Cornelius Bradley Hundleby (1830-1897)

Evelyn writes:

Cornelius Bradley Hundleby was born on 27 May 1830 in Ashby by Partney, Lincolnshire, and was christened 26 December at St Helen’s Anglican church.

He was the son of Ruth (née) Bradley and Thomas Hundleby, and followed in his father’s footsteps by ‘staying on the land’. By 1851 he was living in the village of Grebby, in the civil parish of Scremby, working as a ‘farm servant’ to Joseph Kime, a widower of 69, who was farming 90 acres.

(He was the younger brother of my own great-great-grandmother, Sarah (1822-1839) - Roger)

In 1858 he married Rebecca Rysdale, who was christened on 11 March 1834 at St Peter’s, Nottingham. She was the daughter of William, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Frances, of Great Sturton, Lincolnshire. William had been a grocer at Greyfriar Gate, Nottingham.

Cornelius worked in Revesby and Butterwick before settling in West Ashby, two miles north of Horncastle, in 1863.

His younger brother, Samuel, states in his journal that Cornelius was a local Methodist preacher working on the Horncastle Circuit. According to the Directories of the time, a Wesleyan chapel was not built there until 1878, and it is quite possible that Cornelius preached from his own or a neighbour’s house before then.

By 1871, still in West Ashby Cornelius was a Working Foreman and Farm Bailiff. He had two servants, Thomas and Steven Wattam, and a lodger, George Hodson, who was a labourer.

In 1872 another ‘Revolt of the Fields’ broke out. From the early years of restriction of Trades Unionism through various pieces of legislation, it was now legal for men to belong to Associations and Unions. The 1867 Report on Agriculture highlighted the hard times that the farm workers were still experiencing. A certain John Kinswood of Ludford had said, ‘I don’t like the lasses to go out to work so much; nor boys nor women. There’s lots of men out of work, when women and boys can get it. It’s because they’re cheaper. At weeding time it is so, and at turnip-dragging time in winter; women do it.

There was a Labourers’ Association conference in Grantham on May 3 1872. One of the delegates was George Wilson, who represented the Spilsby Amalgamated Society of 181 men. Agricultural labourers were asking for two things: a nine-hour workday (7am – 5pm, not including lunch), and a raise in pay from 2/6 (two shillings and sixpence or about 12 pence) to 3/0 (three shillings or 15 pence) per day.

Moses Elmhirst, of West Ashby, was a Justice of the Peace, and on Feb 20 1872 he had a labourer from Hagworthingham, Tom Jeffery, brought before him in this regard. It must have been a very hard time for Cornelius, trying to keep everything running and yet feeling sympathy for the men he supervised.

The Golden Age of Farming, or High Farming as it was called, was almost over and by 1879, when a very bad harvest was experienced, an agricultural depression was well underway which was to last until World War I. By 1891 we find Cornelius once more an agricultural labourer.

He died on 6 April 1897 and was buried on the ninth in the churchyard of All Saints, West Ashby. By his epitaph we know that he was well-love and respected during his lifetime:

‘His life was a life of truth

and his heart was the law of kindness.’

His wife Rebecca stayed in the farmhouse in west Ashby with her sons until some time after 1901 and then went to live with her daughter, Susan Squires, until her death in May 1918.

This is one of several articles written by Evelyn for the May 2007 Convention. More will be posted in due course.