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Passive and Impoverished? A Discussion of Rural Popular Culture in the Mid Victorian Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2011

GARY MOSES
GARY MOSES*
Affiliation:
School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UKgary.moses@ntu.ac.uk
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Abstract

This case study focuses on East Riding hiring fairs both as labour markets and popular festivals and considers the vitality of their internal interactions in the mid Victorian years, a time that has been associated with the erosion of traditional practices by urban influences and their reshaping into more orderly and passive forms. The article suggests that mid Victorian rural popular culture proved to be not only adaptive to the forces of urban modernity but robustly dynamic and informed by rural social forces.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , October 2011 , pp. 183 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

Notes

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16. Ibid.

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18. Yorkshire Gazette, 18th November 1854.

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30. Goffman, ‘Interaction Order’, p. 4.

31. York Herald, 20th November, 1876.

32. Kitchen, Ox, pp. 98–99.

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36. Catt, Northern Hiring Fairs, pp. 30–5; Roberts,’Waiting’, pp. 145–6.

37. ‘Cowd Stringy Pie’ in Catt, Northern Hiring Fairs, pp. 32–3.

38. ‘Country Statutes’, in ibid., p. 33.

39. Goffman, ‘Interaction Order’, p. 7.

40. Howkins, Alun, ‘Structural Conflict and the Farmworker’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 4 (1977), 215–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41. York Herald, 8th July 1876.

42. Hull Advertiser, 9th November 1849.

43. Hull Advertiser, 9th November 1849; Hull Advertiser, 7th December 1849.

44. Hull Advertiser, 23rd November 1849.

45. M. G. Adams, ‘Agricultural Change in the East Riding of Yorkshire, 1850–1880: An Economic and Social History’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Hull, 1977), p. 32.

46. Adams, ‘Agricultural Change’, pp. 344–7; Hull Advertiser, 16th April 1852, 14th May 1852, 16th July 1852; Hull Advertiser, 17th November 1855.

47. Hull Advertiser, 18th November 1854.

48. Hull Advertiser, 17th November 1855.

49. Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 18th November 1858; Hull Advertiser, 19th November 1859.

50. Hull Advertiser, 15th November 1856.

51. Driffield Times, 16th November 1872, 30th November 1872.

52. Driffield Times, 16th November 1872, 30th November 1872.

53. Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 14th November 1872; Driffield Times, 16th November 1872; Driffield Times, 9th November 1872; Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 5th December 1872.

54. Driffield Times, 18th November 1875.

55. Driffield Times, 18th November 1875; Hull Times, 2nd December 1876; Driffield Times, 2nd December, 1876; Hull Times, 26th November, 1876.

56. Goffman, ‘Interaction Order’, p. 9.

57. Ibid., p. 7.

58. Ibid., p. 9.

59. Yorkshire Gazette, 18th November, 1854; the festive dimension of East Riding hiring fairs is also discussed in Caunce, Amongst Farm Horses, chapter fifteen.

60. Eddowes, J., Martinmas Musings: or, Thoughts about the Hiring Day (London, 1854), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

61. Morris, M. C. F., Yorkshire Reminiscences (London, 1922), p. 176Google Scholar; Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 3rd December 1868.

62. Morris, M. C. F., Yorkshire Folk-Talk (York, 1911), p. 206Google Scholar.

63. T. Clarvis, in Fairfax-Blakeborough, Yorkshire, East Riding, p. 50.

64. The Yorkshireman, 30th November 1850. Farmers would usually advance part of the servant's wages during the year but the greater part of the wage was paid at the conclusion of the contract. See Craven, Martin, A New and Complete History of the Borough of Hedon (Driffield, 1974), p. 190Google Scholar.

65. Ibid.

66. Yorkshire Gazette, 18th November 1854.

67. F. Austin Hyde, ‘Old Time Martinmas Hirings’, York Times, Autumn, 1962.

68. T. Clarvis, in Fairfax-Blakeborough, East Riding, p. 50.

69. Driffield Times, 13th November 1873; Driffield Times 11th November 1876.

70. Austin Hyde, ‘Old Martinmas’.

71. Burnett, John, A History of the Cost of Living (Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 214–15Google Scholar; Caunce, Stephen, ‘A Golden Age of Agriculture?’ in Inkster, Ian, et al, eds, The Golden Age: Essays in British Economic and Social History (Aldershot, 2000), pp. 46–60Google Scholar; Beverley Recorder, 7th November 1860; Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 4th December 1860; York Herald, 24th November 1876.

72. Hull Advertiser, 18th November 1854.

73. Beverley Recorder, 11th November 1871.

74. York Herald, 20th November 1876.

75. Cunningham, ‘The Metropolitan Fairs’, pp. 164, 170; Cunningham, Leisure, pp. 140–1, pp. 174–8; see also Addison, William, English Fairs and Markets (London, 1953), pp. 110, 184–8Google Scholar;

76. Cunningham, Leisure, p. 159; Cunningham, ‘Metropolitan Fairs’, pp. 167–70.

77. Ibid, p. 170; see also: Starsmore, Ian, English Fairs (London, 1975), p. 10Google Scholar.

78. Cunningham, ‘Metropolitan Fairs’, pp. 170, 180.

79. Cunningham, Leisure, p. 174.

80. Cunningham, ‘Metropolitan Fairs’, pp. 163–4.

81. By the late 1840s, the major settlements of the Riding were linked by the Hull and Selby line (1840), the York and Scarborough line (1845), the Hull and Bridlington line (1846), the York and Market Weighton Line (1847), the Scarborough and Bridlington line (1846) and the Selby and Market Weighton line (1848). By the mid 1860s, the few remaining gaps in this network had been filled by the Malton and Driffield line (1853), the Hull and Withernsea line (1854), the Hull and Hornsea line (1864), and the Market Weighton and Beverley line (1865). See MacMahon, Kenneth A., The Beginnings of the East Yorkshire Railways, East Yorkshire Local History Series: 3 (York, 1953) p. 31Google Scholar; Goode, C. T., The Railways of East Yorkshire (Usk, 1981)Google Scholar.

82. Yorkshire Gazette, 27th November 1847.

83. Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 19th November 1863.

84. Yorkshire Gazette, 18th November 1854.

85. The Yorkshireman, 30th November 1850.

86. Hull Advertiser, 17th November 1848.

87. Hull Advertiser, 16th November 1849.

88. Driffield Times, 22nd November 1873; Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 17th November 1870.

89. Caunce, S., ‘East Riding Hiring Fairs’, Oral History, III (1975), 45–52Google Scholar

90. Reverend Skinner, James, Facts and Opinions Concerning Statute Hirings, Respectfully Addressed to the Landowners, Clergy, Farmers and Tradesmen of the East Riding of Yorkshire (York, 1861), p. 21Google Scholar.

91. Ibid., p. 11.

92. York Herald, 27th November 1827.

93. Tillot, P. M., ed., Victoria County History of the Counties of England, A History of the County of York: The City of York (1961), p. 170Google Scholar.

94. Yorkshire Gazette, 26th November 1853.

95. Yorkshire Gazette, 25th November 1854.

96. Yorkshire Gazette, 18th November 1854.

97. York Herald, 20th November 1876.

98. Hull Advertiser, 19th November 1852.

99. York Herald, 24th November 1866.

100. York Herald, 26th November 1870.

101. York Herald, 20th November 1880; 23rd November 1880.

102. York Herald, 20th November 1876.

103. Driffield Times, 11th November 1871.

104. Driffield Times, 11th November 1871. The following year there were again many shows but ‘Very few, if any, servants were hired’, Driffield Times, 9th November 1872.

105. Cunningham, Leisure, p. 140.

106. Harrison, Brian, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England 1815–1872 (Staffordshire, 1994), p. 55Google Scholar.

107. Ibid., pp. 43, 55.

108. Yorkshire Gazette, 11th February 1854, Letter, ‘A Rural Dean’.

109. Harrison, Drink, p. 42; Kitchen, Ox, pp. 98–9.

110. Yorkshire Gazette, 14th January 1854, Letter, ‘A Farmer Beverley’.

111. Chester, Hiring Fairs, p. 8.

112. Skinner, Facts and Opinions, p. 11.

113. Yorkshire Gazette, 18th November 1854.

114. Driffield Times, 15th November 1873.

115. Kightly, Charles, Country Voices: Life and Lore in Farm and Village (London, 1984), p. 42Google Scholar.

116. York Herald, 22nd November 1880.

117. Ibid.

118. Caunce, Farm Horses, p. 175.

119. Ibid.

120. Church Times, 22nd July, 1887.

121. Reffold, Pie for Breakfast, p. 27; Howkins and Merricks, ‘The Ploughboy and the Plough Play’, 194–8.

122. Goffman, ‘Interaction Order’, p. 7; Driffield Times, 20th November 1875.

123. Goffman, Behavior, p. 21.

124. Driffield Times, 13th November 1875.

125. Driffield Times, 20th November 1875, 13th November 1875.

126. Driffield Times, 20th November 1875.

127. Ibid.; Driffield Times, 4th December 1875.

128. Driffield Times, 20th November 1875.

129. Foster, D., ‘The East Riding Constabulary in the Nineteenth Century’, Northern History, XXI (1985)Google Scholar; Foster, D., ‘Police Reform and Public Opinion in Rural Yorkshire’, Journal of Regional and Local Studies, 2 (1982)Google Scholar.

130. See, for example, Storch, R. D., ‘The Plague of Blue Locusts: Police Reform and Popular Resistance in Northern England, 1840–57’, International Review of Social History, Vol. 20 (1975)Google Scholar; Taylor, David, The New Police in the Nineteenth Century: Crime, Conflict and Control (Manchester, 1997)Google Scholar.

131. Eastern Counties Herald, 18th November 1858.

132. Bridlington Free Press, 13th November, 1875

133. Caunce, Farm Horses, p. 166.

134. Driffield Times, 15th November 1873.

135. For more detailed discussions of this campaign see Moses, Rural Moral Reform; Moses, , ‘“Rustic and Rude”: Hiring Fairs and their Critics in East Yorkshire c.1850–75’, Rural History, 7 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Reshaping Rural Culture? The Church of England and Hiring Fairs in the East Riding of Yorkshire c. 1850–80’, Rural History, 13 (2002).

136. Goffman, Behavior, p. 19.

137. Reverend J. Skinner, ‘A Letter To The Masters and Mistresses of Farm Houses in the East Riding of Yorkshire’ Appendix II of Skinner, Facts and Opinions, p. 23. This address was circulated to farmhouses by hand; it also appeared in local newspapers, see, for example, York Herald, 10th November 1860.

138. Ibid., pp. 23–4

139. Ibid., p. 23.

140. Skinner, Facts and Opinions, ‘Appendix III, p. 25; see, for example, York Herald, 3rd November 1860.

141. Skinner, Facts and Opinions, ‘Appendix III’, p. 25.

142. Ibid.

143. Ibid.

144. Ibid.

145. Ibid.

146. Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 18th November 1869.

147. Caunce, ‘Hiring Fairs’, p. 49.

148. For a discussion of the intended functions of rational recreations, see Cunningham, Leisure, pp. 90–107.

149. Yorkshire Gazette, 16th November 1861.

150. Ibid.

151. Ibid.

152. Hull and Eastern Counties Herald, 14th November 1872; Driffield Times, 30th November 1872.

153. Driffield Times, 1st December 1877.

154. Driffield Times, 30th November 1878.

155. Ibid.

156. York Herald, 29th November 1879.

157. York Herald, 28th November 1879.

158. For details of the efforts made elsewhere in the East Riding see Moses, ‘Reshaping Rural Culture’.

159. Goffman, ‘Interaction Order’, p. 11.

160. Best, Geoffrey, Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–75 (London, 1971), pp. 218–28Google Scholar; Harrison, Brian, Peaceable Kingdom. Stability and Change in Modern Britain (Oxford, 1992), passimGoogle Scholar; Roberts, Morals, pp. 7–11.

161. T. Clarvis, in Fairfax-Blakeborough, East Riding, p. 49; Morris, Folk Talk, pp. 206–10.

162. York Herald, 29th November 1890.

163. The Times, 9th January 1873, Letter, F. O. Morris, ‘Statute Hirings’.

164. Randolph, ‘Social Condition’, p. 41.

165. Mitchell, ‘Changing Role of Fairs’, p. 571.

166. Goffman, Behavior, pp. 18–22.

167. For fairs as popular carnivals see D. A. Reid, ‘Interpreting the Festival Calendar: Wakes and Fairs as Carnivals’, in Storch, R. D., ed., Popular Culture and Custom in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, 1982), p. 23Google Scholar.

168. Howkins and Merricks, ‘The Ploughboy and the Plough Play’, p. 199; Roberts, ‘Meanings’, pp. 152–6.

169. Storey, John, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (London, 2001), pp. 108–11Google Scholar.

170. Howkins and Merricks, ‘The Ploughboy and the Plough Play’, p. 199.

171. Roberts, ‘Meanings’, p. 146.