This web site collects together materials now available on the social organisation of hop picking on the world wide web. The site concentrates on hop picking in Britain and in New York State in the United States of America.Two specific features of the social organisation of hop picking are revealed from the historic social accounts: (1)city dwellers played an important and under-recorded part in agricultural activities and (2)women and children were an important source of hop field labour.
The majority of the materials are fragments of a record: images of and texts about times now gone. But the re-integration of these fragments can provide a quality virtual record of work practices and work organisation which have long since disappeared. The use of stilts as a workforce skill in hop picking provides one surprising image of agricultural work organisation - click here for view 1 and here for view 2. Workers on stilts eventually gave way to machines with cradles in which workers stood to reach the top of the hop crop.
The "missing record" on urban women's labour in the agricultural fields of Britain and the United States can be recollected and bodies of work which were disattended to at the time of their writing can now be represented. The work of sociologist Annie Maclean provides us with a good start: her 'social worlds' approach to hop picking can now be re-covered and linked to other fragments of evidence.Click here for further information on Annie Maclean. For her publication on the work of hop picking go to 1909-10 With the Oregon hop pickers. American Journal of Sociology, 15, 83-95.
Hoppin' down in Kent and Hampshire, United Kingdom:
The annual migration from the cities of Britain (London, Portsmouth, Birmingham)to the hop fields of Kent and Hampshire and Sussex and Worcestershire was a mass movement. It left its register in literature, in song, and in the family histories of its many female and child workers. The official records of this employment held by brewing companies and hop farmer have all but disappeared without any thorough appreciation of the role of women in this industry being achieved. The links below and the sub-headings under which they are gathered provide a re-integration or recollection of materials and - for researchers interested in transforming 'the missing record' of this mass annual movement of female labour into a fuller and more detailed social history account - identify disparate archives and primary materials that can be interrogated for further detail.
Respite from the city: urban workers in agriculture - their own accounts
Family history and photos, hop fields Kent
Mayhew on hop picking: wage respite for London's female poor
Labour from cities other than London:
Hop picking: labour from the Black Country
Hop picking in the Worcesters: Black Country labour at the Hundred House
Life on the hop fields: an e-gallery
Family photo of East End hop picking family outside hoppers' hut
Hop picking photo from a Plymouth archive: location not known
Hop picking family, Cranbrook Kent - BBC Community Archive
Hop work at Paddock Woods, 1950
Transport on the hop field: the Whitbread Hop Cart, Paddock Wood
Hop pickers at London Bridge Station - Pathe News archiveOnce connected Click on thumbnail photo for full gallery
Hulton Archive: hop picker photos Register at Hulton Archive, then enter "hop picking" and "hop pickers" in search window
Hoppers' huts: 'holiday homes' and rough accommodation:
Dangerous accommodation: death by burning in a hoppers' hut, Kent.
Family labour and absences from school: social challenges and official accommodations:
Greenwich children at the hop picking: the school board's view
Hop picking in Wadhurst, East Sussex - London and child labour
Religious and University Missions in the hopfields - resident philanthropy:
Following East End workers to the hopfields: the religious and university missions
Entertainment on the hop field - the magic lantern show
Pathe news archive on hop picking in Kent: on line access to contemporary film
Rural conflict and industrial struggle in the hopfields:
Movement and migration: the seasonal transport of hop labour from city to field:
Travellers, song and the hop picking: oral history
The Hopping Song: Romany culture recorded
Travellers, gypsies and the dismantling of a way of life
Dismantling the heritage: a ban on the Horsmonden Gypsy and hop picking fair
Dismantling the heritage: supressing Hopping Sunday, Horsmonden
Hop picking and festivals of labour: challenges to existing social order?
Hop-picking and railway transport: the Hawkhurst Branch
Hop-picking and railway transport: hoppers' specials on the Kent and East Sussex
Hop-picking and railway transport: the Southern Railway hopping specials
Hopping in Paddock Wood, family photos and the social history of labour
History of hop production in Kent:
Literary, artistic and dramatic perspectives on hop pickers:
Contemporary literary comment on hop picking: George Orwell
Theatrical matter: an account of The Hop Pickers, Adelphi Theatre, London, 1949 Litho and text from Illustrated London News, April 14th, 1849 p235
Hop picking in Kent: an image from the C19th from the State Library of Tasmania
Resources for further research: identifying archives from the web:
Resources for further research: Working Class Movement Library: uncatalogued pamphlets Mrs. Sherwood 'The Hop-Picking' No.61 of Houlston's Series of Tracts London 12 pp, illus
Hampshire Archives: Alton Hop Picking Mission records - a resource for research.
Public record office, Kew: Local authority bye-laws on the accommodation of hop-pickers
HLG 25 : Local Authority Byelaws. 1872-1969. Printed copies of local authority byelaws confirmed by the Local Government Board, 1872-1919; the Ministry of Health, 1919-1940; and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The papers deal with the drafting, sanction and administration of byelaws, including model byelaws, relating to such matters as new streets and buildings, markets, mortuaries, smoke abatement, accommodation of hop-pickers and cleaning of footpaths.
Access2ArchivesType 'hop picking' into search window
Hop picking in New York State, USA:
Respite from the city: urban workers in agriculture
Life on the hop fields: an e-gallery
Women picking hops, Oneonta, N.Y., 1912
Hop picking, Town of Worcester, Otsego County, New York
The hop fields of central New York State, 1880s - lithograph
Hop picking and festivals of labour: old customs, new heritages
Hop picking rhyme, New York State, 1886
Hop picking festival, New York State
At home in the hopfield: domestic organisation and provisioning
Hop production history in New York State - the impact of Prohibition
The hop houses of New York State - a disappearing architecture
Hop picking in Washington and Oregon States, USA
Life on the hop fields: an e-gallery
Work organisation in the hop fields of Washington: time books, high pole men, Chinese and female labor
Hop picking and the local business environment:
Agricultural photographic archives: research resources
Oregon State University: images from the hop fieldsThese images are not available on line but are identified as:
36 Hop yard (Kuhlman) shown during growing season, ca. 1930s
116 Hop pickers Dorothy & Olgo Brutke of Amity at the Fred Viesko hop yard west of Gervais, August 1945
129 Hoeing hops, ca. 1945
130 Harvesting hops, ca. 1945
143-147 Soldiers picking hops, ca. 1945
160 Two women staking hops, ca. 1945
161 Five women hoeing hops, ca. 1945
Companion literature and web sites:
Pull No More Bines by O'NEILL, GILDA Publisher: THE WOMEN'S PRESS Binding: PAPERBACK ISBN: 0704342294 | London labour to Kent, United Kingdom |
Hops And Hop Picking R Filmer £5.99 Shire | United Kingdom |
Jenkins, Freda W. [Salem] You picked what? Salem, Or., F.W. Jenkins, 1993. 51 p. $7.50, spiral bdg. (Available from Marion County Historical Society, 260 12th St., Salem, OR 97301) Memories of hop picking in Marion County. | Oregon, USA |
Annie MacLean, 1909/10, With the Oregon hop pickers. American Journal of Sociology, 15, 83-95. | Oregon, USA |
Voices of Kent Hop Pickers by Hilary Heffernan - Tempus Publishing, 1999 I.S.B.N.: 0752411306 The Annual Hop London to Kent by Hilary Heffernan - Tempus Publishing, 1996 I.S.B.N.: 0752403796 R.R.P.: £ 10.99 |
Kent, UK |
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An account of the social organisation of British hop picking can be found in: Grieco, Margaret (1996) Workers' dilemmas: recruitment, reliability and repeated exchange. Routledge
Women's employment based seasonal migration is greatly under-recorded in existing social history. Hopping is one area in which such under-recording took place - the 'missing record' - the seasonal migration of the Scottish herring girls is another. Click here for a web based archive of relevant materials.
The site is managed by:
Margaret Grieco,
Professor of Transport and Society,
Transport Research Institute, Napier University,
66 Spylaw Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5BR
e-mail at m.grieco@napier.ac.uk