Sunday 3 November 2013

A Farm Journal ~ from the 17th to the 27th May 1870

My great great great uncle John Bayliff Bowman lived at Summer Hill, near Monyash in the County of Derby, until the end of January 1870 when he moved to Sandycroft Farm, Queensferry, Flintshire.

The Bowman family, who were Quakers, had rented three farms, One Ash Grange [which John Bayliff Bowman often referred to as O.A.], Cales and Summer Hill [which he usually referred to as S.Hill or S.H.]

John Bayliff Bowman is fourth from the left in the photo below ...

The Bowman family

 A Farm Journal continues :~

1 - 17 Fine & hot fallow[in]g & open[in]g drills for manure

4 - 18 Ditto began to man[u]r[e] Farm gr[oun]d far side stack y[ar]d field 

5 - 19 Ditto ditto sow[e]d 6 cwt 1/2 salt & 1/2 Lawes with Farm y[ar]d

6 - 20 Ditto fin[ished] manuring & sow[in]g swedes

7 - 21 Very hot work[in]g this side of field for lints began to shear sheep - Cha[rle]s Wright hoeing beans  1st lot of Swedes & mangolds not much up yet except here & there a few too dry for mangolds & the field rather too stiff & lumpy - beans look well & wheat improved oats look well - 4 sturks on bottom bank

1 - 22 Fine

2 - 23 Ditto lead manure onto lints sow[e]d last lot of [word indecipherable] sheep shearing

3 - 24 Ditto Ditto

4 - 25 Fine day - men hoeing beans by hand - horses turned out - sold Jones & Gerrard 60 lambs to go 8 each went @ 23/- cut little pigs - 2/6 p[e]r litter - women pricking spudding thistles among wheat - sold Jones & Co 7 fat ewes @ 8d clipped - at 8am this morn[in]g the 25th my dear Wife was del[ive]r[e]d of a fine Girl * - doing well

6 - 27 Ditto weather set John Jones & Rob[er]t Rogers & Jos[eph] Hughes No. 3 beans to hoe @ 6/- p[e]r ac[re] (too much only worth 4/-) - women spud[din]g thistles in wheat & pull[in]g Ketlocks - Cha[rle]s Wright PJones & Shalcroft hoeing No 4 beans by day - Peter Davis off work - poorly one of his horses kicked him in the stomach - 12 sturks on bottom bank & 25 Hogs - a few potatoes up in field - Swedes & mangols [sic] come very slowly want rain - all Kinds of grain & feed up a little


* The 'fine Girl' would have been Florence Bowman.


8 comments:

  1. He seems to employ lots of labour including women working in the fields,which he didn't seem to have at Summer Hill.It is strange how he just almost as an after thought writes he has a daughter.As for 1871 I think the census was taken the first week of April,but Florence was 10months old by then,it would be interesting to find John.Ann

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    1. Yes, he mentions quite a few farm workers doesn't he. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I'm not sure whether this is his third child or not but he didn't make a sogn and dance about it before did he.

      As for April 1871 I've had a quick skim though the journal and he's not abroad or anything. He did visit Nottinghamshire so perhaps he's registered as a visitor somewhere Ann.

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    2. I see that Florence is listed as a visitor to Mary Armitage in Sherwood in the 1871 Census. Not being familiar with the family (no genealogy pun intended), is the Eliza listed in the Census as Mary Armitage's niece, Florence's elder sister?

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  2. Like Ann, I too was thinking he mentioned the birth of his daughter almost as an afterthought. I don't recall any mention of the pregnancy in previous entries.

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    1. He did mention the nurse a few days [or weeks] ago ...

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  3. Maybe he was like my husband and just shudders at the mention of 'women's doings'. I had to look up sturk and mangold but am so much wiser now.

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    1. You could be right about John and 'women's doings'. As for sturk and mangold I'm glad you found out what they were.

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    2. Karyn, when you said about your husband's response to women's doings and the link to pregnancy above... I thought for a minute that you were going to type you had to look up 'stork' ;-)

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