields of Bexleyheath are still remembered by some old residents in the borough and remembrance of the wheat fields which pre-dated the factory built by Vickers still runs in some old Crayford families.
The fact that there was only one shepherd in Crayford - and he an old man, seems to rule out sheep farming as a major part of rural life and the small number of cowmen and boys listed implies a minimal milk and meat production - probably just enough to keep the inhabitants of Crayford supplied with their needs.
J. Roebuck