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The system was for long prevalent in the counties of Cambridgeshire , Huntingdonshire , Lincolnshire , Nottinghamshire , Norfolk and Suffolk , and was also found in a much modified form in the Fen District . The practice dates from the latter years of the reign of George III , when the low-lying, Marshy Land s surrounding the Basin of the Wash were being rapidly drained and converted into rich Alluvial District s. The unreformed condition of the Poor Law , under which the support of the poor fell upon each individual Parish , instead of a union of parishes, made Landlord s reluctant to erect Cottage s on the Reclaimed Land for the benefit of their Tenant s. Labor had to be obtained for the Cultivation of these new lands, and that of women, girls and boys, being cheaper than the labor of men, was consequently very largely employed. The tendency to Moral and Physical ruin which resulted from this Nomad ic life was so great that an inquiry into the condition of agricultural Child Labor was included in the reference to the Commission on child-labor appointed in 1862 , and the results were so startling that the "Agricultural Gangs Act" was passed in 1867 , forbidding the employment of any child under eight years old, and of any female under a male gang-master, unless a female licensed to act as gang-mistress were also. REFERENCES |
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