AGRICULTURAL GANGS

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 388 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ADA-AIZ

AGRICULTURAL GANGS , groups of women, girls and boys organized by an independent gang-master, under whose super-vision they execute agricultural piece-

work

WORK

for farmers in certain parts of England. They are sometimes called " public gangs " to distinguish them from " private gangs " consisting of workers engaged by the farmer himself, and undertaking

work

WORK

solely for him, under his own supervision or under that of one of his men. The system was for

long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

prevalent in the counties of

Cambridge

-shire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire,

Nottinghamshire

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, or NOTTS

, Norfolk and Suffolk, and is still to be found in a much modified form in the fen

district

DISTRICT

. The practice

dates

DATES

from the latter years of the reign of George III., when the low-lying, marshy lands surrounding the basin of the

Wash

WASH, THE

were being rapidly drained and converted into rich alluvial districts. The unreformed

condition

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

of the poor-law, under which the support of the poor fell upon each individual parish, instead of a union of parishes, made landlords reluctant to erect cottages on the reclaimed land for the benefit of their tenants. Labour had to be obtained for the cultivation of these new lands, and that of women, girls and boys, being cheaper than the labour of men, was consequently very largely employed. The tendency to moral and physical ruin which resulted from this nomadic life was so

great

GREAT

that an inquiry into the

condition

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

of agricultural child-labour was included in the reference to the commission on child-labour appointed in 1862, and the results were so startling that the Agricultural Gangs Act was passed in 1867, forbidding the employment of any child under eight years old, and of any female under a male gang-master unless a female licensed to act as gang-mistress were also
1 Alexander, died 1506; Johann, for. ,600; Wolfgang Christoph, for. 163o; and George Ludwig, 1643-1676.
present. Gang-masters must be licensed by two justices, and may not hold a liquor license. The distance to be traversed on foot is fixed by the justices, and the licenses must be renewed every six months. Later legislation made more stringent the regulations under which children are employed in agricultural gangs. By the Elementary Education Act 1876, repealing and re-enacting the

principal

PRINCIPAL

provisions of the Agricultural (Children) Act 1873, no child shall be employed under the age of eleven years, and none between eleven years and thirteen years before the child has obtained a certificate of having reached the standard of education fixed by a by-law in force in the

district

DISTRICT

.

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