The Horse in the Furrow

by George Ewart Evans

  ‘But the ordinary worker’s dress for Sunday was a square-cut, long, black velvet jacket with short revers and about six buttons down the front; a very good cord trousers, medium drab in colour; and a bowler hat with a set (or straight) brim—the curly brimmed bowler was the wear for the toffs, the gentry. The makers of these bowlers always put a peacock’s feather on the side of the hat. Every man liked a feather in his hat. Often a new bowler hat had a clay-pipe stuck in the band as well; or even a cigar. You could get a sure-shot cigar for tuppence in those days.

  ‘The bowler was made of stiff felt. They also wore a billycock, a tallish hat made of semi-stiff felt with a black band round it just above the brim. The band was made of silk, worked in an oak-leaf pattern. The farmers and sometimes the head horsemen wore a square-crown or half-high hat made of stiff felt.

  ‘Mention of the clay-pipe, though, reminds me that you won’t have a complete picture of the old horseman or farm-worker unless you’ve got his old clay-pipe in. They were called Dublin clays; they were mostly made in Dublin, I understand; but a tobacconist could have his name and so on stamped on them by the makers. They cost a halfpenny; and they used to sell them, and even give them away, in the pubs. There used to be a kind of competition among the customers to see who had the blackest pipe. This is what they used to do: as soon as they bought a new-clay they’d soak it in their beer. Then when they smoked it the pipe would turn as black as your hat. They’d be unwilling to part with it when it got like that; and if the stem broke they’d smoke it even if it were only an inch long.

  ‘They used a tuppeny ha’penny shag in those days—twopence halfpenny an ounce. It was made by Churchman’s and was real good stuff. I remember the smell of it as clearly as if I’d been near someone who was smoking it out there on the pavement. I’ll tell you why. One morning when I was a young man I got up about four o’clock to cycle to Capel St. Mary; and on the way there it was just getting light—a fine morning with the sun coming up and dew on the grass—when I got behind three or four farm-workers on their way to work. They all had their old clay-pipes going; and the aroma—I’ve never forgotten it—it was better than any cigar you’d like to mention.

  ‘Another thing that’s tied up with the clay-pipe is the old Ha’penny Screw. This was a halfpenny-in-the-slot machine. It was made of brass, about eight inches square. It’s a collector’s piece now, and would fetch a lot of money. You’d find them on the counter in the pubs. You put in a half-penny and you’d get out a screw of tobacco, about enough for three pipes.

  ‘But we were talking about the dress. There were only two or three kinds of shirt on the market then—white and black-and-white, that is a white shirt with a thin black stripe. The working man never bought a shirt with a collar—there wasn’t one made in fact. They wore leather collars with their shirts—no tie. These leather collars were about an inch-and-a-half deep, and had a patent leather surface on the outside. This patent leather was decorated with vertical, coloured stripes—usually black and white. The big advantage of these collars was that they were easily washed. The wearer had only to wipe the surface with a wet flannel to have a clean collar—at least on the outside.’

  But it appears that the farm-worker of that period paid great attention to the type of corduroy he chose for his everyday clothes, and especially for his walking-out dress. There were many kinds of corduroy on the market to satisfy him. The cords were chiefly made by the Lancashire mills; and a firm from Peterborough—Brown and Son—distributed large quantities over East Anglia. Some of their chief varieties were: Pheasant-Eye, Genoa, Thick Sett, Doncaster, Fine Reed, Nine Shift and Partridge. Arthur Pluck has added a note about two of these: ‘In the Pheasant-Eye cord they copied the colours of the pheasant’s eye: it was a brownish cord patterned with “eyes” that stood up a bit redder. But the Doncaster Cord was in many ways the most interesting. It was woven to represent a field that had been horse-ploughed in the old narrow stetches. You’d have a band of ribs together to represent the furrows in a stetch; then a small gap to show the water-furrows between the stetches. Often times when I was going into the country after orders and so on in the autumn, I’d look at a field that had been freshly ploughed up after the harvest; and I’d think to myself how much like a piece of Doncaster Cord it was—colour, straight lines and everything.’

  The concern of horsemen for the way they dressed was, as has already been stated, in a very long tradition. Why this is so, it is not easy to discover, unless the hard and varied nature of the job made clothing, of a more durable quality than was usual, an unquestioned necessity. And once the norm had been passed in one direction it was easier to branch out in another, and with the extra shillings of their wages, to have clothes that had an individual cut and mark and even an individuality of invention. Yet it is unlikely that any of the horsemen of the period we are concerned with—nor yet any of their masters—would have fallen prey to this newspaper advertisement, printed in the reputedly reasonable eighteenth century:

  PATENT VENTILATING BREECHES

  John Tomkins of Woodstock, Leather-Cutter &c. having Philosophically considered the Causes of Galling in Riding, and found it to proceed merely from Heat; has, after long Study, contrived Leather Breeches with Valves so adapted as to suffer Air to pass in freely; but to let none pass out. This having a double Advantage both in Point of Coolness and Sweetness, he hopes it will meet with the Approbation of all Gentlemen, who ride during the Hot Weather. N.B. Allowance made to Postillions and Out-Riders who take a Number. Letters directed as above will be duly attended to, by his Customers most obedient humble Servant,

  JOHN TOMKINS.

  1 Royal Commission on Agriculture in England: Report by Mr. A Wilson Fox on the County of Suffolk, 1895, p. 76.

  2 A.F.C.H., p. 90.

  3 canton-flannel: cotton cloth on which a nap was raised in imitation of wool.

  4 A clump is a half-sole of leather riveted on to the original sole before this wears through.

  Part Two

  THE FARMER

  7

  Arthur Biddell

  One of the most noticeable features of the county of Suffolk—at least to the outsider—is its strong links with the past; not only in the more obvious instances of surviving old buildings and old institutions but in the manner the rural people have preserved their continuity up to recent times: first, by tending to remain in one village or in one part of the county; and again, by persisting in the occupation traditional to their family. These tendencies are natural to any rural, and especially agricultural, community; but they survived in East Anglia—in Norfolk and Suffolk and to a lesser extent in Cambridgeshire—later than in other comparable regions; and this leads one to suppose that they were due not so much to a conscious individual or family choice, or to any inherent disposition to remain rooted while people in the rest of the country moved about, as to certain social forces that operated in the whole region to a more or less equal extent. To inquire what these forces were and what were their origins is beyond the scope of the present work; but it would be safe to say that the history, the traditional economy and the geography of the area have all combined to make them operate. And the geography of East Anglia may well have been the strongest single influence. For it lies off the main north-south route that has been so important throughout history, and that was doubly so during the nineteenth century when the rate of change reached its first great peak.

  If a generic name were needed for these forces in East Anglia one could risk calling them, without making any value-judgment, the passive force of inertia—the resistance to basic change inherent in any purely agricultural community, strengthened here by its natural advantage of being removed from change’s strongest foci. A people—that is, families as opposed to individuals—does not move, especially from a rural area where links to soil, place and community are very tenacious, unless the force of economic change is powerful enough to uproot them. Although farming had many ups and downs during the nineteenth century and man
y of the more vigorous members of rural families emigrated or moved into the towns, notably during the depression at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, yet there was no great dissolution of the rural community, none of that great quickening that had already come to many of those country districts contiguous to the great industries that had sprung up during the century. The First World War, and the internal combustion engine that it effectively established, were the first real solvents: it was during this time that those fixed social relations were broken down, relations compounded of class and immemorial custom which perhaps more than anything else had kept the rural community in Suffolk in a state where change, although operating, had up to that time no real effect on the basic structure.

  Until 1914 most of the smaller Suffolk villages appear to have been comparatively undisturbed and to have had the air of an earlier epoch circulating about them; and even today one can sometimes find a village where one or two families outnumber the rest of the community. These are the families that have been in the village for generations, from the time when movement beyond the immediate district or even beyond the parish or village itself was rare enough to make it a memorable occasion. The surname of Ling, for instance, in the small Suffolk village of Blaxhall, is so frequent that it often causes the postman difficulties: but the difficulties of the postman before the First World War were greater still. For at that time the family was so numerous in the village and the Christian names of the men so often duplicated that nick-names became an essential means of identification. Skilly Ling, Mory Ling, Ludy Ling, Croppy Ling, Rook Ling, Straight Ling, Wag Ling, Pessy Ling, Finny Ling and Nacker Ling became better known by their acquired names than their baptismal ones; and the newcomer to the village, wishing to be polite, had to be very careful not to make a mistake of strategic dimension by calling Jim Ling Mr Rook and thus having the whole clan deploy in determined action against him.

  The practice of handing down the trade of the father to one, at least, of the sons was the keystone of the old rural community; and it was strictly followed wherever a body of closely guarded craft skills and secrets was involved. Centuries ago this practice became enshrined in the surname which described accurately the trade of the man who bore it: Smith, Baxter, Forster, Farmer, Wright, Fowler and so on. But these occupational surnames have long ago ceased to have any relation to the jobs of the people who hold them; and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a family whose occupation had always remained the same from the time it was first used to give them a descriptive surname. Were a search to be made it would have more chance of success if it were confined to the remoter areas of East Anglia where there are families who have been tied to the land for centuries. Such a family would be the Grooms of the Claydon district of Suffolk. William Groom (born 1884) a small farmer, started his career as a horseman. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been horsemen on farms in the surrounding district; and family tradition says that the Grooms had always been connected with horses: ‘Groom by name, and groom by calling’, as William Groom put it. His two brothers were also horsemen on farms, not very far away at Needham Market.

  But it is among the families of farmers in Suffolk that this continuity of occupation is most common—as one would expect; because the physical nature of inheritance of land, buildings and stock is a strong inducement to a son’s carrying on the farm, and keeping the property intact in the family; and the argument from sentiment, aptitude and even real love for the land could usually be addressed with a force backed by the tacit consent of the whole community to any son whose wavering tended to make a break in the traditional family calling. Moreover, the care with which marriages were made among Suffolk farmers tended to keep this continuity, and it would be no exaggeration to characterise many of these as marriages of conservation—conservation of real property and also the more imponderable but equally real conservation of cherished family traditions.

  But this continuity was noticed some time ago by an American visitor. He came over here about 1875 to buy Suffolk horses. He had high praise for the breed, and also for the quality of the farming in East Anglia:1 ‘“No wonder,” said he, “you are such capital farmers; you make your sons farmers—you have been farming for generations.”’

  It is proposed to treat of one of these farming families, the Biddell family of Playford, near Ipswich; not because the family is typical—it was one of the most outstanding farming families in Suffolk during the nineteenth century—but for other reasons: the family has left fairly copious records of its farming during the last century; and again, one of its members, Herman Biddell, did more than anyone else to raise the Suffolk breed of horse to an excellence that is acknowledged wherever the heavy breed of horse is known.

  There were Biddells or Bedells in Suffolk as far back as the sixteenth century, but the branch we are concerned with had its growth from Arthur Biddell who was born in 1783. When he was a young man he moved from Rougham, near Bury St Edmunds, and rented a farm at Playford from the Marquis of Bristol. Arthur Biddell stayed at Hill Farm, Playford until his death in 1860. It was about 250 acres in extent, but the size of the home-farm is no indication of the extent even of his farming activities; for Herman, one of his sons, wrote:2 ‘At one time my father must have rented a thousand acres. Shortly before his death he told me he had been present and paid his rent at a hundred and one half-yearly audits without missing a single audit. As churchwarden he signed the warden’s book forty-four years in succession; and after his death I held office for exactly the same period.’

  Arthur Biddell married Jane Ransome, daughter of Robert Ransome already noted as the founder of the firm of agricultural engineers. Jane Ransome appears to have been a woman of some culture—two manuscript books of her verses are extant—and a good working partner for her husband. But Arthur Biddell’s name is linked with the Ransome’s in another way: he invented and designed two agricultural implements which J. Allen Ransome described in 1843: ‘With the harrows are intimately connected the scarifiers. They approach so closely in their character that it is not easy to draw the line of distinction: indeed, the last mentioned implements may, with equal propriety, be classed with the scarifiers. These latter were the production of an age of considerable agricultural advancement. It was only after the poorer soils had, by the necessities of mankind, been forced into cultivation, and the less valuable lands had become infested with couch-grass and other weeds which tenant long-cultivated poorer descriptions of arable land, that the necessity was generally felt of a more powerful implement of bringing to the surface the roots of the stubborn weeds thus growing; hence arose the first attempted variation from the form and principle of the common harrow, and finally the invention of the now highly useful class of scarifiers, scufflers and extirpators.’3

  Arthur Biddell became well-known for his scarifier. This is how Ransome describes it: ‘Biddel’s Scarifier: the invention of Arthur Biddell of Playford, first made under his direction but thirty years ago, with a framing of wood and tines of wrought iron … during the last few years it has been made principally of cast iron and generally introduced.’

  Also ‘Biddell’s Extirpating Harrow: similar to the scarifier which bears Arthur Biddell’s name. It is used for breaking up land when it is too hard for the heaviest harrows, and for bringing winter fallows into a state of fine tillage. In working summer lands it is calculated by the shape of its teeth to bring to the surface all grass and rubbish.’

  Arthur Biddell was also a land-surveyor during the whole of the time he was at Playford; and during the early part of the century, principally in the ’thirties, he did a great deal of work in connection with the Tithe Commutation surveys. Farmers of that period who employed Arthur Biddell to survey land for them were accustomed to speak of his skill by saying: ‘He could measure a bush-faggot under water.’ That he was a man of strong ‘commonsense’ is clear from a letter of his that survives. He wrote it in answer to a Mr Alexander of Yarmouth. This man was act
ing on behalf of two ladies who were offering their services as ‘assistant friends’ to the Biddell’s—just beginning their family of four sons and six daughters. Arthur Biddell kept a copy of this letter which is undated; but it appears to have been written about 1817, when the beginnings of the post-war depression in agriculture would tend to make a farmer act with a little more than his usual native caution:4

  ‘My dear friend,

  Many thanks for your kindness and attention to my letter. I shall be happy to find any opportunity of returning the obligation I feel under to you. I only had your communication today & ’tis too late for me to get this letter to Ipswich in time for Post. Your letter was delayed at Woodbridge & then forwarded to our Post Town (Ipswich).

  My wife is poorly and gone to my Brother’s near Bury for a little change. In her absence I am sure I may say you have her esteem and thanks. I am sorry that my anticipations respecting the young Ladies you mention are realized by your information. Their qualification and merit justify their looking for a more lucrative and better situation than we can offer them.

  I am on that account pretty confident that were Mrs Biddell at home she would decline giving Miss M.A. the trouble of a conference on the Subject. Framlingham is within an hour & a half of Playford & the ride there wd. be agreeable to Mrs B. or to have given Miss A. an invitation to see our Family as a visitor if there had been a probability of their wishing to form part of that family with a moderate Salary.

  Now you will say, if there be a probability of Miss M. A.’s suiting you, what is the object (objection?) of 8 or 9£ a year in Salary? I can answer, very little if taken by itself. But ’tis similar to the difference in the cost price between Gay Plates and White Ware which is trifling—if taken by itself—to mention. But to be consistent; if you have Gay Plates you require Silver Spoons set at every corner of your table, Glasses instead of Black and White Mugs—a clean cloth and nice knives and forks—a servant with a different dress, to that she wore an hour before dinner, to wait at table. The carpet which 6 or 7 children had trod upon since breakfast, which would do with White Plates, would not be consistent with Gay ones. The Viands, the Wine, the Desert—must go hand in hand with your Plates, which if really good must be followed by real China Tea Things, a Silver Cream Jug and Plated Pot. The whole appearing better by Candle Light induces you to put off Tea till a late hour. Bed Time is consequently deferred—late rising follows as a matter of course—your appearance out should correspond with appearances at home & your Tailor’s Bill is swelled by the use of Blue and White Plates instead of Plain ones—Now any of these things separately considered would be trifling, yet in an establishment of 12 in the Parlor and 5 in the Kitchen it makes 150£ a year between Plain White Ware and Gay Plates. You can bear testimony as to which we use, and we never had but one sort. I do not know that you will read thus far—your time is valuable and I ought to apologise for trespassing upon you with so long a letter and such a round about comparison to justify my wife declining the interview which you proposed at Framlingham.