Page 26

Little altered in the village between 1851 and 1881 but the census taken in 1901 reproduced on the following pages reveals the beginning of changes that were to accelerate throughout the rest of the twentieth century.The number of people living in the village had fallen from 153 in 1881 to 123 in 1901, a reduction of 20 per cent and the number of those under 21 had fallen from 69 to 53, a drop of 23.2 per cent. As the 1901 census recorded specific occupations such as horseman, cattleman and waggoner it is difficult to make exact comparisons but the total of all farm workers and servants in 1901 was 26 compared with the figure of 49 who were working in the village twenty years earlier, and the reduction of 46.8 per cent was probably caused by the poor state of farming which must have reduced farm incomes and the rent reductions are a further indication of the problem. The sizes of the farms changed little between 1880 and 1909 and the rent reductions are shown in the following table

Annual farm rents fell by 27.7 per cent between 1880 and 1901 and the fall must have been caused by similar if not larger reductions to farmers’ incomes which must also have had an effect on their ability to employ servants and labourers.

There was also a marked decrease in the number of people age 21 and over who were directly involved in farming which included farmers and their wives and older children and labourers and their families. The figure of 43 in 1901 compared with that of 63 twenty years earlier and the reduction in the number of young people under 21 directly involved in farming was more marked, dropping from 61 in 1881 to 39 in 1901. The number of shoemakers had fallen from 4 to 2 as had the number of tailors but the number of carpenters had increased from 2 to 4 and the village had its own roadworker in the shape of Richard Rainbow.