| Notes: | The Ipswich Journal
Saturday, 8 Jun 1872, Page 5
WINFARTHING.
THE STRIKE AMONGST THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. - About 200 labourers of Winfarthing and the adjoining parishes met at the Royal Oak Inn, on Tuesday evening, with the view of obtaining an increased number of members for the Old Buckenham Union. The chair was occupied by a blind elderly man named George Potter. There were several speakers, each of whom spoke of the desirability of unity amongst the labourers for their mutual protection and benefit. It was denied that the farmers were unable to pay a higher rate of wage, one speaker advising the farmers to give up the horses they used for hunting and steeple-chasing, and to let their daughters do the dairy work as in olden times. This same speaker said he could remember when corn fetched 16s. a coomb of 22 stones, and when stock did not realise half what it did now, and the farmer could then afford to pay 1s. 10d. per day. A man named George Ellis said their masters threatened to turn them all off at Old Buckenham if they joined the Union. His master sent him going, and afterwards sent for him, but he told him he would not go unless he paid him 16s. per week, and he would not go for that now. At that place 440 men had joined the Union, and he thought they would shortly get 100 members. The entrance fee was 6d. and the weekly payments 2d., and any one joining them would have to pay from the time the Union commenced, which would be 1s. 3d. altogether. He advised them not to be afraid of their masters. He was at present earning 15s. a-week and did not work so hard as he had done previously. Other speakers spoke of the hardship they had suffered, one stated that he had carried a piece of cheese in his pocket a whole week being afraid to eat it, as he did not know where the next piece was to come from; and a second stated that his wife had had twelve children, and when he got home at night he had only bread and not enough of that. The gnawings of hunger had been some times so unbearable that he had prayed God to take away his appetite. A show of hands was then taken of those who wished to join the Old Buckenham Union, and a goodly number responded to the call, and their names having been duly recorded, the meeting broke up. |
