Louth Cow Club

This page deals with the Louth Cottagers’ and Labourers’ Cow Insurance Club and, more generally, with cowkeepers in nineteenth century Louth.

Insurance

By the mid-nineteenth century it had long been recognised that prudent people should protect themselves against serious property losses by taking out insurance. Victorian newspapers were full of advertisements from insurance companies and their agents. However, the big insurance companies that covered buildings, machinery and trade goods were not interested in insuring livestock. It was difficult for commercial farmers to insure. For a labourer who also kept a cow (probably mainly looked after by his wife), insurance was not practicable; but the unexpected death of a cow could drastically reduce a family’s standard of living.

Lincolnshire Cow Clubs

In his short book Cottagers and Cows 1800-1892 the late Rex Russell examined the history of Lincolnshire Cow Clubs. Their purpose was to provide a form of insurance for cows kept by labourers or “cottagers” (ie labourers who also owned or leased a small acreage of agricultural land.)¹1. The cottagers often called themselves “farmers”.He showed that, at least in their early years, they worked because they were subsidised by the more prosperous members of the community, “honorary members” who did not themselves keep cows. Subscriptions from the honorary members kept the insurance schemes solvent; and most probably regarded the expenditure as akin to charitable gifts. However, honorary membership was perhaps not 100% altruistic. Mercury commented (19.3.1847 in relation to a proposed club at Alford):

Many poor cottagers and industrious labourers, in the event of the death of their cow, are unable from their own resources to replace it; and in consequence they seek assistance from the more opulent by begging petitions, the evils of which system are obvious, and have long been a source of complaint.

It seems from press reports that, if there was the slightest risk that a club might become insolvent, attempts were made to recruit additional honorary members.

Louth’s Cow Club

Louth Cottagers’ and Labourers’ Cow Insurance Club was established in 1857, later than some similar clubs elsewhere eg Lincoln (1841), Boston (1843), Alford (1847) and Spilsby (1849). It was limited to labourers and cottagers living in about 50 specified parishes and not occupying more than 15 acres or having more than two cows. Compensation for the loss of a cow was paid at the rate of 75% of the cow’s value, whether the death resulted from disease or accident. Insured cows had to pass an initial examination by the club’s vet and were then marked by him.

Accounts are extant for the year 1859/60 and show 90 members owning in total 102 cows. The members’ annual subscriptions were five shillings per cow. The rules provided for additional assessments on members to cover any shortage of funds. In the year three cows with a total market value of just under £41 had been lost. Compensation was paid at 75% and was reduced by the sale of a calf and the carcase of one of the cows, the net sum paid being £23 6s. Other expenses amounted to less than £9. The year had therefore been a good one for the club, especially as contributions from the honorary members totalled £28 5s. Fortunately, Lincolnshire was less severely affected by the rinderpest (“cattle plague”) epidemic of 1865-6 than some other counties.

In 1888 subscriptions were increased to six shillings, but only for cows valued at more than £15. The book referred to below Three Acres and a Cow (p 23) gave as an example a Cheshire cow club, the members of which paid sixpence a week in return for a standard benefit of £10 if a cow died. Presumably this club was not subsidised by honorary members, since the subscriptions were over five times the Louth rate.

Sales of milk in the mid-nineteenth century were much lower than they became later. For small producers, a common practice at the time was to use the fat from milk to make butter for sale and to use the remaining skimmed milk for family consumption or to feed pigs.

Cowkeepers in Louth

The 1859/60 list of members of the club shows that the great majority lived in the villages of the Lincolnshire Marsh to the east of Louth. Only three lived in Louth itself. These were:

James Gray: an agricultural labourer in Stewton Lane, who later became a smallholder farming 23 acres;

James Parker: a shopkeeper in Newmarket, who also described himself as a gardener;

Samuel Sutton: who trained as tailor, then became a cowkeeper in Watts Lane and then went back to tailoring.

Obviously these three could not meet the dairy needs of Louth and most milk sold must have come from cowkeepers owning more than two cows. To obtain more information it is necessary to go back to before the foundation of the club. Cowkeepers were listed in Hagar’s directory 1849 and White’s directory 1856; the 1851 census should tell us how the individuals described their occupations; and the rating list for 1851 should show the acreage occupied. Unfortunately, there are more discrepancies than exact matches. Hagar and White each listed 14 cowkeepers in Louth, but only a minority of names appeared on both lists. Some of those listed are untraceable. Neither directory mentioned John Harrison, whose tender (14½ pints for a shilling) for the supply of milk to the workhouse was accepted in 1850, though he identified himself as a cowkeeper in the 1851 census and the rating list showed him occupying over 13 acres.²2. Chronicle 21.6.1850. The tender may have been too low; soon afterwards he appears to have given up the trade. The following table gives some examples.

Acreage is an uncertain guide to the number of cows. In the 1880s the land reform movement led by Jesse Collings (a Birmingham MP and political associate of Joseph Chamberlain) stressed that cows could be maintained on small areas of pasture; and the book Three Acres and a Cow ³3. By Frederic Impey; no date but c 1886; there was a music hall song with the same title. gave many examples. Looking at the table above one might guess that Thomas North had three cows, but he could have had more, if he were prepared to buy more hay, straw, turnips etc for them. How Joseph Palmer managed without any land is unclear. In some rural areas cowkeepers made extensive use of the grass verges of roads,⁴4. Though this was generally unlawful: Highway Act 1835 s 74. but this would not have been practicable in a street like Newmarket. Possibly Palmer was unrecorded in the rating list because he was the subtenant of land tenanted by others.

Subsequent History

The Louth club prospered after 1860. In 1881 the membership had risen to 114 and the number of cows insured totalled 142. White’s 1882 directory showed 15 cowkeepers/dairymen in Louth. The club seems to have reached its peak membership of about 136 members insuring 192 cows in 1884/5.⁵5.Lincolnshire Free Press 11.1.1881; Chronicle 9.1.1885. After the 1880s there was a decline with 121 cows insured in 1895, 102 in 1901, 95 in 1910, 75 in 1917 and 55 in 1935. In 1952 there were only 12 insuring members left and they resolved to disband the club and share out the remaining assets.⁶6. Advertiser 26.1.1952.

Sources

Cottagers and Cows 1800-1892; The Cow Clubs in Lincolnshire by Rex C Russell was published by the Barton on Humber branch of the Workers’ Educational Association in 1987. The rules of the Louth club are set out in an appendix. The 1859/60 accounts of the Louth club are in the Goulding collection in Louth library.

The national position on insurance and cow clubs was dealt with by Stephen Matthews in Cattle Clubs, Insurance and Plague in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Agricultural History Review 2005). The article refers particularly to Cheshire; for Lincolnshire it is substantially based on Russell’s work.

Most information has to be derived from scattered press reports of variable quality.