Gong Farmer - Working Conditions

Working Conditions

Despite being well-rewarded, the gong farmer's job was considered by historians on The Worst Jobs in History television series to be one of the worst of the Tudor period. Those employed at Hampton Court during the time of Queen Elizabeth I, for instance, were paid sixpence a day, a good living for the period, but the working life of a gong farmer was "spent up to his knees, waist, even neck in human ordure". They were only allowed to work between 9 pm and 5 am, were permitted to live only in certain areas, and because of the noxious fumes produced by human excrement were sometimes overcome by asphyxiation. Gong farmers usually employed a couple of young boys to lift the full buckets of ordure out of the pit and to work in confined spaces.

After being dug out the solid waste was removed in large barrels or pipes, which were loaded onto a horse-drawn cart. As privies spread to the residences of ordinary citizens they were often built-in backyards with rear access or alleyways, to avoid the need to carry barrels of waste through the house to the street. Much of what is known about London's privies during the 17 and 18th centuries comes from witness statements describing what had been discovered among the human excrement, such as the corpses of unwanted infants.

All of the effluent had to be removed from the town or city where it was collected, either by spreading it on common land or by transporting it to laystalls, which were usually on the edges of town. In the case of London much of it was taken to dumps on the banks of the River Thames such as the appropriately named Dung Wharf, later the site of the Mermaid Theatre, from where it was transported by barge to be used as fertiliser on fields or market gardens. Some of the dumps became quite massive; the ironically named Mount Pleasant in present-day Clerkenwell, London, occupied an area of 7.5 acres (3.0 ha) by 1780.

The penalties for not disposing of waste in the approved manner could be harsh. One London gong farmer who poured effluent down a drain was put in one of his own pipes, which was filled up to his neck with filth before being publicly displayed in Golden Lane with a sign detailing his crime.