James Burton

With regret - Brian Worseldine who did much research on the Burton family, and helped sort out the Buttons when the name shift was identified, died at Maffra on Tuesday 14th Feb 2018. Vale Brian, I will miss talking family history with you.

I am adding a group of photos of historic Elmdon, a little later than James and Timothy, but would certainly have been familiar to them. I don't know if there are any Button/Burtons in the group photos, but it is quite possible. Samuel Button, born 1869 Elmdon to James and Hannah Button, seems to be the last Button baby born at Elmdon. Most families have already moved up the road to Chrishall or elsewhere. Records don't give village or town locations for burials, so I can't identify who was the last Button buried at Elmdon.

There is a nice clear map in media showing the Chrishall district in 1836 as James and Timothy would have known it.

FAMILY NAME This family has been hard to trace because their original name was Button. By 1850ish some Button families, had transitioned to Burton; some were baptised Button, married Burton and continued Button in the census to their death as Button; others went from Button to Burton and stayed Burton. They are all the same family, and two James's came to Victoria. Cousins, both named James Button arrived in Victoria in the 1850s, one became our James Burton, the other stayed James Button, went to Ballarat, owned a couple of gold mines, butcher shop, hotel or two. A third Button, John, from Chrishall, also a cousin, went to South Australia, and left a lot of Button descendants.

Many other James Buttons came to the Australian colonies from various parts of England, several as convicts. I have not explored the connections with Button families outside the Saffron Walden district where our Buttons lived for centuries. The making of buttons has been associated with shepherds from earliest times, so these other families might be no relation at all, just a coincidence of their original work as shepherds.

Charlotte Button of Clavering near Chrishall in Essex (1834-1897) married Daniel Mathias (1837-1817) and their son, also Daniel would marry Emma (Fanny) Horsnell who died in NZ. Not sure how Charlotte is related to the Chrishall Buttons.

The above barely touches the amazing story of James, his ancestors and his descendants. I have added a variety of articles about James, but not all of the many stock and market reports from buying and selling sheep, cattle and vegetables. In abt. 1900 he advertises his property for lease, and in 1906 it is sold. All here.

The Button family were shepherds across the Saffron Walden district for several hundred years before James was born. James Button of Furneaux Pelham, Herts, was awarded one pound by the Saffron Walden Agricultural Society in 1835, for 36 years and 11 months service as a shepherd with his master. I am not sure how that James Button is related, but he is just one of a large group of Button shepherds in Saffron Walden district, that I have not traced, who will probably be a cousin of some sort to our Button/Burtons.

                                                          -------------------- BIRTH & BAPTISM First name(s)	James Last name	Button Baptism year	1818 County	Essex Country	England Place	Chrishall Mother's first name(s)	Mary Father's first name(s)	Timothy Father's last name	Button Baptism date	19 Jul 1818 Father's occupation	Labourer Residence	Chrishall Archive	 Essex Record Office

CENSUS In 1841 James was living with Emma and Emma's father, Thomas Clark. See docs.

EARLY LIFE Farm labouring in 1840 When reading census records for Essex by far the most common occupation listed was that of agricultural labourer especially in the rural areas. This occupation was passed on from generation to generation often for the same landowner. In 1900 the Essex Review carried an account of life as a Essex farm labourer in 1840 which may help us to understand what the life of our ancestors was like.

"Those were the days of the smock frock- a worn and shabby one for everyday, a better one, of a soft greenish hue, for Sundays. This in turn descended to the weekday wear and very likely to another and third generation. The smock was a comprehensive garment that reached below the knees. the farm labourer's lower extremities being cased on Sundays in short brown leather buskins, which met the hem of the smock. [Definition of buskin: a laced boot reaching halfway or more to the knee; leggings; half boot] The wives of the farm men appeared on Sundays in large circular cloaks that enveloped their spare figures. At the time of which I am writing, scarlet ones were getting few and far between, but the little bit of colour seen across the common under the ancient lime trees was a most picturesque sight. Implements were then very scarce upon the farms. hardly any of the farmers had even drills of their own. To possess a drill, or more than one, and take it round the neighbourhood, or let it out to farmers, was a trade in itself. All the wheat was threshed by a flail upon the barn floors, and comfortable warm work it was during the long, cold winter. The flip-flop of the flails is still as fresh as possible in my memory. Machinery was being introduced but most farms used real horsepower Those who only have to pay a penny for their letters to any part of the United Kingdom or the Colonies , would have perhaps begrudged the five pence necessary to frank a letter. Three times only each week did letters find their way from our village, from which year after year a weather beaten old dame traveled on foot to the town and back, laden with many things besides letters. One winter morning she was found frozen to death in the watery lane. There was no putting the washing out in those days, but every farmhouse had its grand washing days, when the women started work at 4 o clock in the morning , in fact some of them came over night. Strange as it may seem now they would stand all day at the wash tub or copper, rubbing and wringing ( there were no wringing machines) and would go home at night well satisfied with receiving something under a shilling and their meals. The game on our farms was carefully preserved by the landlord, whose visits we children highly appreciated, for the sake of brand new shillings or sixpences, which the old banker brought in his pocket from Lombard Street. He was invariably dressed in light short jacket reaching only to his waist, and worn outside his coat. This garment was called a Spencer after Lord Spencer, who as Lord Althorp, had been chancellor of the Exchequer in 1830. If the old landlord came in his whiskey ( a light two wheeled conveyance for one horse) we were more than delighted especially if he drove in it the horse that had such an appropriate name. Brought to the stables one day when he was in his most decisive mood he had scarcely set eyes upon it before rapping out in his abrupt way ' what's the price?' 'Fifty guineas' said the owner promptly. ' I'll have it' came quickly in reply and the animal was forthwith named Moment. His coachman at the same time was one Moses and the old Squires order: ' Tell Moses to put Moment in the whiskey', which we children heard repeated , seemed to use almost of biblical importance." These are only a few rambling reminiscences of sixty years ago.

I am adding an historical account of conditions for agricultural labourers like James and Timothy, for the time they were at Chrishall. It's an eye opener, and can only increase one's admiration for the people who survived and thrived. See documents

MARRIAGE March quarter 1841: James Burton marries Emma Clark. Vol 12 Page 327. See documents. The date must be in May of the March quarter, but the day is too faded to see. At a guess I would say May Day ie 1st May, which would have been an ancient rural tradition, but also a day off work with time to get married.

MIGRATION The passenger list of assisted migrants on the "Royal George" (left Plymouth August 1849, arrived 28th November 1849) lists James Button, age 31 yrs, farm labourer, born Creshall, Essex, of an Independent Church, unable to read or write; wife Emma, age 28 yrs, born Cambridgeshire, Independent Church, able to read; daughter Mary, age 8 yrs, born Creshall, Essex, able to read; daughter Hannah, age 4 yrs, born Creshall, Essex, able to read; and son Able, an infant, born Creshall, Essex. There can be no doubt this is our "Burton" family. It matches the Family Reunion claims re their ship, names and ages of family, and where they all came from. Name spelled Button, Crishall spelled Creshall.

James' brother Timothy, wife Mary, and son George came to Port Phillip on the "Harry Lorriquer" in 1851. Handwritten notes from probably Rachel Burton (in Gail Hillbrick's collection) say "James Burton had one sister (obscured) Mansfied and (on?) ship on the way out to Victoria." See Rebecca Mansfield, who died on the voyage.

On 26 March 1853, Eliza Beard, sister to James and Timothy Button, advertised in the Argus Missing Friends column for her brothers, JAMES BURTON AND TIMOTHY BURTON, when she arrives in Mt Gambier SA with her husband. This tells us that within two years of leaving the ship as James Button, the family name has shifted to Burton; and also that Eliza has not heard that Timothy and his family had died in 1852. In 1852 there were 4 Button siblings in the colonies - James and Timothy in Victoria, to be followed by Rebecca's widower and their children, and Eliza in South Australia. None of Timothy's family survived.

JAMES in VICTORIA I am adding several news reports of James and the bushranger, Collingwood, as well as a serious fire at his first farm at Bulla Bulla Creek near Sunbury, in Port Phillip District. Hannah's profile also has a report of her at the Bulla Bulla National School. James is described as an agricultural labourer. Most of his family had been shepherds for over 200 years when James was growing up in Chrishall. This could mean James and his father Timothy, were also shepherds, but rural England had begun to change enormously, farm workers were impoverished after the end of the Napoleonic wars, and Timothy and James might well have become general farm labourers by 1840. Rachel gives the impression that it was general farm skills that James had got from his father, Timothy. [The 1841 census gives little information about people, and probably called most farm workers 'labourers' when they might have been skilled thatchers, shepherds, hedgers, ditchers, ploughmen, etc. Notably, the women are not credited as workers when they were dairywomen, cheesemakers, poulterers, goosegirls, servants, housekeepers, cooks, semstresses, etc etc.]

This suggests that, unlike generations of their family, Timothy and James were not shepherds, but general farm labourers. James' sister, Rebecca, married Thomas Mansfield, a shepherd in the family tradition, who also migrated to Victoria. The skills James would get from general farm work would stand him in good stead in Australia, whereas work for shepherds was harder to find after the gold rushes when properties were fenced. Shepherds were employed to protect the landowner's sheep from predators, including human ones, to maintain their health, and ensure lambing.

From his daughter, Rachel. "Bought 120 acres at Rochford and went to live there in 1856. From there bought land at Tabilk on Goulburn River. Retired to Nagambie and died there aged 87." "As James could not read or write, he felt it was a great achievement when his children had enough schooling to teach him to sign his own name". "He learned to farm from his father, Timothy."

"James Burton saw the opportunities that were available for anyone in this new land Australia. He was a hard worker and was not afraid to move to new areas seeking better land to farm. He was proud to be called a landowner." This would have been an unlikely title had he remained in England as available land there was scarce and expensive. "In Australia his children would have a good future". Burton/Mills Family Reunion 1986, Brian Worseldine (died 2018) and Betty Barker (died 2017).

Kyneton Guardian Sat 31 Jan 1874 LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS Nearly four years ago, about the time when Power, the notorious bushranger; was on a visit to this part of the colony, it will be remembered that two farmhouses at Rochford were stuck up and robbed, the robber declaring that he was no other than Power himself, a statement which the police easily ascertained was a falsehood. The first victim was Mr James Burton, who, taken unawares in the middle of the night, with no clothing but a shirt on, and with a double barrelled gun presented at his head, had no alternative but to hand over L22, all the money he had in the house at the time, Ll of which the robber gave back, and then rode away threatening to shoot Mr Burton if information were given to the police, although it might be ten years afterwards. Mr Alexander M'Donald'e place was stuck up about an hour later, no money being obtained, but a borse, saddle, and bridle taken. For nearly four years the perpetrator of these outrages succeeded in baffling the police, but a week or two ago a man named Collingwood, alias Broadford, was arrested in Gippsland upon another charge, and his description tallied so exactly with that given of the Rochford bushranger, that he was forwarded to Romsey, where his identity was established. As his victims had long since left the district, and settled on the Goulburn, he was remanded for their convenience to the Kilmore Police Court, where he was brought up on Tuesday charged upon two informations with robbery underarms. He was committed for trial at the Melbourne Criminal Sessions upon both charges.

In 1876 James was recognised at The Nagambie show for his lucerne, swede turnip and mangel seed. [In Winter farm animals rely on feeds stored away for them. This usually means dry hay, but in addition, the nineteenth century farmer often fed pumpkins, cabbage and root crops to the animals. A favorite root crop grown for livestock is the mangel wurzel. Mangel wurzels are a type of beet with a red or yellow root the shape of a large, fat carrot that sticks halfway out of the ground. The leaves can be fed fresh to the animals through the summer as long as they are not entirely removed until just before the roots are harvested. The roots are supposed to be able to grow as large as 2 to 3 feet long and 4 to 8 inches in diameter.]

From Rachel's handwritten notes in old age. Fifth daughter of James Burton. Left school age 14 yrs at Romsey. Father bought a farm on the Goulburn River at Tabilk. She commenced housekeeping for him and cooked for 11 men, harvesters for 2 yrs. The crop was cut by hand with a mower, gathered into sheaves and stooked, then stacked when dry. The carpenter was also there building the house. She carried water from the river up a steep bank. Cooking was done outside on the open fire and served in a shed made of boughs as a dining room. Married Thomas Mills in 1879.

James Burton, illiterate farm labourer from Essex, died a wealthy man in 1905, as a gentleman. What a remarkable achievement. His will is attached in documents

I will add some census docs that might relate to Burton relations who did not migrate.

1861 census, Hertford Lane, Chrishall: This whole family was born in Chrishall. William Button, age 45 yrs {born 1816, James' brother? cousin?] Martha, 43 yrs. David, son, 19 yrs. Peter, son, 11 yrs. Nathan, son, 9 yrs. Eliza, dau, 6 yrs. Timothy, son, 4 yrs. [A birth record for this small Timothy shows he was registered for the Q2 of 1857 ie 1 March to June 30. ] and probably named for the Timothy who died in Victoria.

I have found an English sound archive that has English rural accents and dialects, including Great Chesterford, near Chrishall. The man speaking in 1958 is obviously C20th, but has an accent similar to the one James, his family and his Button ancestors would have had, although modified by 100 years. It is at the British Library, Sounds, Accents and Dialects. Search for 'Great Chesterford'. "Great Chesterford, Essex: Mr Dyer describes traditional methods of harvesting and stacking.

There is also one from 1998 about life in Saffron Walden near Great Chesterford.

Agricultural Employment The majority of the population of England were employed Agricultural Labourers before the Industrial Revolution. Agricultural work provided many different types of employment for labourers but they could be categorised into groups:

Those labourers who worked for a particular farmer, and who stayed on the same farm or estate for long periods of time often all their working lives. Frequently, they were born on the farm in a tied cottage (belonging to a particular farm), and never left, the house being passed on to the son on the death of the labourer. These labourers tended to become the 'elite' of the class because they had (relative) stability of employment, and because of their permanency and great knowledge of the farm and its workings could rise from mere farmhands to become more valued farm workers, with tasks such as herdsmen or ploughmen. Their families were born and raised there, and from an early age both sons and daughters would work on the farm, initially as bird scarers, gleaners after the harvest, cow boys and similar. As they grew up they would enter the more 'advanced' jobs, and the women would go into the dairies, the house itself and the tasks such as butter- making and looking after vegetable and fruit plots. This was not always the case but was common practice. It is worth emphasising that the work wasn't contracted in the modern sense; there was absolutely no guarantee of employment. If the farm fell on hard times, or the farmer decided that he could dispense with the services of a particular labourer, then he could and would dismiss him and turn him and his family out of their cottage without compensation. This was more likely when people grew old and infirm, and so, less useful to their employer. A good employer might make provision for a worker such as this, giving him or her easier or sedentary jobs, and perhaps a certain amount of charity; a more ruthless one would just turn them out.

Those labourers who were more mobile, and contracted out their labour usually every year. These were the 'hired men' and 'hired women', who crop up frequently in novels about the period (e.g. those of Thomas Hardy). It was the normal custom for hiring to be done once a year, at Michaelmas (29 September), the place of hiring almost always being a country fair, or, less often, a market. The fairs were frequently called 'hiring fairs' (although other business and sales would also be transacted), and they were common throughout the county (eg. 25 were held in 1762). The labourers would stand on a platform, or in an enclosure, to be 'looked over by the prospective employers for features such as strength, general appearance and character (and, in the case of girls, probably their attractiveness as well!). They would then be questioned about their skills and abilities, their previous employment and their liabilities (which might well include wives and children). [Timothy Button, James' father was probably in this group until finally settling in Chrishall] Finally, there would be a bargaining of sorts regarding a wage - with the obvious proviso that in hard times the labourer had no bargaining power, but in good times, or in areas where labour was scarce, they were at a premium. In the early decades of the 19th century, agriculture was frequently depressed and rural poverty great, so bargaining was less feasible. Skilled workers with a particularly useful trade or experience would often hire themselves on this basis because they could demand good wages, and farmers might vie with each other to get the worker they wanted. This was the case quite often with people such as plough-team leaders and very experienced cowmen. It seems that some of the most highly valued jobs (those involved in handling livestock the teamsman who looked after the horses, the yardsman who cared for the cattle and the shepherd) often had a cottage made available to them.

However, during the latter part of the 18th century and into the 19th century, the trend was away from the annual 'hiring fairs', towards a more casual engagement of workers. This was usually on a daily or weekly basis, with no pay on wet days. Later, during the Victorian era, with farm sizes increased, farmers could no longer manage with just family and some yearly engaged 'live-in' servants. Farmers needed more labour and greater flexibility in employment, and agricultural labourers (like their industrial counterparts the factory workers) found themselves entirely at the mercy of their employers, who could reduce their pay whenever prices for their farm products dropped.

Wages for the least secure, most poorly skilled or least experienced farm workers were very low. The struggle for existence can best be illustrated by the loss in value of wages. In a fifty year period in the late 18th century, wages rose by only 25 per cent but the cost of living increased by 60 per cent.

Labourers were in a weak bargaining position due to the over-population. Wages were usually low, and were not infrequently paid in the form of goods or food, or the labourer was allowed a small plot of land to raise vegetables and perhaps to keep a pig or two. The pig was fattened and then killed in the late autumn, to he salted or smoked as a source of meat through the winter and early spring. Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure gives a very vivid and convincing account of such a pig-killing, and this was one of the major events in the calendar of most rural families. Everything would be used skin, bristles, bones, every scrap of meat, blood (made into puddings with oatmeal and herbs), etc. Wages also varied enormously between periods of plenty and periods of scarcity, and the 1820s and 1830s were, in general, a time of low wages in East Anglia. This was particularly so in these counties because the woolen industry was in a state of rapid decline, as the great [cotton] textile areas of northern England flourished. With alternative employment not readily available, it led to an excess of agricultural workers.

The conditions of the agricultural labourer reached a very low ebb by 1815, but things got worse. The end of the wars meant that many ex-soldiers were unemployed. Grain prices fell and farmers lowered wages; a landowner-dominated Parliament passed the Corn Laws, which prevented the import of grain until the price of English wheat reached 80 shillings a quarter.

It is not surprising, therefore that discontent, fuelled by steep rises in the prices of bread and flour during the post-Napoleonic wars depression, led to violence. Rioting occurred in 1816, (see the Littleport Riot), with the anger directed at property, machinery in particular. Ricks (stacks of hay, corn or peas, often thatched [roofed with straw] for weather protection) were burned and threshing machines broken. The latter were depriving labourers of valuable winter employment and consequently were much hated. Further rioting broke out in 1830 as again farm workers demanded rises in wages and the abolition of threshing machines, twenty-nine of which were smashed.

Steadily an outward movement, abroad, occurred, generally the more able and younger people who emigrated. On estates where the demand for labour exceeded the cottage accommodation, gangs of workers were brought in from elsewhere. They came from other villages, which were not controlled by the one landlord where speculators erected rows of poor cottages and charged exorbitant rents because of the shortage of housing. Labourers from these villages would often travel quite a distance to where the work was offering and be formed into work gangs by 'gang masters'. These organisers could offer such gangs for hire to farmers to do various types of work such as weeding, potato digging and turnip hoeing.

Farm Work While the steady introduction of an increasing range and quality of machinery was an irreversible trend from the early 1800s, there was resistance to their use (as previously described), by the large numbers of farm labourers who feared the inevitable loss of work and income. But the work they had using the traditional methods was arduous, long, repetitive and not always regular. For example, before the drill method of sowing turnips became the norm, they were sown broadcast or fleet on the ground. When the seed was sown by hand the sower had a small seed-bowl on his chest: this was secured by a leather band which went round his neck. He took the small seed between his finger and thumb and sowed in step; that is, as his left foot came up, his left hand dipped into the seed bowl and scattered the seed. It was a skilled job to sow with both hands and keep in step, as the rhythm could very easily be broken. If this happened the sower would have to stop and start again as a break in the rhythm meant a blank patch in the sowing. Few men, too, could judge the amount of seed to sow at each pinch of the thumb and forefinger. Turnip seed was sown at the rate of half a pint an acre and if the sower dug too deeply into his bowl with his thumb and forefinger he would not make his seed last. Not more than one or two men on each farm could sow at the necessary rate with two hands. Most men were only able to sow with one. This was necessarily slower, but the sower who used one hand only was able to carry a seed-hod - a bigger container - on one side of his body. Clover and mustard were sown in the same way as turnips. When the turnips came up, it would be some time during the harvest; and the men would be set to hoe in the early morning before breakfast when the dag or dew would still be on the corn. They would likewise hoe turnips when a damp or wet day compelled them to make a break in the harvesting. It was a hard job hoeing plants that grew from broadcast seed, and they would have to hoc twice; the second time to cut out the knots or concentration of plants and the weeds that had grown since the first hoeing.

Traditionally, the method of harvesting the grain crop was by hand, using a sickle. By 1850 the scythe had replaced the sickle. An 1843 description of harvest describes the activities and methods:

Thirty-four men mow the wheat and in order to lay it evenly their scythes are fitted with cradles made of iron rods. These men are each followed by two women ...... and a boy or girl to gather up the corn into small sheaves. Eight teamsmen ..... follow to shock up the sheaves of which they place ten in a shock ...... 300 acres of wheat is cut in six days. Carting takes a further eight. Eighteen to 20 days are needed to complete the harvest. The women mentioned previously, were usually the wives of the harvest workers and were called gavellers. Their job was to rake the mown corn into gavels or rows ready for tying into sheaves, or for carting if left loose. Barley was often left 'on the gavel'.

The stubbles are dew-raked by men drawing a long iron-toothed rake. A tool called a shack-fork a fork with curved tines and an iron bow at the shoulder was used to gather the swathes of barley into gavels ready for pitching onto the wagons. A gaveller worked behind each wagon feeding the corn to two men one on each side of the wagon who did the pitching while another two men on top of the load received the corn and arranged it evenly. The man paid the gaveller about a shilling a day: if she had a young child to look after at the same time, she would have to manage as best she could.

Men, women, lads, boys and girls all worked in the fields and each had certain jobs and set wages.

'What was the difference between a boy and a lad'? ...... the lad got more money than the boys: he was, in fact, older and would not he called a lad until he had left school. While he was still at school he was a boy ...... until he was seventeen or eighteen he would be called a lad. A lad who had not long left school would be taken on at harvest time as a half-man. That is, he received half a man's wages. He did very light jobs during the harvest: taking the loaded wagons to the stack yard; or (drag-work, leading a horse with the drag-rake. The horses he handled would he the staid old jobbing horses that had lost all their sprightliness after long years of hard ploughing. When a lad was sixteen or seventeen he was taken on as a three-quarter man, getting three-quarters of a man's wages. He did all the Jobs a full-man did except pitching, the handling of the sheaves of corn from the ground on to the wagon the heaviest job of all. A three-quarter man was usually stationed on top of the load. Boys and girls who were still at school were usually taken on at fixed wages. They had various jobs: they helped with the turnip hoeing. They carried the elevenses and fourses - the men's snacks at eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon into the fields; some of the boys would lead the wagon horses and both boys and girls would be employed as bind pullers. The bind-puller worked with a tier-up, the man or the woman who came after the reaper and tied the corn into sheaves. When the cradle or horns attachment was used with the scythe it would leave the wheat or oats, that had been cut, leaning against the standing corn; the tier-up put his foot underneath a bunch of corn to help him lift it into his arms. The boy or girl who was acting as his bind-puller would, in the meantime, have pulled out three or four ears of corn from a bunch lying somewhere near and would be ready to hand these to the tier when he was ready to make his knot ...... Boys, moreover, meant a lower wage bill.

After the corn was cut and carted it was stored in huge wooden eighteenth-century barns for storing and processing. Farmers liked to keep most of their crop indoors rather than stacking it in a yard. In spite of constant improvements to the design of threshing machines and its increasingly widespread use, on many farms in the 1840s the crop was still being hand-flailed, a handy activity for otherwise idle hands in the winter. The threshing was done on the middle-stead, the middle of the barn, the floor of which was paved with clay-daub (dab) which was clay beaten down until it became as hard as concrete. The threshing was done with a flail, or frail, which had an ash handle with a swivel on top. The part that struck the corn was called the swingel and was made of tough wood, like holly or blackthorn. It was attached to the swivel on the handle by thongs of snakeskin, or eel-skin using a knot of special design.

When using the flail the thresher swung the handle over his shoulder and brought down the swingel across the straw just below the ears so that the grains of corn were shaken out without being bruised.

Great skill was needed to use the flail consistently effectively - it was very easy for an inexperienced thresher to hit himself on the back of the neck. While the threshing was being done the big double doors at one end of the barn and the single door at the other end were opened to allow the through draught to blow away the dust. After the threshing was completed the sievers job was to separate the cavings from the grain and chaff, the grain being piled at one side of the middle stead. A scuppit (a wooden casting shovel) was then used to throw the grain high in the air, the heavy grains falling furthest away and the lighter ones dropping short forming a kind of tail.

One of the skills that had the highest acclaim in the East Anglian countryside under the old farm economy was the ability to draw or plough a straight furrow and lay a level stetch (a section of ploughed land) so that it looked like a well-made length of corduroy. ...... So great was the interest in ploughing a well-finished stetch with mathematically straight furrows, ..... and, so keen was the rivalry between various horsemen that, even after they had spent most of an autumn day ploughing an acre or so in the field, they would spend the rest of it ploughing the land over once again in the cosiness of the inn bar . . . All farm workers were labourers with that term's implication of unskilled and unintelligent toil; and that label stuck to them until recent years. And it must be admitted that the low level of wages the farm-worker received appeared to the uninformed, justification enough for not changing their image of him. But the farm-worker was practised in numerous skills as well as ploughing and drilling...

These other skills included stacking, thatching, hedging, ditching, and looking after the horses (with no vet to call on).

Socialising The inn was the social centre of the village. In the clubroom members of the local benefit society held their monthly club night and their annual dinner. In the skittles yard adjoining there were amusements for those whom enclosures had deprived of large open spaces. Farmers and tradesmen met in the bar to discuss political, social and economic questions with each other and with the landlord who, since he had seen service in gentlemen's houses, spoke with an authority that must have been annoying to the less pretentious among his customers. Here there was contact with the world beyond the village, through travellers' gossip over a glass of beer and, later, through the newspapers that appeared on the table. Labourers, who could talk more freely in the absence of their masters, preferred the taproom or the kitchen unless they went to a more humble establishment, the beershop. This was brought into existence by the Beer Act (1830); it was a room in or attached to a cottage - small, ill-ventilated, and probably not very clean. The landlord was frequently an ambitious man with few ideas beyond making money out of his customers, who were poor and not too critical of their surroundings. On the edges of commons, in remote hamlets, and on the outskirts of villages, wherever a few cottages made trade in beer seem profitable, there appeared a beershop.

Beershops were believed to be the cause of wretchedness and crime among the agricultural population. It is unnecessary to describe the misery of the habitual drunkard's home. There were ne'er-do-wells in most open villages, and more in the hovels that clustered round the commons. The beershop provided an easy way of escape from the difficulties of life for those ruined by economic conditions, or by their own psychological weakness, but was not in itself the cause of their ruin. Poachers, thieves, and incendiaries were believed to resort there for the purpose of corrupting the labourer's morals. This may have been true, but the labourer did not go there to be instructed in crime. He went, as his betters went to their clubs, for good company. Unfortunately beer cost more than he could really afford. A bundle of wood, a few turnips, a hare, or a rabbit helped reduce his debt to the landlord. In the eyes of the magistrates, these may have been stolen goods, but the labourer considered that custom gave him the right to prerequisites, and he refused to consider ground game the property of the landowners. Unless he were convicted of theft or poaching and suffered the degradation of imprisonment in the county gaol, it is unlikely that the average man developed any further criminal tendencies.

Owners of Land The holder, and the size of the holding, of land can be found in the various Returns of Owners of Land. The 'extent of lands' refers to the size in acres, roods and perches. The UK now officially uses hectares to measure agricultural land, but most of us who work in the agricultural field still think in acres. (1 hectare = 2.471 acres).

A standardised rood was 40 square rods or perches, a rod or perch being a measure of 16.5 feet/5.5 yards. The names rod and perch derive from a standard rod or pole used for marking out. There were 4 roods in an acre. These very small measures are a remnant of medieval farming, where everyone cultivated very small strips within large open fields, and very accurate reckoning of small plots was essential. The cash amount listed is the (estimated) gross annual rental value of the land. It should be remembered when looking for small farmers and husbandmen in these lists that very few of them owned their own land in the nineteenth century, the great majority being tenants of the larger land owners.

Emigration The average agricultural worker was itinerant and relied on work being available. As the Industrial Revolution hit and mechanisation crept in it was necessary for these workers to seek alternative employment. The appeal of the new lands mainly in America and Australia lured many workers overseas.

This migration was at its highest from the mid to the end of the 19th century.

Land grants in America were very attractive aimed at opening up the centre of the country.

Travel to Australia was almost "free" in so much as the fare paid for emigrating was so subsidised it was minimal. Agricultural labourers were in great demand in Australia at the time and were encouraged to emigrate at relatively low fares. Some were indentured to land holders who paid the fares in exchange for a certain period of labour. Employers preferred single men but even those with many children readily found work at vastly improved wages to England. They could also live off the land - hunting at will; in England this would have been classed as "poaching". They often selected land of their own which would have been impossible in England.

There are records of many voyages - usually the Doctor, Matron, Captain, School Master, etc. made reports at the end of the voyage; conditions varied. Newspapers often carried accounts of the voyage shortly after the ship's arrival.

Another cause of dissent and division was religion. There was a lot of feeling against the Established Church which, to labourers, seemed to support those in power. The local minister was often also the magistrate! For this reason, the lower classes flocked to the dissenting religions (eg. Methodists) which promoted a more equal lifestyle. Various branches of my family were divided over this and Weston Colville experienced various religious disturbances around the 1850s. Within England a further lure was to the new, industrial areas of the Midlands, North West and West Yorkshire. Whole families packed up and left for a new life in these areas. Many families in East Lancashire originate from the Fens. There are examples of agents representing the cotton interests of Lancashire actively negotiating with Parish officials in Cambridgeshire to arrange for workers to be shipped to the mill towns which then took them off parish relief. These journeys were made possible by an improved railway network, the push of desperate conditions for the poor in and the pull of regular work in the North.

Religion Another cause of dissent and division was religion. There was a lot of feeling against the Established Church which, to labourers, seemed to support those in power. The local minister was often also the magistrate! For this reason, the lower classes flocked to the dissenting religions (eg. Methodism) which promoted a more equal lifestyle. Many areas experienced various religious disturbances during the 19th century.

From Rachel Burton's account it seems the Burtons farmed in very much the way they had in Essex, and everyone, man woman and child worked. The difference was that the benefits of their work accrued to themselves, not a landlord, and they were able to own land and grow animals as well as crops. Children went to school - see Hannah at Bulla Bulla National School. Many if not most of the Button/Burton men were from generations of shepherds, their sisters often married shepherds, and only after the 1815 slump in agriculture after the end of war with France, did they reduce to general labouring. Many on-farm jobs actually required considerable skill and local knowledge, but were classified as agricultural labourer in the census.

DEATH & BURIAL Weekly Times Sat 4 Feb 1905 CROSSED THE BAR Mr James Burton, a resident of Nagambie since 1872, died on Saturday last at the age of 86 years. He leaves a widow and grown-up family.

Ditto DEATHS. BURTON.— On the 28th January , at his late residence (formerly of Rochford), James Burton, beloved husband of Emma Burton, in his 87th year. An old colonist of 55 years' standing.

Benalla Standard Mr. James Burton, an old colonist of over 50 years, died in Nagambie on Saturday morning. He was 86 years of age.

The Age 1 Feb 1905 NAGAMBIE.— Mr. James Burton, an old colonist of over 40 years, died in Nagambie on Saturday morning. He came to Nagambie in 1872, and was an ardent supporter of the Methodist Church since it was established in Nagambie. He was 86 years of age.

The Maffra Spectator 2 March 1905 An old Identity of Nagambie, in the person of Mr Jas. Burton, passed away last month. He was born in Chisshall, Essex, England, in 1818, and was in his 87th year. He was a colonist of 55 years. The deceased leaves behind him a widow, eight daughters-Mrs Russell (Laverton), Mrs Coe and Mrs Rannard (Nagambie), Mrs Mitchell (Tatura), Mrs Mills (Briagalong), and three unmarried, Miss Burton of Nagambie, and two residing in Malvern-and two sons, Mr A. Burton, of Heyfield, and Mr I. Burton, of Richmond. All were present at the funeral, with the exception of Mrs Russell. It is worthy of note that this is the first death in the family in a direct line for 60 years.

The Argus 4 Mar 1905 James Burton, formerly of Evandale road, Malvern and late of Nagambie gentleman, who died on January 28, under a will dated September 7 1896 left estate valued for probate at L4,900 including realtv £3,300 and personalty L1,600. to his widow ind children