Topic: Economic Migrants, (1871-1911)
In 1800, 90% of the population worked in the countryside and 10% in the towns. By the end of the century, only 25% lived in the countryside with 75% living in towns and cities
Frederick Bellamy was born in 1854 at Deeping Gate, a Lincolnshire fenside hamlet close to the borders of Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire. He was the ninth child of John and Mary Bellamy. His father was born in Great Gidding in 1811, a village in the Huntingdon Hills, and had reached Deeping Gate by way of West Deeping, Stamford, and Market Deeping. It was probably at West Deeping that he met Mary White of Uffington, a nearby village, part of which is actually in Deeping St James. They married at Uffington in 1836. There are several graves in Uffington churchyard representing the White family. In the censuses from 1841 to 71 John Bellamy is described as a gardener. However, on Frederick's birth certificate his father was at that time a brewer. There were several brew houses in the Deepings, most of which were little more than family cottages, where brewing was something of a spare-time activity, for the barge trade.
We find Frederick age 25 in the 1881 Census living with his younger brother James, aged 23 and James' wife Charlotte, also age 23, at #9 High Street, Parson Drove. The brothers are described as general labourers. Charlotte was born in Parson Drove.
Parson Drove is situated about 6 miles from Wisbech, one of several 'drove communities', (e.g.Thomas Drove, Holbech Drove and Whaplode Drove) at the edge of reclaimed fenlands known as the Bedford Levels. Parson Drove is an ancient linear settlement, named after the central thoroughfare along which the village has developed from medieval times; a green corridor of common land, (a drove), which was originally much wider than the current metalled road (B1166). In the census this road is called High St. It is now known as Main Rd. John Bellamy was categorised as head of #9 High St. His younger sister Louisa was listed at #1 High St. as a general servant, age 20, employed by a farmer James Leatherland and his wife Jane. Although these three young Bellamy's had only travelled about 10 miles from their family home in the Deepings they were obvious economic migrants. This was a movement pattern which had characterized their labouring ancestors lives for countless generations and was indeed part of the culture of British farming. Only one of the heads of households listed in the Parson Drove census had been born in Parson Drove, another indicator of the dynamic nature of the community, where most families were just 'passing through'.
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What was going on in Fred Bellamy's mind when he decided to travel a hundred miles from Parson Drove to start a family in Grimsby?
There were 21 households recorded in the first High St section of the Parson Drove census for 1881. Of these 4 were headed by farmers; 27 people were described as general labourers, farm labourers, or servants. Urbanisation was unlikely to improve the lot of such individuals because it was a phenomenon associated with the mass production of goods and services. To access the increased opportunities for an economically prosperous life one had to become a driver in the capitalist money making machine. This was the logic of Fredrick Bellamy who looked north to Grimsby, where labourers became millionaires. The story goes that George Frederick Sleight, born in 1853, started as a cockle boy collecting and selling shellfish from the beach. By the time he was 28, in 1881, he was a fish merchant employing eight men. In 1920 he was raised to the baronetcy, had Weelsby Hall built, in a landscaped estate at the very edge of Grimsby and became the largest landowner in Lincolnshire!
Sometime between the 1881 and 1891 censuses Frederick Bellamy arrived in Grimsby and lodged with the Precious family in the West Marsh. George Prescious was a tailor. In 1991 Frederick is living in Ravenspurn St., in the West Marsh, with a wife, Mary Ann Precious and two children, George William, age 4 and Ernest, age 2. In 1891 he still classified himself as a general labourer. West Marsh was then in the final stage of being developed to house hundreds of migrants attracted to the town to serve the rapidly expanding fishing industry. The East Marsh was also being developed for housing where the emphasis was on the creation of large lodging/boarding Houses'. and 'buildings' (flats) The former used the principles of workhouse design offering men-only accommodation and were mostly occupied by young, unmarried dock labourers. Frederick Bellamy moved his growing family to live in King Edward St, which was characterised by this kind of lodging/boarding establishments with multiple family occupancy. Examples in King Edward St are the 'New Model Model Lodging House' and Berry's Buildings and Simpson's Buildings, named after their developers.
There is now little left of these Victorian terraces but Hope St.in the East Marsh gives an idea of the best and the worst of urban life in Grimsby., which continued into the 1960s.
"A sentence of death was passed on Samuel Henry Smith, a Grimsby fisherman, for the murder of Lucy Margaret Lingard. The prisoner used to visit Lingard, who was married to another and on the 18th of November, 1902 they were out on a pub crawl. The two argued after consuming whisky and other spirits. He then completely lost the plot and stabbed her in the body, twelve times. She hung onto life for another twelve days, then expired at Grimsby Hospital"
(Hope Street Murder, 1903.)
On July 26th, 1768, a year of tremendous labour agitation to produce a fairer economic system in London, seven coal-heavers were hanged near London's Shadwell dock.
The Thames Lightermen
Lightermen get their name from the barge or "lighter" originally towed or punted by one lighterman and a boy. They were used to off load ("lighten") the cargo of merchant ships. In Grimsby the lighter was adopted to carry coal to sea going vessels for export and with the advent of steam power, to replenish the steamers coal bunkers. Before the invention of powered boats the lightermen needed detailed knowledge of the tides as well as great strength and skill in order to manoeuvre the huge barges into place. In this respect, by 1911 Frederick Bellamy had reached a peak of economic return for his manual labour. It is likely that he arrived there, bypassing the system of apprenticeship, building on his experience as a boy on the Fenland barges at Market Deeping.
Ir was their historic role in the early struggles of the trade union movement, and their precise use of muscle power that that gave the lightermen an heroic aura that placed them at the top of the hierarchy of manual labourers in dockland. From the point of view of status and wages it was a rare position worth competing for.
Lightermen load and navigate the lights or heavy barges, by the aid of which vessels discharge
and load their cargoes overside. The lightermen and watermen form a close corporation, nearly
two centuries old. Each novice has to serve an apprenticeship of from two to seven years before
eceiving a licence from the Watermen’s and Lightermen’s Corporation, entitling him to the difficulttrade of navigating the river…..They earn good wages, from £2 to £3 a week, but to do this they
must be up and working at all hours of the day and night, and the work is heavy and rough, especially
in the wet and cold weather.
(From Smith and Nash: The Story of the Dockers' Strike, 1889)
"I saw a magnificent and very strange effect this evening. A very large boat laden with coal on the
Rhône, moored at the quay. Seen from above it was all glistening and wet from a shower; the water
was a white yellow and clouded pearl-grey, the sky lilac and an orange strip in the west, the town violet.
On the boat, small workmen, blue and dirty white, were coming and going, carrying the cargo ashore.
It was pure Hokusai. It was too late to do it, but one day, when this coal-boat comes back, it’ll have to
be tackled"
(Vincent Van Goch, letter to his brother).
'Coal barges' and 'The Thames Lightermen' and 'Coal Heavers' exemplify a sub-genre of art. During the 19th century, Victorian England glorified industrious labour with Scottish author and historian Thomas Carlyle referring to hard work as having a ‘blessed glow’ that ‘composes a kind of real harmony’ within the soul'. England was at the height of its power and culturally, this was believed to be due to people’s industriousness. Additionally, due to the unprecedented strain of the mass rural to urban migration to major cities, industriousness also became puritanical as it was encouraged to keep temptation and sin at bay. As a result, the working poor were glorified in society, especially in painting, as their hard labouring ethic was at the core of Victorian value and principles. Artists were able to illustrate their egalitarian perspective and promote socialist views.
With regards his brother James, who Frederick Bellamy left behind in Parson Drove, in 1911
he was still there, age 53, classed as a farm bailiff. Charlotte had died and he remarried someone named Sarah, age 42 (born in the village to the north of Parson Drove). His daughter Millicent Maude, age 25, unmarried, was living with him, together with a house workboy, Herbert Pollington, age 10 and a horseman, Charles Andrews, age 18. He had a visitor, Bertha Wright, age 5, born in the neighbouring village of Murrow. James was living in the house formerly occupied by farmer Leatherland in the 1881 census and presumably he was now managing Leatherland's agricultural enterprise. Maintaining a horse would be a symbol of this status. It is not known what happened to James' sister Luisa Bellamy, who was the Leatherland's servant.
Was there a winner in this search for prosperity?
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