I have pretty much admitted defeat in the search for Herbert Catchpole.
Now anyone who has gone looking for a relative as part of a family history project will know how frustrating it can be.
Despite acres of official documents, parish records and the off chance of a newspaper story there is nothing on him save an entry in the 1911 census and a reference in a report from the National Agricultural Labourers’ & Rural Worker’s Union dated 1915.
Not that this is that surprising for even at the beginning of the 20th century it was still possible for an individual to fall through the cracks or just reinvent him or herself
Some missed having their birth registered, avoided being recorded on a census return or might never offer personal information about work, shopping preferences or voting intentions.
In the case of Herbert Catchpole I know he was born in 1903 in Woodton in Norfolk, that his mother’s name was Caroline and that she was single, worked a sick nurse and in 1911 was 46 years old.
And that is pretty much all I have on her. There are two earlier census references but they do not add much to what I know.
Now all of this matters because of what Herbert was doing in the April of 1915 a year into the Great War which is where that report from National Agricultural Labourers’ & Rural Worker’s Union comes in.
The union was much concerned with the employment of both women and children on the land at a time when agricultural labourers were leaving to enlist and others were being tempted by better wages in the towns and cities.
The response of some farmers was to take on women and boys but pay them substantially less than men.
The union’s position was simply that if women were to be employed it had to be on the same wage rates as men and remained totally opposed to the use of child labour and collected evidence on both the exploitation of women and the use of children.
And so Herbert appeared on that report for April 1915 along with six other boys aged between 11 and 13.
The report detailed the pay they received, the hours they worked and what they were expected to do.
Herbert was working in both Norfolk at Woodton and on the Suffolk border, was paid 3 shillings a week , and worked six out of the seven days for nine hours each day.
The remaining six worked similar or longer hours with some being paid slightly more.
So far a search of the records for two of the other boys has also turned up very little.
Fred Noble was paid four shillings for working the fields with the men, digging, weeding and keeping cows while John Thomas Longhurst spent 10½ hours a day, scaring birds, thistle spudding, horse hoeing and carting manure.
Both were just 13 years old, but apart from one census return there is so far nothing more.
In time I will pursue the records of the union and the degree to which more evidence come to light about child labour but I doubt little will surface of the lives of these three and for that I am saddened.
Pictures; extracts from Report on Child Labour in Agriculture, Agricultural Labourers & Rural Workers’ Union.
*Report on Child Labour in Agriculture, Agricultural Labourers & Rural Workers’ Union.
April 1915, courtesy of the Archives & Study Centre, at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/
Despite acres of official documents, parish records and the off chance of a newspaper story there is nothing on him save an entry in the 1911 census and a reference in a report from the National Agricultural Labourers’ & Rural Worker’s Union dated 1915.
Not that this is that surprising for even at the beginning of the 20th century it was still possible for an individual to fall through the cracks or just reinvent him or herself
Some missed having their birth registered, avoided being recorded on a census return or might never offer personal information about work, shopping preferences or voting intentions.
In the case of Herbert Catchpole I know he was born in 1903 in Woodton in Norfolk, that his mother’s name was Caroline and that she was single, worked a sick nurse and in 1911 was 46 years old.
Now all of this matters because of what Herbert was doing in the April of 1915 a year into the Great War which is where that report from National Agricultural Labourers’ & Rural Worker’s Union comes in.
The union was much concerned with the employment of both women and children on the land at a time when agricultural labourers were leaving to enlist and others were being tempted by better wages in the towns and cities.
The response of some farmers was to take on women and boys but pay them substantially less than men.
The union’s position was simply that if women were to be employed it had to be on the same wage rates as men and remained totally opposed to the use of child labour and collected evidence on both the exploitation of women and the use of children.
And so Herbert appeared on that report for April 1915 along with six other boys aged between 11 and 13.
Herbert was working in both Norfolk at Woodton and on the Suffolk border, was paid 3 shillings a week , and worked six out of the seven days for nine hours each day.
The remaining six worked similar or longer hours with some being paid slightly more.
Fred Noble was paid four shillings for working the fields with the men, digging, weeding and keeping cows while John Thomas Longhurst spent 10½ hours a day, scaring birds, thistle spudding, horse hoeing and carting manure.
Both were just 13 years old, but apart from one census return there is so far nothing more.
In time I will pursue the records of the union and the degree to which more evidence come to light about child labour but I doubt little will surface of the lives of these three and for that I am saddened.
Pictures; extracts from Report on Child Labour in Agriculture, Agricultural Labourers & Rural Workers’ Union.
*Report on Child Labour in Agriculture, Agricultural Labourers & Rural Workers’ Union.
April 1915, courtesy of the Archives & Study Centre, at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/
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