Irish Labour in the North of England

Abstract

Befor the mechanization of harvest an extra source of labour at this time was a necessity. As early as the fourteenth century the Statute of Labourers specifically allowed the migration of labour from the Pennines, and from Craven in Yorkshire to assist with the harvest in other districts. In the seventeenth century, Henry Best of Elmswell in the East Riding of Yorks, sent to Malton to hire ‘moor folks’ from the Cleveland hills, and set up beds and bedsteads in his folks chamber, his Kiln and any other convenient house for their accommodation. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the hand textile workers (men, women and children) of the clothing districts of the West Riding, tramped to the fields of the Vale of York, the East Riding, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire to assist in gathering the harvest, taking a working holiday at a time when supplies of wool were low, and the new wool clip was not yet processed.