ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to address the issues by focusing on the employment opportunities available to labouring women of the English countryside in the period between 1846 and 1875. It also attempts to establish the types and amount of work that women participated in, and how far, women were able to contribute to the rural family economy in the mid-nineteenth century. Evidence from two counties will be utilized: the East Riding of Yorkshire and Norfolk. Such districts of eastern England were seen to epitomize the best features of farming in the Golden Age. Farm servants in East Yorkshire seem to have benefited from the prosperity of mid-Victorian farming. Specialization in Norfolk agriculture meant there were few opportunities for single young women to find permanent work in the region. Female farm service and gang labour can be seen to represent two extremes on the spectrum of women's agricultural work.
