A Working Vacation in East Sussex

This story comes from the Sussex Agricultural Express of August 31, 1934.^[1]

I hope you’ll take the time to read the entire article. The highlighted section refers to “Mrs. Casban, of Croydon,” who has been picking hops at the same farm for 64 years. Mrs. Casban was Margaret (Donovan), the wife of Samuel C. Casban (1873–1949). Margaret was born in Addington, Surrey, in late 1869 to Timothy and Mary (Mahoney) Donovan, both of Irish descent.^[2] She was just shy of 65 when this article was published. If her story is to be believed, she would have been only one year old when she started picking hops at Mr. Levett’s Court Lodge Farm. As we shall see, this might not be as impossible as it seems.

The story also tells us that Mrs. Casban had five daughters and three sons. This matches up with what I have in my database. The children were:

Samuel Edward (1893–1936)
Margaret Frances (1894–1970)
Florence Mary (1896–1974)
Johanna Elizabeth (1898–1978)
William (abt. 1901–1960)
Alice Eleanor (1904–1979)
James (1905–1965)
Ellen Kathleen (“Nell,” 1908–abt. 2008)

Several if not all of these children married and had childr™en of their own, and they have living descendants today, some still living in Croydon.

The article gives us a glimpse of the hops agriculture in southeast England. Hops were an essential ingredient for the brewing of beer. At one point, hops were grown in almost every region of England, but now they are located mainly in the West Midlands and southeastern counties, including East Sussex, the setting of the article above.^[3] This map shows the location of Bodiam, in East Sussex, the site of the Levett farm where Margaret Casban was working.

Map of England with markers for Meldreth, Cambridgeshire (Casbon ancestral home ,green marker), Croyden, Surrey (home of Samuel & Margaret Casban, magenta marker) and Bodiam, East Sussex (orange marker); Google Maps™; use ctrl + scroll to zoom in for more detail

As the article suggests, hop pickers “invaded” the region when the hops were ripe. Most came from London and surrounding areas. “At its height, from the [Nineteen] Twenties to the Fifties, about 200,000 East Enders – mostly women and children – made the annual pilgrimage down into the … hop gardens, filling the ‘hopper’s specials’ trains which left from London Bridge station in the early hours of the morning.”^[4] For these families, the hop-picking season was a kind of working holiday, allowing them to get out of the city and into the country, while earning some much-needed extra money. “This mass exodus saw urban, poverty-stricken families packing up their possessions and animals and setting off in a ragged procession to Kent’s hop farms.”^[5]

By the time the article was written, special trains were scheduled to move the families to the farms. Mrs. Casban relates how far they had to walk in the earlier years before the special trains. Considering the amount of travel and labor involved, the economic incentive must have been a powerful motivator.

Conditions at the hop farms were often rudimentary. Hoppers lived in unheated sheds and slept on straw-stuffed mattresses piled on twigs. They cooked over fires outdoors or in huge concrete cookhouses and washed their clothes in local streams. …

Farmers often provided vegetables and fruit, and the hoppers saved up to buy meat once a week. When their menfolk came down at the weekends they would poach rabbits, pheasants and fish. It was not unknown for local chickens to go missing, too.^[6]

This short video, filmed in 1946, gives a good overview of the annual hop-picking migration.

These photos show what life was like on the hop farm. Margaret and her family must have encountered similar scenes.

We can see how Margaret might have gone hop-picking even as a baby!

Margaret Casban passed away in 1953.^[7] How long did she continue to make the annual exodus to East Sussex? The 1939 Register, a census substitute taken before the outbreak of World War II, lists Margaret, her husband Samuel, and a couple of grandchildren “residing” at Court Lodge Farm in September of that year.^[8] I wonder if any of her surviving grandchildren remember the hop picking adventure? Comments are welcome!

^[1] “Hop Picking Begins: Record Invasion of Bodiam,” Sussex Agricultural Express August 31, 1934; imaged in the “British Newspapers Collection,” findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com [accessed 19 November 2016). 
^[2] “England and Wales Birth Registration Index, 1837-2008,” database, FamilySearch https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2XZ5-5GW : accessed 17 November 2016), Margaret Donovan, 4^th qtr, 1869, Croydon, vol. 2A/224, line 354; citing General Register Office, Southport. 1939 Register, Sussex, Battle registration district, schedule 51, subject 2, Margaret Casban; The National Archives, RG101/2535H/007/41 Letter Code: EKCTA.
^[3] “History of Hops,” British Hop Association (https://www.britishhops.org.uk/hops/history/ : accessed 23 Jun 2018).
^[4] Melanie McGrath, “The hoppiest days of our lives: Recalling the summers spent in the fields,” DailyMail.com (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1163634/The-hoppiest-days-lives-Recalling-summers-spent-fields.html : accessed 23 June 2018), rev. 6 Apr 2009 08:38.
^[5] “Work: The hoppers of Kent,” BBC Home (http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/kent/article_3.shtml : accessed 23 Jun 2018).
^[6] McGrath, “The hoppiest days of our lives,” DailyMail.com.
^[7] “England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVCF-NR84 : 4 September 2014), Margaret Casban, 1^st qtr,1953, Croydon, vol. 5G/215, line 51; citing General Register Office, Southport.
^[8] 1939 Register, Sussex, Battle registration district, schedule 51, subject 2, Margaret Casban.