page_title: Hiring and mop fairs
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hiring and mop fairs / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Take Notice that the Cardigan Hiring Fair
context_page_description: Hiring fairs, also called statute or mop fairs, were regular events in pre-modern Great Britain and Ireland where labourers were hired for fixed terms. They date from the time of Edward III, and his attempt to regulate the labour market by the Statute of Labourers in 1351 at a time of a serious national shortage of labour after the Black Death. Subsequent legislation, in particular the Statute of Apprentices of 1563, legislated for a particular day when the high constables of the shire would proclaim the stipulated rates of pay and conditions of employment for the following year. Because so many people gathered at a fair, it quickly turned into the major place for matching workers and employers. Hiring fairs continued well into the 20th century, up to the Second World War in some places but their function as employment exchanges was diminished by the Corn Production Act 1917. This legislation guaranteed minimum prices for wheat and oats, specified a minimum wage for agricultural workers and established the Agricultural Wages Board, to ensure stability for farmers and a share of this stability for agricultural workers.
context_section_description: Farm workers, labourers, servants and some craftsmen would work for their employer from October to October. At the end of the employment they would attend the mop fair dressed in their Sunday best clothes and carrying an item signifying their trade. A servant with no particular skills would carry a mop head.The 'tassle' worn on their lapel was the emblem of the employee's trade and was known as a 'mop' — hence the term "mop fair. Hiring fairs were also known as statute fairs (or statutes) because an Act of Parliament of 1677 endorsed the yearly bonds made between masters and servants at them.
  Employers would move amongst them discussing experience and terms, and once agreement was reached the employer would give the employee a small token of money, known as the “fasten-penny,”  usually a shilling, which “fastened” the contract for a year. The employee would then remove the item signifying their trade and wear bright ribbons to indicate they had been hired.  
  The  stalls set up, at the fair, selling food and drink and offering games to play, would tempt the employee to spend their token money. The whole event became a major festival and eventually was condemned for the  drunkenness and immorality they encouraged.
  Michaelmas Day is celebrated on 29 September but mop fairs were tied to the seasons and the harvest, not the calendar. When the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1752 and eleven days dropped from that year, events associated with the end of the harvest moved eleven days later to 10 October. This date is known as "Old Michaelmas Day" and since 1752 was the date of the  mop fairs. Although many towns continue to hold mop fairs to this day, traditional hiring fairs had ceased by the middle of the 20th century.
caption: An advertisement for a hiring fair in 1861
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