A couple of long lost pics of Hop Picking in Herefordshire in the 1920s
Picking the Hops
The pickers' day would start early with many heading out at dawn whilst
others waited for the foreman to blow his whistle at 7am. The early
morning was the best time for picking as the hops became harder to pull
when it got warmer in the afternoon.
The early method of picking hops in Herefordshire was to spread a
picking sheet on the ground and pick the hops onto it. From the 1700s
onwards there are records of hop cribs. These were rough wooden frames
about 7ft by 3ft with hessian strung across, and the hops were picked
into them. When a field had been completely picked the pickers would
move to another part of the hopyard and the quickest pickers were
allowed to have first choice of where to set up.
After the hops had been picked they had to be measured and bushelled
so that the picker could be paid for the day's work. The busheller would
call out the number as he measured the hops into a sack, which had a
mark inside giving a measurement of one bushel. The count would be kept
by the tally-man who carried a number of tallies on his belt. Tallies
were pieces of wood about 15 inches long, split into two pieces. One of
the pieces would be given to the picker as a record of their total. The
two pieces would only fit together in a certain way and the count was
recorded by file marks across both pieces so the picker could not alter
his or her total.
By the late 19th century Herefordshire hop growers had changed to the
hop-check or token scheme. Tokens were coin-like metal discs of various
sizes, all stamped with the farmer's name. The smallest represented a
single bushel and these could be exchanged for ones marked 1, 3, 5, 10
and £1, indicating the amount earned by the picker in shillings and
pounds. These tokens could then be exchanged for cash at the end of the
picking season or, if strapped for cash, at the end of the day. The
tokens could be spent at the local pub or shop and were accepted by most
local tradesmen.
The token system was later replaced by the booking system whereby
each picker and busheller was given a book and the amount picked was
recorded by the busheller in both books. If you wanted to have some of
your earnings early then the bushellers would enter the amount paid out
in both books.
The rate of pay for hop picking was agreed between the farmer and the
picker at the start of the season, and in the 1920s-30s in
Herefordshire it varied between five bushels to the shilling for
healthy, big hops and two bushels to the shilling if small and diseased.
A fast picker could pick up to 25 bushels a day in fine weather. Often
there were strikes by the pickers demanding more money, but these never
seemed to last very long. The hop farms in the Little Frome area seemed
to be prone to having strikes on Thursdays but this may have had
something to do with the fact that Bromyard market was held on this day.
Of all the villages in the Bromyard area it was Bishops Frome that
received the greatest number of pickers. During the 1920-30s the usual
population of 700 would rise to about 5,000 during picking time.
During the afternoons various "shop" vans would visit the hopyards
looking to entice the pickers into spending their hard-earned money.
These included the butcher, the baker and the ice-cream man. Saturday
afternoons meant time off for the pickers and many would walk into the
nearby towns and villages to spend their money or visit the pub.
After World War II it became increasingly more difficult to find
pickers as higher paid jobs could be found in the industrial areas with
paid holidays and better standards of living. Workers were now moving
out of the county to find work in the Black Country and South Wales.
Education authorities in the Black Country and Herefordshire ruled that
the school terms and holidays should fall in line with the rest of the
country, and this meant that children were no longer available for
picking in September.
There were attempts to use machinery after a picking machine was
imported from America but it was not until the 1950s that machine
picking became the norm. By 1955 there were 75 machines in operation in
Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and demand was high. The main problem
with the machines was that they were not as gentle with the hops as the
pickers and many of the hops broke up during drying.
[Original author: Miranda Greene, 2005]
A big Thank You to Herefordshire Through Time for above information.
A very special Thank You to Geoff and Patsy Lunn for the use of Geoff's Great Uncle
Fred Turner old photo's.
After the flood's August 1912.
Yet another flood.
The Hatton family taking tea in July 1894 with Parker's Steamer behind.
Lower river , near Putson.
Another early pic of Hereford in flood with the General Hospital in the background.
Only the fashion's seem to have changed.circa 1899.
A policeman on the beat in 1893.
The Hereford Lifeboat on Lifeboat Saturday launched from the Castle Green October 1908.
Another picture from Lifeboat Saturday.
