The government has, belatedly in the view of many people, announced that former land girls from the Women’s Land Army and lumber Jills (from the Women’s Timber Corps) are to receive a special badge in recognition of their wartime service. After the announcement, on 6 December 2007 the BBC Radio 4 PM programme interviewed Hilda Gibson, a former land girl - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/9childa_gibson_land_girl/ for the interview, comments and her poetry about her experiences.
BHRS Council member, Stuart Antrobus, wrote to praise the interview and to draw people’s attention to his Internet site about the Women’s Land Army in Bedfordshire. The site http://www.galaxy.bedfordshire.gov.uk/webingres/bedfordshire/vlib/0.wla/wla_home.htm
which is hosted by Bedfordshire Libraries, has a wealth of information and photographs about the land girls and their work – where they trained, where they lived, what work they did, and who they were. Stuart has identified and lists hundreds of land girls and would like to hear from anyone who can contribute information about them.
For more on Stuart’s work, see http://www.galaxy.bedfordshire.gov.uk/webingres/bedfordshire/vlib/0.wla/wla_stuart_antrobus.htm
Another source of information about the Women’s Land Army and the Bedfordshire War Agricultural Committee is BLARS.
Saturday 15 December 2007
Friday 7 December 2007
The 1865-66 cattle plague in Bedfordshire
In these days of increasingly frequent alarms about foot and mouth disease, bird flu and now blue tongue disease, it would be easy to think that epidemics in cattle were a recent phenomena. Far from it, as I discovered accidentally while searching one of my favourite online sources – the London Gazette http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/
Under the heading Cattle Plague, the Gazette of 15 December 1865 carries notices from the Petty Sessions for Ampthill and Woburn prohibiting the movement of cattle from the two districts for exhibition or sale. They are just two in 18 pages of orders made by petty sessions around the country.
By January conditions had worsened and the Gazette of 19 January 1866 contains orders prohibiting the movement of cattle “with a view to prevent the spreading of the disorder now prevalent - among cattle, generally designated the ‘Cattle Plague’” made by Quarter Sessions or Liberties of the Royal Burgh of Lanark, Plymouth, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk, Walsall, Oldham, Canterbury and Kent, Durham, Bedfordshire, Ripon, Paisley, Bottisham in Cambridgeshire, Lymington, Cumberland, Sussex, East Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Clitheroe, Swansea, Stalybridge, Faversham, Devonport, Havering-Atte-Sower, in Essex, and Middlesex. The orders were in force from 18 January to 1 March.
The Bedfordshire order, signed by Theed Wm Pearse as Clerk of the Peace, is particularly long and concludes with pro forma declarations and certificates for use on the limited occasions when movement of animals was permitted.
On 9 February 1866 more orders were made prohibiting “raw or untanned hide, skin, horn, hoof, or offal of any animal” being brought into Bedfordshire and also prohibiting “dung, hay, straw, fodder, or litter, likely to propagate infection” and “sheep, lamb, goat, or swine” from being moved out of Bedfordshire from places “where the cattle plague exists”. Similar orders were made for many other areas.
This was the outbreak of rinderpest, noted by Joyce Godber in her History of Bedfordshire as having arrived in Britain from the continent in 1865. The effect of the 1865-66 outbreak can be more easily imagined in light of recent ones. I wonder how many Bedfordshire farmers were ruined in 1866 and how many farm workers lost their jobs? Did it contribute to the move to industrial towns and emigration?
Under the heading Cattle Plague, the Gazette of 15 December 1865 carries notices from the Petty Sessions for Ampthill and Woburn prohibiting the movement of cattle from the two districts for exhibition or sale. They are just two in 18 pages of orders made by petty sessions around the country.
By January conditions had worsened and the Gazette of 19 January 1866 contains orders prohibiting the movement of cattle “with a view to prevent the spreading of the disorder now prevalent - among cattle, generally designated the ‘Cattle Plague’” made by Quarter Sessions or Liberties of the Royal Burgh of Lanark, Plymouth, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk, Walsall, Oldham, Canterbury and Kent, Durham, Bedfordshire, Ripon, Paisley, Bottisham in Cambridgeshire, Lymington, Cumberland, Sussex, East Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Clitheroe, Swansea, Stalybridge, Faversham, Devonport, Havering-Atte-Sower, in Essex, and Middlesex. The orders were in force from 18 January to 1 March.
The Bedfordshire order, signed by Theed Wm Pearse as Clerk of the Peace, is particularly long and concludes with pro forma declarations and certificates for use on the limited occasions when movement of animals was permitted.
On 9 February 1866 more orders were made prohibiting “raw or untanned hide, skin, horn, hoof, or offal of any animal” being brought into Bedfordshire and also prohibiting “dung, hay, straw, fodder, or litter, likely to propagate infection” and “sheep, lamb, goat, or swine” from being moved out of Bedfordshire from places “where the cattle plague exists”. Similar orders were made for many other areas.
This was the outbreak of rinderpest, noted by Joyce Godber in her History of Bedfordshire as having arrived in Britain from the continent in 1865. The effect of the 1865-66 outbreak can be more easily imagined in light of recent ones. I wonder how many Bedfordshire farmers were ruined in 1866 and how many farm workers lost their jobs? Did it contribute to the move to industrial towns and emigration?
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