Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Oversley and Arrow and perhaps elsewhere. 42
The descriptor ‘jockey’, which appears in
QS records in 1799, may then have had a different nuance. 43
Table 6.2 (probate) suggests that the percentage in farming stayed fairly constant
from 1660 to 1800, but after 1800 those in farming formed a smaller share of the
workforce. 44 Baptism data also suggests a falling percentage of farmers during Period D,
but, after a decline in the 1820s, labourers show a slightly increased share in the 1830s. 45
Interpretation of the 1831 figures for agricultural occupiers is difficult. In this
Central Belt 164 occupiers employed labourers and 61 did not. In Inkberrow the
respective figures were 47 and 6, while neighbouring Stock and Bradley was the only
parish in this zone where occupiers employing labourers (8) were outnumbered by those
who did not (15). No doubt farm-size was the main factor behind these differences, but
more research would be needed for a full explanation.
Although the breakdown of labourers in 1831 for this zone was 93.7%
agricultural and 6.3% non-agricultural, certain parishes with quarries had significant
percentages of non-agricultural labourers, for example Exhall 31.7% and Temple Grafton
22.8%. 46 Times were hard for labourers in the late 1820s, and prospects bleak, which
may have led to the six incidents of arson in Binton parish in the twelve months to
January 1829. 47
42 WoRO, BA2289/8, Exhall churchwardens’ presentments 1705, where the wife of John Smith, Exhall,
pig-driver, was presented as a papist.
43 WoRO, QS557/58, 59, 1799, concerning James Fox., a jockey, who ‘goes from farm to farm breaking in
colts’. Although he may well have ridden in horse-races, it seems that his main function was that of horsebreaker
or colt-breaker.
44 As noted in Chapter 2, probate data vastly underestimates the number of labourers, but before 1813
probate is the best guide to occupational structure.
45 Table 6.6.
46 Appendix 7.
47 Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 12 Jan 1829.
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