The Diary of John Foss: April 1851

We are sharing a monthly look at the farm diary of John Foss, written from his dairy farm in Kingston Russell in 1851.

April 1851

The month begins with a standard day for John Foss. On Wednesday 2^nd he:

Ate breakfast
Admired the weather
Cut furze and brought some home
Changed the cows in Buttermead
Made a calves pen
Sold eight calves for £7 2s 6d

As befitting the time of year, the weather is mild and mostly dry, with some wet and stormy days. The focus of the farm for April is potato planting and caring for the cows.

This isn’t John Foss, but it is easy to imagine him in a similar pose! [D-DPA/1/BBK/130]

In and out of the farmhouse

Visitors are a constant part of life at Pitcombe Dairy. John’s brother-in-law Richard Vine visits the farm on Good Friday, and stays with John whilst the rest of the family go to church. Later in the month, “cousin Ann came and Mary & John from Coyates”. The latter bring news of John’s brother: “Samuel going on pretty well not up yet”.

Talks with the boss

Cow farming in Burton Bradstock, some 60-70 years after John Foss! [D-DPA/1/BBK/123]

Pitcombe Dairy and the surrounding land was part of the Bridehead estate. In 1851 this was owned by Robert Williams, son of the banker Robert Williams who had purchased the estate in c1797. John sees someone he refers to as “the Master” on a regular basis. It’s likely that this wasn’t Williams but a farm manager who oversaw all the estate’s produce. On the 21^st, John writes

“master came and lookd at the calves said they was not so good as the Churchill’s. I told him that I must go over and see Dairyman Churchill’s I thought mine must be as good as his”.

On the 23^rd, the Master visits again to speak to John about a problem. Interestingly, John switched from his standard writing style of past tense to present, as if he were having the conversation on the page:

“Master came to me & said this is better than the bottom of the meadow is it not John [John said:] yes sir it is better now. He accuse me of going about and saying that he took away that bottom from me & tried to injure me, I told him it was wrong I had not.”

Master accused John of further gossip, to which John replies: “I said that I was surprised of his coming & accosting me in this kind of way”, and that the argument “came to high words”. As things typically tend to, the argument turned to money, and Master “said that I lost all my money up the Country & blamed his cows for it.” The argument was ended in a relatively diplomatic fashion by John,