186 STRAW-PLAITING—A LOST ESSEX INDUSTRY.
children in the north-western parts of the county," and Mr.
Christy's statistics show that so late as 1871 there were many
people in Essex engaged in the trade, either as plaiters, dealers,
or shop-keepers, and it lingered on here and there for nearly
twenty more years.2 Now the trade is absolutely dead in our
county, and in the towns and villages of North Herts, where
it lingers, 1d. per score is all that the dealers give the plaiters,
who rarely earn more than 6d. a week, except for specially
fine work such as the villagers of Offley turn out, thereby
realizing a rather larger payment.3
Passing from statistics of the trade to the processes by which
straw became a fit material for hats and bonnets, we have first
to picture the crop on the farm. Farmers who laid themselves
out for the trade grew wheat producing a fine straw suitable for
plaiting, and it was reaped by hand with care to avoid bruising
the straws. The breaking action of the reaping machine is fatal
to stems intended for plaiting.4 In the earliest days of plaiting
the farmers (as I have said) charged a nominal price for the
straw, having first cut off the heads of corn, relying on the wheat
to repay them, as well it might in the days of £5 a quarter.
But as the demand grew, the farmer found it better to prepare
and cut the straw into lengths himself. Whether at the farm or
in the cottage, the first process was, by rake and hand, to remove
the flags or leaf growths from the sheaf of straw. The rake
shown is the wreck of one long used in the North of Essex. The
straw, being thus cleaned of superfluous growth, was next cut
into lengths between the joints, the latter being cast aside.
Often, however, we note that the joint is on some of the straws,
where it certainly ought not to be.
The straw being thus cut into lengths, usually about nine
inches, it is tied up into bundles such as the one shown, which
costs 1d. in Hitchin market, the price the plaiters pay for it
there. Bundles in her apron, the plaiter went to her cottage,
when in some districts it was customary to bleach the straws,
but as the bleaching process in Essex and Herts usually took
2 Miss M. Ruggles-Brise writes that till about fifteen years ago straw-plaiting was
extensively practised in Finchingfield.
3 The villagers of Offley have retained in that little centre the traditions of their
grandmothers as to the production of fine work worthy to compete with what was known
in early Victorian days as Leghorn straw plait.
4 Although Essex farmers grew and sold some straw for plaiting, the North Hertford-
shire men appear to have made this more specially their trade, so much so that it was not an
unusual occurrence for an Essex dealer to buy £100 worth of cut straws in Hitchin market
and carry them to the Essex village plaiters.