Comments on: Hop Pickers’ Photographs

By: Terry Offord

Terry Offord — Mon, 06 Sep 2021 11:49:26 +0000

All my family went hop picking every year and I would like to say the hopers came from all over London from working class family’s and not just from the east end.. We lived in Paddington, family’s from South London Kilburn and Holburn and north London also went every year up until the 60s

By: jackie Buckingham

jackie Buckingham — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 16:01:24 +0000

I’ve got some old photos of my family and friends. Email me if you are interested, and I will send them. I lived in the EastEnd, Shadwell, spent a lot of time in Wapping.

By: Jason Day

Jason Day — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 13:51:10 +0000

As a member of the Day family, it’s interesting to see some pictures on the Highwood family ‘Crow Plain Fm, opposite us in Collier Street, who were of the Day family. Theres a lot of Days in Collier Street and local still. We moved here from Bromley Common in 2006.

By: Kim Baker

Kim Baker — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 13:04:38 +0000

Loved seeing these, especially my sons Great Grandfather Johnno Mahoney & Minie Mahoney. Thank you for sharing the memories. I will be adding some of these to the Mahoney Family Tree.

By: Eileen Lowe

Eileen Lowe — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 16:38:19 +0000

Thank you for sharing your beautiful photographs, the wonderful spirit of hop picking, I remember Fowle Hall, Paddock wood, Nettlestead, Whitbreads, Yalding, Wateringbury, and Highwoods Farm at again Hill and Collier St.,

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 11:22:45 +0000

Greetings from Boston,

GA, thanks for yet another great, colorful picture of East Londoners. These “migrant” workers certainly look happy, particularly the children.

By: Andy (THCH)

Andy (THCH) — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 11:20:04 +0000

Thank you for sharing these photos and memories of a bygone age

By: Janet Spink

Janet Spink — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 09:10:03 +0000

Thank you so much for this; my father (b. 1923) would go, pre-WW2 , to Paddock Wood with his mum, dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, cousins. I only have a few photos from that time so these help to build a bigger picture of what life would have been like.

By: Hilda Kean

Hilda Kean — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 07:41:01 +0000

How refreshing to have the names of the people engaged in this work included. Too often images of hop pickers are presented as ‘ generic working class’ East Enders. This approach – like your wonderful edition of Spitalfields Nippers that names the children- gives the people a status, dignity and individuality that too often well meaning labour historians have ignored.

By: John Barrett

John Barrett — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 07:19:11 +0000

Here is an important social history account, of Londoners who traditionally picked hops for brewing beer, working in the Kentish hop fields. The cry would go up ‘when I go a hopping down in Kent’. Pickers were usually families they combined work with a social life, in fact they formed communities on the farm for the season up to six weeks . When they knew they were accepted by the farmer, they prepared their Hopping Boxes in it was crockery, pots and pans, clothes topped up with bits and pieces. When a box was full it was sent to the farm by train, about two weeks before they arrived on the due date. After a long piece-working day they met up socially with a big knees-ups sometimes accompanied by accordion’s. Generations would come and go, this was all to end as the whole operation was mechanised with stripping machines’. !Out there some where I am sure a niche market has survived with pickers hard at it. I certainly hope so. John B