Migration of people has been at the core of shaping Spalding and its surrounding area physically, economically and socially. This I feel is slightly ironic in an area that throughout history has been considered by many as out of the way, isolated and even feared for its damp air, ague and lack of civilization. Its influences, right to this day, are largely European and not cosmopolitan compared to an area like London or Birmingham and the Midlands. I have been criticised for this view and have been told that the area is “typically English”. I would consider that yes it possibly is “English”, but to be English is to be a migrant as we will see.
Eighteen years old I was in Spalding Gentlemen’s Society being shown a family tree by a rather distasteful little man, “You see, I’m English through and through, of good pure Anglo-Saxon blood.” Such were the words of a fool. Angles and Saxons were two separate tribes so how can a mixing be pure. Plus, neither tribe originated in England! The history of migration is too large a subject to do justice here, but the simple reality is that a large part of being English is to be an immigrant.
That the Fens were occupied before the Romans is undoubted. Wherever you go in the Fens you are not far from pre-Roman and bronze age remains.[i] But, they are not easily visible like the barrows and forts of the West Country or the fabulous Ingram Valley in Northumberland. Indeed, many barrows have fallen foul of agricultural development.
Certainly at the time of the Romans the Fens were very thinly populated. As I grow older, and especially in the last few years, I realise how poor the teaching of history was at school. Despite being fascinated by the subject, I did poorly at ‘A-level’ and even have a letter of apology from one of my teachers.
However, I will use one of the simplistic things we were taught at school – the derivation of place names as an indication of the people that formed them. Now this has to be done with caution, otherwise Istanbul would still be Constantinople.
I was taught that the suffix “ing” derived from the Anglo-Saxon “incas” – belonging to a tribe or family. Similarly the suffix “ton” indicates a village or settlement. Thus we see Spalding, Weston, Boston, Sutton, Lutton, Moulton, Gosberton and Quadring amongst many names of such a derivation. Some words are thought to have a more agricultural link. Just off the A17 near Sutterton roundabout you will see a sign to Steyning – a name belonging to more than one location in Eastern England it is thought that a “steyning” was Saxon for a place to keep livestock, usually sheep, secure.
I was also taught that the suffix “thorp” or “thorpe” was of Danish Viking origin indicating a farmstead. This makes sense to me as Hanthorpe and Cawthorpe, just North of Bourne in Lincolnshire are on higher ground that would be easier to farm than the wet fen. Similarly the suffix “by” was of Viking origin as we see in Firsby, Spilsby and Mavis Enderby, all North of Boston, Lincolnshire.
If you enter Horncastle from the South you may see a street called “The Wong” – the word is of Danish origin and referred to a field. The Holbeach antiquarian, William Stukeley referred to this in the eighteenth century.[ii] Thus you see words on the map of the Fens are like fossils leaving clues as to what went before.
You do see a very broad pattern that the Danish migrants preferred to occupy higher ground on the edge of the fens with Anglo Saxon colonists occupying many of the “island” settlements in the vast fen that at that time would have stretched from Horncastle and Spilsby down to Ramsey and Huntingdon.
Of course, as a young schoolboy I had this image, reinforced by history books for children, of marauding Angles, Saxons and Vikings invading England by force and setting up occupational camps. This is possibly far from the truth. That there were battles and fights between rival tribes is true. But the reality is that many “invasions” of England were migrations. Many of those migrants had one thing in common – farming.
The late MP for Holland with Boston, Sir Richard Body, in his book England for the English describes European asylum seekers escaping the chaos of a disintegrating Roman Empire where instability has made farming unviable, “for no farmer begins to sow his seeds in the spring and nurtures the crop through the summer months unless there is hope for a harvest to repay his labour.”[iii]
Each generation of migrants left their impact on the landscape. The Romans performed great acts of deforestation on the edges of Fenland, but also planted trees – the Lincolnshire lime woods near Bardney and north-west of Horncastle were mostly planted by Romans. Similarly Danes cleared woodland, but also planted trees favouring ash – the seeds are easy to carry and germinate relatively easily, plus the ash tree had religious significance as Odin and his divine colleagues created man from ash. Drainage, management of waterways and conversion of wetland to agriculture all followed shaped by migrant skills and labour.
As such the English countryside would not be the shape it is without migration. This is true of the Fens as elsewhere. We see influence in the place names, but also in the management of the fens and the reaping of its various harvests. Both “dyke” and “decoy” are words derived from the language of the Netherlands. Influence and migration from the Netherlands and Low Countries can be seen at least from the fourteenth century. This relationship has continued in various forms to this day and has been of great social and economic benefit to the area.
The protestant church forming in the 16th century saw increased religious persecution and England was a place of sanctuary. The grasp for empire, power and riches, especially in the New World, brought England in conflict with Spain. As Spain procured the Netherlands rebels fought against them supported by Elizabeth I and England. It is part of that support that sees Elizabeth I authorise immigrants from the Lowlands and Netherlands the ability to live in Boston. This was not a one-way arrangement as it brought with it Dutch skills in herring fishing and preservation of fish and trade that would provide a taxable income.
Elizabeth’s license permitting these migrants states:
“Certain strangers of Holland, Zealand and other parts of the Low Countries, the dominions of the King of Spain, being of late years, upon lamentable occasions, come into this our Realm of England, and having continued thence their coming over at various ports and other places in the same; where divers of them, being fishermen, have used the feate and trade of fishing of herring, cod, mackerel, and other fish, according to the season of the year, after the manner of their country. These persons have made humble suit to us, to grant to them our license and assurance, that they may, to a certain number of householders, quietly and certainly settle themselves in divers towns and other places within our realm of England, and hire and inhabit houses, and use said trade of fishing. Prepare, pack and brand herrings and other fish, which they shall take, after the manner of the said Low Countries. And the same and other their fish so taken to utter and sell, at any place upon the coasts of this our realm, and transport the same into any other realm or country being with us in league or amitie, without contradiction or impeachment. And the rest, which are not fishermen, may use all occupations which the inhabitants of any town or place where the said strangers shall chance to be placed, do not use. Forasmuch as we are credibly informed that the said strangers do here live godlily and orderly, and towards our people do behave themselves quietly, and that sundry of them do duly apply their fishing to the benefit of this our realm of England, and instruct our subjects here in their manner of fishing, we, for the help of our borough of Boston, by placing therein certain fishermen, and other persons of certain occupations, and for the relief and succour of the said strangers in their afflictions and necessities, do license and give authority to the Mayor and burgesses of the said borough, to allow forty of the countries of Flanders, Holland, and Zealand, aliens born, not denizens, being all householders, master fishermen, and other handicrafts, to inhabit the said borough or town as follows.
The Mayor and burgesses to allow and permit the said forty Dutchmen of the said Low Countries, with their servants and families being such people, to inhabit with the said borough. License being granted to lease houses for ten years or under, to the said forty Dutchmen. On the death or removal of any of the forty, the place to be filled with another Dutch alien. Each one of the forty to occupy only one house, shop. Etc, and each family not to consist of more than ten persons of their own nation. The fishermen to repair to sea, either in their own boats, or those of other persons, to exercise their trade, and to carry the fish caught and cured after the manner of their own country, to other places along the coast for sale, or to other countries in league and amitie with England.”[iv]
It has to be noted that the Fen’s, through the Elizabethan eyes remained a different world, almost an enigma compared to the rest of the country as illustrated by these two quotes:
“These people have been, from the earliest times, distinguished by manners and habits, which were the consequence of their isolated state, living in a country almost inaccessible, and at all times very uninviting to strangers. They were called Gyrvii, because gyr in English is the same as profundi palus, a deep fen in the Latin.”[v]
“…they that inhabit this fennish country, and all the rest beside (which, from the edge borders of Suffolk, as far as Wainfleet in Lincolnshire, contains threescore and eight miles, and millions of acres), were, in the Saxon times called GYRVII, that is Fen-men, or Fen-dwellers, a kind of people according to the nature of the place where they dwelt, rude, uncivil, and envious to all others whom they call upland men; who, stalking on high, upon stilts, apply their minds to grazing, fishing or fowling. The whole region, which in the winter season, and sometimes most part of the year, is overflowed by the spreading waters of the Ouse, Grant, Nen, Welland, Glen and Witham, having not lodes and sewers large enough to void away; but again, when their streams are retired within their own channels, it is so plenteous and rank of a certain fat grass and full hay, which they did call lid , that when they have mowen down as much of the better as will serve their turn, they set fire on the rest, and burn it in November, that it may come up again in great abundance. At which time a man may see this fenny and moist tract on a light flaming fire all over every way, and wonder thereat.”[vi]
The methods of management described have similarities with the marsh Arabs bordering Mesopotamia and makes me wonder if the Romans brought some of them to the area amongst their ranks that settled in the area. The method of burning marsh grasses back in November is recorded in the Fens into the eighteenth century albeit on a shrinking scale as Fenland became cultivated.
That Elizabethans could view the Fens as another land within their country is hardly surprising and a view that, in my opinion, has persisted in many ways into the twentieth century. When I first started working at Barclays Bank one of my managers said, “I reckon you have to live in Spalding thirty years before they accept you.” But parochialism is equalled by an element of isolation. Whenever I spoke to colleagues from outside the region, usually from the cities, and would say I was from Spalding I would be greeted by, “Where’s that?” The administrative area that Spalding and the Fens was within in Barclays constantly changed as it was on borders and appeared to be an “unwanted” border area.
If you consider other aspects of life this is also true. For example Spalding has always been on the edge of TV transmission signal range, Sandy Heath in Bedfordshire and Belmont in the Wolds of Lincolnshire. Regions for wholesale and commodity traders also change frequently from one region to another. This fenland area of South Lincolnshire is like a borderland that no-one wants. As such an element of isolation also had advantages – in the Civil War this area escaped much conflict. It is no wonder that much of this region, South Holland, bears the name of another country to which it has close economic, social and cultural ties.
Being historically thinly populated any significant or specialist work has relied upon migrating or visiting labour, whether it be stonemasons from Antwerp or navigators from Ireland and County Durham, or engineers from Holland.
Deficiency of labour was a perpetual problem in the agriculture of the Fens. In 1867 we see, “The production of potatoes is restricted only by the supply of labour. The newly reclaimed marshes in the south-east, though not sufficiently supplied with labour for potatoes to be grown, afford an instance of laudable part of some landowners (the principle of whom are Mr. Cardwell M.P. and the governors of Guy’s Hospital), to provide house accommodation for their labourers.”[vii]
Thus we see “catch work” or “running” men – travelling labour from other parts of the country moving around supplying agricultural labour – nomadic migrants. Of these the Irish were the most dominant. It has to be noted that, “The Irish, who, besides coming in very large numbers at harvest time, stay during a great part of the year in some places where labour is scarce, receive about two-thirds of the wages paid to the English, and are very ill lodged.”[viii]
Any influx of people created a housing problem with massive over-crowding, for example one estate is recorded housing 36 persons in each of nine one-bedroomed cottages in 1867. Many land owners – the employers – considered that this should be a problem resolved by government and not by their own actions, despite in that period good profits being made and wealth accumulated. I suspect that people of my generation that have lived in Spalding will feel this chime with what has happened in the food industry in my life-time. The worst case I have encountered first hand in the 2010’s was 28 people residing in a three bedroom house and that included three in a wooden garden shed!
Migrations into the area tend to be driven by economic hardship and perceived opportunity. But migration of people is a two-way process. In the period 1870 to 1914 farm labour migrated away from Lincolnshire and Norfolk Fens to better paid areas such as East Yorkshire. The Fens were not attractive to migrate to and the journeymen that ventured into the area were not treated well.
[i] Bronze Age in Britain was approximately 2500 BC to 700 BC
[ii] Lincolnshire and the Danes by G S Streatfield MA 1884 page 151
[iii] England for the English – Richard Body ISBN1872410-14-6 , This view was influenced by Sir Frank Stenton in his book The Anglo Saxons (1989) and Paul Johnson’s book The Offshore Islanders (1972)
[iv] Proceedings in Chancery Elizabeth vol1 page 50.
[v] Register of Peterborough – Girvii has also been derived from Angle ‘Gyrwys’ – drivers of cattle and similar ‘Gyrva’ Saxon for marshlands.
[vi] Camden’s Britannia 1586
[vii] 1867 Employment Commission Report
[viii] 1867 Employment Commission Report
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