History Crowfield - a frontier forest settlement's history Late19th Century emigration Agricultural Britain was to be transformed by two factors: · From 1870 onwards cheap grain from the American prairies made local grown corn expensive · and the mechanization of the farms with binders, elevators and threshing machines On top of this a series of wet harvests in the late 1880s, followed by droughts in the 90's seriously affected the local small farmers Shoe making and lace making also were mechanized and centralized at factories, putting an end to centuries of local outworking in the area. The area was particularly noted for its lacework … point linen, lisle worsted, and cotton lace. Mrs. Bull of Crowfield was still noted for her hand pillow lace just before the War. The effect was emigration from the village to the towns. Crowfield was somewhat luckier than most because of the allotments and the woods still afforded some benefits but the village fell in numbers from its hey day in the mid 19th century to an eye witness account pre World War 2 of a " ramshackle hamlet of a dozen or so houses ". The pattern of population shift can be seen from the census figures for Syresham 1851 1047 1881 800 1901 672 An even bigger shift happened in Crowfield the number of houses inhabited dropped dramatically to 24 and the population fell 1851 184 (37 houses) 1871 152 (male 81, female70) ( 35 houses, 8 uninhabited) 1881 85 (male 42, female 43) (36 houses, 12 uninhabited) 1901 103 (male 53, female 50) (38 houses, 11 uninhabited) Of the 57 employed in 1881, 24 were agricultural labourers and 22 lacemakers, no shoe makers and only 2 employed by the forests (1 labourer and 1 carpenter). See an article on lace making in nearby Helmdon - ClIck Here. The brick works does not appear to have employed Crowfield people Clearly the population was not mobile and a remarkable feature of the census is that the majority of people in the hamlet had been born there (42 were born in Crowfield and 17 had been born in Syresham), and the rest mostly from within a 10 mile radius!!. Of the 48 employed in 1901, 22 were agricultural, and 2 were woodsmen. The big diference is that by 1901 there were only 2 lacemakers left in the village, due to the mechanisation. 44 were born in Crowfield and 22 in Syresham and again the magority of the rest are from within 10 miles of Crowfield The predominant families in 1881 were Blackwell (20), Payne (13) and Wootton (11) By 1901 the predominant familes were Paynes(30), Geary(14) and Wootton(8) Full details of the census here: 1881census 1901census Eli Green (born 1822) was a shoemaker in Crowfield following in the footsteps of his father William (1791-1865 also in Crowfield) and his grandfather (b1753 in Whitfield). He had 8 surviving children and Thomas (b1851) and William (b1859) carried on the family trade but by 1881 no Greens were left in the village. Ebenezer Green later became one of the old characters of Syresham. Distinguished by his great beard , he worked for the Timms at Abbey farm for over 50 years.