Perthshire servant wages
Between 1770 and 1790 the price of food rose sharply, appreciably more than the cost of farm
servant’s wages, but this did not prevent the Minister of Kilspindie, in the Carse of Gowrie from
commenting sourly, “Servants wages in this country have risen to a most alarming height. The men
servants, with their enormous fees, are disobliging, perverse and obstinate, refusing to work more than
six hours in the forenoon and four in the afternoon. They have no idea of submitting to any little
economical employment at a winter fireside.”
The reality of the ‘enormous fees’ are shown in the income and expenditure of a day labourer with
a wife and family of seven children living near Auchterarder. In addition to his rented house he was also
able to rent an acre of ground on which he kept a cow and grew potatoes, barley and oats.
YEARLY INCOME
| Item | £ | s | d |
|---|
| Father | 13 | 17 | 0 |
| Mother with help of eldest child by spinning | 3 | 18 | 0 |
| Eldest boy by tending cattle | 0 | 18 | 0 |
| From the land |
| Oats | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Barley | 2 | 16 | 3 |
| Potatoes | 1 | 6 | 3 |
| Total Income | 24 | 2 | 3 |
YEARLY EXPENSE
| Item | £ | s | d |
|---|
| Rent of house and land | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Expenses of feed and management | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Fuel | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Oatmeal | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| Barleymeal | 1 | 17 | 4 |
| Potatoes | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| Cheese | 0 | 8 | 0 |
| Molasses, groats and barley for making ale | 0 | 11 | 6 |
| Butcher meat | 0 | 18 | 0 |
| Whisky, small beer and wheaten bread at the New Year | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Grass consumed by cow in summer and straw in winter | 0 | 16 | 0 |
| Four pecks salt | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Lamp oil | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| Candles | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| The Father's Clothes |
| Two shirts 7s, Two pairs shoes 10s, Two pairs stockings 4s 6d, Wear of bonnet and handkerchief 1s, Wear of clothes10s | 1 | 12 | 6 |
| The Mothers's Clothes |
| One shift 2s 6d. Two aprons 2s 3d, Wear of clothes 4s, Wear of shoes and stockings 4s, Handkerchiefs, caps etc. 3s | 0 | 15 | 9 |
| One pair shoes for each of 7 children | 0 | 14 | 2 | | Oatmeal | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Clothes for three youngest children | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| Clothes for four eldest children | 0 | 18 | 0 |
| Shirts for children | 0 | 7 | 10 |
| 8lbs soap | 0 | 4 | 8 |
| Expenses for lying in, sickness etc. | 0 | 15 | 0 |
| Needles, pins, thread | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Total Expense | 24 | 0 | 2 |
The milk, butter and cheese produced by the cow was used by the family but in addition a 28lb cheese
was bought in as itemised in the expenses account.
At least there was some two shillings left over for the New Year.
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