myroots
Occupations: Straw plaiters and associated trades
posted Tuesday, 12 April 2005
Harriet Scrivener and her children worked in the straw plait industry in both Luton, Bedfordshire, and Redbourn, Hertfordshire. Here are a few resources relating to the industry in the area (and now I know why Luton football club is called the hatters!):
Hertfordshire genealogy: Straw industry (including a photo of a straw plait competition at Pirton)
Hertfordshire genealogy: Straw plaiting (including census figures over time of numbers employed)
Redbourn seems to have been a centre for straw plaiting for many years, as this quote shows:
"... spinning has given way to plaiting straw, by which they earn three or four times as much ... but Redburn [Redbourn] is the place where the manufacture is most prevalent; where women will earn �1 1s. a week, and where a pound of prepared straw is sold as high as 6d. After six weeks learning, a girl has earned 8s. a week; and some clever little girls even 15s. The farmers complain of it, as doing mischief, for it makes the poor saucy, and no servants can be procured, or any field-work done, where the manufacture established itself. There may be some inconvenience of this sort, but good earnings are a most happy circumstance, which I wish to see universal." The Economics of Straw Plaiting, 1801 (Hertfordshire genealogy).
The Answers.com site suggests that "Tradition says that the straw-plait industry owes its introduction to James I who transferred to Luton the colony of Lorraine plaiters whom Mary Queen of Scots had settled in Scotland" (12/4/05).
Redbourn's twiki has a lot of really interesting information about the village.
Hertfordshire genealogy: Straw industry (including a photo of a straw plait competition at Pirton)
Hertfordshire genealogy: Straw plaiting (including census figures over time of numbers employed)
Redbourn seems to have been a centre for straw plaiting for many years, as this quote shows:
"... spinning has given way to plaiting straw, by which they earn three or four times as much ... but Redburn [Redbourn] is the place where the manufacture is most prevalent; where women will earn �1 1s. a week, and where a pound of prepared straw is sold as high as 6d. After six weeks learning, a girl has earned 8s. a week; and some clever little girls even 15s. The farmers complain of it, as doing mischief, for it makes the poor saucy, and no servants can be procured, or any field-work done, where the manufacture established itself. There may be some inconvenience of this sort, but good earnings are a most happy circumstance, which I wish to see universal." The Economics of Straw Plaiting, 1801 (Hertfordshire genealogy).
The Answers.com site suggests that "Tradition says that the straw-plait industry owes its introduction to James I who transferred to Luton the colony of Lorraine plaiters whom Mary Queen of Scots had settled in Scotland" (12/4/05).
Redbourn's twiki has a lot of really interesting information about the village.
comments