Children in Greenwich go hop-picking

There was a special problem during the autumn term for those schools and boroughs on the edge of London. Many poor families living in these areas packed up and moved to the countryside to pick hops or fruit, taking the children and all their belongings with them.

In 1907, 16,500 children left Greenwich for the hop fields. The total number of days these children were absent from school was 550,000, at a cost to the council of £2,500. The School Board reported:

“This monetary loss is, however, scarcely worth consideration; the really important thing is the influence on the children and the conditions under which they live whilst in the hop field.”

The School Board was very concerned about their living conditions:

“most primitive in character … the children return home in verminous condition, and are often covered in sores”. [‘verminous’ means the children had fleas in their hair and lice on their bodies]

For four years the Division officer in Greenwich Education Department had attempted to serve an order against Mr. Wood of Wood’s Farm, Horn Park Lee. On several occasions the officer has managed to get the children to go to school only to get them rejected because of their dirty condition.

In 1914, seventeen children were found at Woods’ Farm and told to attend Manor Lane School. Six went back to school, but only one was passed by the nurse as clean; the other five were found to be in a ‘verminous condition’. Many parents were taken to court and fined and so eventually all the children returned to home or school, but Mr Wood didn’t like it.

“Mr. Woods’ objection to our interference is that if we force the children into school, the parents have to leave his employment and go home, or have to stop work to attend them.”

When the families returned to London they had nowhere to live and the children were not in the best of health.

“Last year I was in one of the poorest parts of Woolwich on the afternoon of the return of the hop pickers to London. The condition of the children was really deplorable. They looked dirty, ragged, and thoroughly fagged [tired]. Groups of these children were outside some public houses with large bundles of articles, whilst the parents crowded the inside of the public houses. When the parents left London they of course had to give up their rooms, consequently they would have to obtain that night some sleeping accommodation. One can imagine the condition of the parents by nightfall, and how little care the children would receive.”