Join us for a full day of engaging online talks dedicated to the hardworking men and women who tilled the soil, built the fields and fed the nation. Whether your ancestors were ploughmen, dairy farmers or wartime land workers, from Devon to North East Scotland, this special event will delve into the vital, and often overlooked, contributions of agricultural labourers throughout history.
Discover how to research their lives, understand their work and appreciate their enduring impact on Britain’s landscape and legacy.
🌾 The Organisation of Women's Agricultural Responses During Conflict - Nicky Reynolds
This talk will include the Australian Women's Land Army, the New Zealand Land Service, the Canadian Women's Land Force, the Ontario Farm Force - The Farmerettes and the US Crop Corps. All these amazing women did their bit, often without proper thanks and seldom with any just recognition.
🌾 Ag Lab Case Study – Awliscombe, Devon - Robert Mawditt
From late Elizabethan times until 1834 the parish was the centre of local government and social support. Agricultural labourers will have relied upon their parish to supplement wages and get them through hard times. Lynn Hollen Lees comments ‘For the poor, settlement operated as intangible property, an extra resource to be called upon when needed.’ (The Solidarity of Strangers p. 29). In this talk Robert will look at a Settlement Examination preserved from around 1820 from the parish of Awliscombe in Devon. He explores what it says about one Agricultural Labourer, and more generally about rural working society.
🌾 How Agriculture Saved the Nation in WW1 - Cynthia Brown
Was British agriculture in the Edwardian period ‘hastening towards decay’ or leaner and fitter than ever? As this talk will illustrate, the answer would lie its response to the demands of the First World War in terms of securing domestic food supplies, ensuring adequate supplies of labour and the increased level of control exercised by central government. We will also look briefly at the longer-term impact of the war on rural life.
🌾 The Weird & Wonderful Lives of Victorian Agricultural Labourers - Gary Allanach
Taking North East Scotland as an example, looking at the alternate sources you can use from folklore studies to petitions, to build vivid stories of how your ag lab ancestors lived and loved.
🌾 Dry Stone Walls – Defining the Landscape of Northern Upland Britain - Jude Rhodes
Looking at how the dry stone walls of the Yorkshire Dales that divide fields, run across moorland and create enclosures are an integral part of the agricultural labourers' working lives.
🌾 From Sussex Ox to Fordson Major - Ian Everest
The fascinating story of oxen, horses and steam power on Sussex farms; their impact on the countryside and the ‘modernising’ of agriculture with the arrival of the first tractors.
🌾 Resources for Filling in Agricultural Labourers’ Lives - Janet Few
During this interactive workshop, participants will work in groups to investigate the lives of ag labs in a particular geographical area. They will be introduced to a range of sources and techniques that they can then apply to their own ag labs, across the country. To get the most out of this session, participants will need to be able to access websites whilst also on Zoom.
This online event offers something for family historians, local history enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the roots of rural life. Book your place today and dig deeper into the fields of your past. The event will be recorded and everyone who books in advance will have access to the recordings until 30 September.
Click here for information about our events. Contact events@sog.org.uk if you have any questions.
Programme details
| The Organisation of Women's Agricultural Responses During Conflict | Online | 30/08/2025 | 10:00 - 11:00 | |
| Ag Lab Case Study - Awliscombe, Devon | Online | 30/08/2025 | 11:10 - 11:25 | |
| How Agriculture Saved the Nation in WW1 | Online | 30/08/2025 | 11:35 - 12:35 | |
| The weird & wonderful lives of Victorian Agricultural labourer | Online | 30/08/2025 | 13:30 - 14:00 | |
| Dry stone walls - defining the landscape of northern upland Britain | Online | 30/08/2025 | 14:05 - 14:15 | |
| From Sussex Ox to Fordson Major | Online | 30/08/2025 | 14:30 - 15:30 | |
| Resources for filling in Agricultural Labourers’ Lives | Online | 30/08/2025 | 15:45 - 16:45 |
About the Speaker
Janet Few
Dr. Janet Few is an experienced family, social and community historian who has presented throughout the UK, overseas and at sea. She has written several books of interest to genealogists and contributes to local and family history journals. She also writes historical fiction. Working as an historical interpreter, Janet spends time living in the seventeenth century as her alter ego, Mistress Agnes. You can read her very interesting blog, ‘the history interpreter’ online. Janet manages Swords and Spindles, a company providing living history presentations. Janet is currently serving as the president of the Family History Federation. She is heavily involved in the work of family history societies and was awarded the Society of Genealogists certificate of recognition in 2020 for her work.
About the Speaker
Ian Everest
Ian Everest was brought up on a farm on the South Downs and after attending Agricultural College in the late 1960's, he worked in the agricultural sector with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, before being employed in commercial activity with an animal feed supplement business. His growing interest in family and military history led to a career change in 1987 when he was appointed manager of Newhaven Fort in Sussex, a scheduled monument, which he prepared for public opening the following year, and continued to manage for fifteen years. Following this, a further change in career as the Newhaven Town Clerk for ten years – and then retirement. Since then, he has developed several talks relating to Farming History, Sussex Local History, Military, and Social History. His talks are generally regarded as being both informative and entertaining.
About the Speaker
Gary Allanach
Gary lives near Linlithgow. He is currently studying a Gaelic medium diploma at UHI, where he has been able to combine his love of local & family history in studying folklore & placename nomenclature
About the Speaker
Cynthia Brown
Cynthia Brown is a social historian who has conducted extensive research into her own family history. She is active in the field of oral history as a trustee of the Oral History Society, one of its Accredited Trainers, and co-author with Mary Stewart of the oral history and family history guidance on the Oral History Society website.
About the Speaker
Robert Mawditt
Robert Mawditt is a family historian who has developed an interest in the operation of the Poor Law in England and Wales in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
About the Speaker
Nicky Reynolds
Nicky Reynolds is a Suffolk born and bred social historian with a passion for all things Land Army. With a lifelong love of horses, the countryside, women’s history and inspired by the discovery of a great Aunt that served in the WLA Nicky possesses both a comprehensive collection of land army ephemera and uniforms and a solid reputation for being an expert source of advice, guidance and information on just about anything relating to the workings of the WLA as an organisation and its members. Over the last 30 years Nicky has been instrumental in contributing to raising the profile of the contribution of effort that the land army made during and after both wars and has co-ordinated WLA representation at some of the country’s most high-profile events including royal birthdays, coronation celebrations and representing the service at National Remembrance observations. Nicky is the co-founder and chairman of the Suffolk Women’s land Army Memorial Trust and regularly tours the Eastern Region to deliver talks, displays, exhibitions and lectures on this vital but often overlooked workforce response. Nicky is often called upon to provide advice, guidance and support to TV, films and media in relation to Land Army uniform and functions: being invited to appear on both regional and national news items as a ‘field expert’. Nicky has a particular interest in the logistics of this home front service operating in wartime and so her reflections will encompass the challenges faced by all those who were working hard to feed the nation; not only the girls breaking ground, but those behind the scenes fulfilling vital administrative functions in order to ensure members were exactly where they needed to be, doing what they needed to be doing, and doing it well.
