Is Blood Thicker than Water? Farm Servants and the Family in Nineteenth-Century North Devon

Abstract

This paper describes a small part of wider research into family and community in the nineteenth century undertaken by the late Caroline Verney. Her study of the north Devon parishes of Bittadon, Braunton, Georgeham, Marwood, Mortehoe and West Down centred on the way in which Victorian farming communities functioned, with investigations into kinship stemming from that core theme. At the same time, Janet Few was researching the role of kinship and its impact on community cohesion in three other areas of north Devon: Bulkworthy, Bucks Mills and Hatherleigh. Few's work on the farming parish of Bulkworthy is particularly relevant and has been used to complement Verney's findings for Mortehoe, which form the focus of this article. Together they have been used to investigate the employment of farm servants and the basis upon which they might have been chosen.