Scottish agricultural changed dramatically in the second half of the nineteenth century. There was a move away from the runrig system with land being enclosed. Farming techniques were improved as the demand for produce increased from urban towns and cities.

Many cottars and farmers in the lowlands of Scotland were displaced during this period. People whose families had worked the land for centuries moved to urban areas to find work in factories. Many emigrated to other countries. It is common to discover from census returns, between 1841-1891, that many woman were agricultural workers. Girls from large families were boarded out to a farm after leaving school. I’ve seen this several times when researching my own family.

Agnes Ballantyne, my 3x great aunt, was born around 1833 in Selkirk in the south of Scotland. She spent much of her life as an agricultural labourer. She moved from farm to farm, and at times lived with her father. She was the daughter of Walter Ballantyne and Helen Scott. They are my four times great grandparents. Their youngest child, Isobel, died in 1841 when she was under 12 months old. Walter and Helen parted before 1844. They had been living with their children in Bottacks, Ross-shire, before they left the highlands and headed south.

The family scattered and Helen vanishes from census returns. After the pain of her youngest child dying, her son Andrew was then arrested in 1844. Eventually he was sent to Australia for the crime of stealing a little brown horse. His mother would never see him again. How did Helen manage to cope with two such tragic events? How did these tragedies impact the breakdown of her marriage and probable death?

Walter took over the care of their youngest living child, Robert. By 1845, Walter married again and started a new family. How did young Agnes cope with her family breakdown and her father’s new marriage? It must have been a difficult time for a fourteen year old.

Agnes’s life as a farm servant in Roxburghshire continues in 1851. She is twenty years old and having to fend for herself. At this time, she lived with Frances and Elizabeth Mitchell and their young daughter Elizabeth, as a boarder. Frances was also a farm servant. Her father, his wife and her brother Robert, left Roxburghshire for a new life on the Isle of Lewis.

There were a variety of tasks Agnes would do around the farm. Harvest was one of the busiest times in the farm year. This was an ”all hands to the pump’ time. She may have worked as part of a Bandwin. This was a team of men and women who harvested the cereal crop. There were two teams of two women and one man. The man would cut the longest and toughest stalks in the middle of the rig. The women cut the sides. Another man, the banster, bound the sheaves together. Women were paid 5d a day, men 6d, and the bandster earned 7d. This shows how highly the women were valued in this task, earning almost as much as the men. Together they harvested two acres a day. Backbreaking work!

At other times, Agnes would be involved with the animals; cows, sheep and chickens. Most likely, she helped with household chores, cooking, cleaning and laundry. She probably also helped to look after the farmer’s children. The work Agnes did, and women like her, was an essential part of the rural economy.

In 1857, Agnes had a son. She called him James and gave him her name, Ballantyne. Surprisingly, James was born in the parish of Fodderty in Ross-shire. This is where she had lived with her family until 1844. It’s possible that her elder sister, Beth, was still in the area. Walter and Andrew were in Australia. Robert was now married and had a family of his own. There is no record of a father’s name for baby James, so he was recorded as illegitimate. Perhaps Agnes moved north to escape a situation she found herself in while working in Roxburghshire.

Walter was plunged into another tragedy between 1854 and 1861 when his second wife died. He was yet again left alone with young children. It makes sense that he called for Agnes to help raise them.

Agnes, now aged twenty-eight, keeps house for her father and is caring for a host of children in 1861. The extended Ballantyne family is living in Main Street, Bowden, Roxburghshire. Three of Walter’s young children were born in Stornaway, Catherine, eleven years, Thomas, nine years, and Alexander, seven years.

James, Agnes’s own son, was now three years old and had a baby sister, Janet Cairns. Janet is twelve months old. Incredibly, Agnes is also caring for a four month old baby. It is possible, as Agnes has recently had a baby herself, that she is acting as a wet nurse. This was quite common at this time. Perhaps the child’s mother died in childbirth. Janet was also recorded as illegitimate but is given, what I presume, is her father’s name.

As time goes by, Agnes continues to move around Roxburghshire finding work as an agricultural labourer. Sadly, tragedy is not far behind her. James, who was born in Fodderty, died before 1867. Her daughter Janet was ten years old at the time. Agnes had another child soon after, a son, who she also called James, born in 1867. In 1871 when they were living in Morebattle, he was three years old. He was also recorded as illegitimate but is associated with the name Chisholm.

Walter moved on again and married for a third time in Evanton, Ross-shire. He and his wife Georgina McKay had three children together. Peter, who died in infancy in 1867, Margaret, his twin, and Anna Bella born in 1871. Walter died aged eighty-three years in 1876 in Evanton.

There is no doubt that Agnes lived from hand to mouth, moving from place to place in Roxburghshire. By the age of forty-five she must have experienced so much hardship and poverty. She had worked incredibly hard to feed her children and to give them a home.

In 1881 Agnes is again working as a farm servant, as is her son James, who is now thirteen. They are living at Grange Cottar House in Hownam, Roxburghshire. With them is Elizabeth Ballantyne, age six. On Elizabeth’s birth certificate, Agnes is described as a field worker. This gives an insight into the hard work Agnes was doing in all seasons throughout the year. I can imagine her out in the fields in the rain and the wind. I can picture her freezing during the frost and snow of winter. It’s also noted that Agnes signed her daughter’s birth certificate with her mark. There is no evidence on any census that she had attended school. If she did, she had lost those skills as her life moved on.

Elizabeth was Agnes’s youngest child. Surviving four pregnancies on top of the hard work in the fields is astonishing. Janet, her eldest, is now also a farm servant working and living in Spotsmains, Smailholm in Selkirk.

1891 herald’s a change to Agnes’s story. She is living in a farm cottage in Sprouston, Roxburghshire with sixteen others. Agnes is now sixty years old. Her three children, Janet, 30, James, 23, and Elizabeth, 16 are living with her. They are all employed by the farm as agricultural labourers.

Also in the cottage is John Casey and his ten children. His wife, Jessie, had died in 1890 from deep vein thrombosis and sepsis. A painful death. If left untreated, DVT can lead to complications such as tissue damage, gangrene and finally sepsis.

It appears, yet again, Agnes was looking after a large number of children. There were also two grandchildren in the household. Robert Richardson is likely the son of Helen, Jessie Cassie’s illegitimate child. She had given birth to Helen before marrying John. The other child seems to be Janet’s child, Agnes Cairns. She is seven years old and was most likely illegitimate.

In 1893, at the age of thirty-two, Janet Cairns marries John Cassie and becomes his second wife. They have a further four children together.

In 1894, Elizabeth Ballantyne, Agnes’s youngest child, has an illegitimate child, Thomas Dalgleish Ballantyne, born on 24 July in Selkirk. At this time, Elizabeth was working as a millworker and lived at 20, Curror Street, Selkirk. The child’s father was Adam Dalgleish, a tailor, living in the same town. Elizabeth applied to the Sheriff Court in 1896 for child maintenance. Elizabeth and Adam did not marry.

At the age of seventy, in 1901, Agnes is living in a cottage in Smailholm in Roxburghshire. With her are two of her children, James, 30, who is a ploughman, and Elizabeth, 26, now a farm servant. The two illegitimate children Agnes and Robert, are also part of the household. It would be interesting to know why they were not living with Janet and John Cassie. Regardless of the reason, Agnes has taken them with her. There is no evidence of Elizabeth’s child, Thomas. He hadn’t died. In fact, he goes on to marry Isabella Currie in 1919 in Selkirk. He lives until 1961 when he dies in Galasheils. Perhaps he grew up with his father’s family in Selkirk.

In 1911, Agnes is living with her daughter Elizabeth and her granddaughter, Agnes. Sadly, at the age of eighty she has been going blind for twenty-five years.

Agnes’s life ends in 1913 when she was eighty-two years old. She was living in Kerchesters, Sprouston, Roxburghshire. The death certificate was signed by her son, James and she died of old age.

There is no doubt that Agnes led a hard and complicated life. She traveled from the south of Scotland to the north several times. She had four illegitimate children. She worked out in the fields harvesting, weeding, and planting. No matter her location, or personal tragedies, Agnes always prioritised her extended family. She often looked after the children of others as well. She was a strong woman, someone the whole family relied on to get them through tough times. She is one of Scotland’s hidden women who symbolises so many who lived similar lives.