History: Hiring Fairs

Hiring staff in Market Deeping, the swings and roundabouts

“The Fair was now raging thick and loud. It was the chief hiring fair of the year and differed quite from the market of a few days earlier. In substance it was a whitey- brown crowd flecked with white - this being the body of labourers waiting for places. The long bonnets of the women like waggon-tilts, their cotton gowns and checked shawls mixed with the carters’ smock frocks; for they too entered into the hiring.”

This is how a Hiring Fair (also known as a Statute) was described by Thomas Hardy in The Mayor of Casterbridge, but similar scenes would have been seen in the Market Place here in Market Deeping. The Fairs took place in May and November and in May 1873 the Lincs Free Press reported that ’there was a large attendance of masters and mistresses seeking servants, and though there was a good number of servants the demand exceeded the supply. Extravagant wages were asked for and were given’.

On the day of the Hiring, farmers and their workers would have the day off and come into Market Deeping to spend the day meeting friends, drinking and enjoying themselves while some went to find work or workers. The Market Place was

Pictures illustrative not local.

crammed with people and stalls selling farm produce, sweets, trinkets and medicines. Farm workers were only hired for a six-month term and if the farmer did not ask them to stay then they had to find a new position. Workers who were unhappy in their job may decide to leave and they would need to be replaced.

Men and women hoping to be hired would stand around in the Market Place in twos and threes with tickets in their caps to show that they were looking for work. Farmers would wander amongst them making their choices. They would pay a fee, often a penny known as ‘arles’, to seal the deal. Horsemen could claim 2-5 shillings more than labourers as they were highly skilled, responsible for the horses that were highly valued on farms, doing the heavy work which could not be done by men. Each horseman was responsible for a pair of horses and one horseman was selected to be the most important, known as the First Horseman. Rising at 5.00 a.m. to tend the horses, they would have their own breakfast and then start work at 6, working on the fields all day, walking behind the horses and guiding them while they harrowed or ploughed the ground ready for

Men and women hoping to be hired would stand around in the Market Place in twos and threes with tickets in their caps to show that they were looking for work.

Words: Judy Stevens Research: Joy Baxter, Dorothea Price

sowing, or pulling the binder at harvest time. They would let the horses loose at 6.00 p.m. but at harvest time they might need to keep working as late as 8 or 9 p.m.

Women were also appointed for set terms usually to work in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning for the farmer’s family. They were kept hard at work under the watchful eye of the farmer’s wife. Living in the farmhouse, often in a little attic room, they fed the hens, milked the cows, made butter and helped the farmer’s wife to prepare the men’s food. They too worked long hours starting at 5.00 a.m. and continuing long into the evening. Young boys and girls were employed to scare the birds away from newly planted seeds.

In 1881 the annual May statutes for the hiring of servants was a lot less successful than the one reported earlier:

‘There was a larger gathering of servants of both sexes than usual, and a good deal of hiring was done. High wages were asked but much less taken from £2-£3 below the average of last year. Swinging boats in the Market Place and dancing at some of the inns were the chief amusements. The theatrical entertainment announced to take place at the White Horse rooms on the same evening met with no patronage.’

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