Object number
59/420
Description
Flails were commonly used to thresh corn and other crops to separate the grain from the husks. They were used before the development of threshing machines. Threshing by flail provided winter work for labourers and was done on a threshing floor in a barn. A flail usually consists of a handle, a 'swingel' (the swinging part of the flail which hits the grain) and a 'swivel' joint to join the two together. This flail is made of wood, with a wood and leather joint. It originally belonged to a Cambridgeshire farm worker.
Physical description
1 flail: wood, leather
Label Text
FLAIL // DETAILS // Categories Forces For Change // Theme(s) Farming and agriculture // Collection Food Processing Objects // Date // Object number 59/420 // DESCRIPTION // When you look at a flail, you are looking at the sweat, pain and labour farmworkers endured for hundreds of years. Flails are just two sticks, tied together at one end with leather. One stick would be grasped, and the other swung at corn on a barn floor to separate the grain from the husk through sheer force. // This was hard labour, but occupied many people. When the process was simplified with threshing machines it caused riots, as many people were suddenly without a job. Rioters smashed machines to preserve their livelihoods, but ultimately it was the machines that won.
Archival history
Letter, Rev. Ivan Mayor to Mr Jewell, 17 November 1959 - I have been moving about for the past ten days or so, which accounts for the delay in sending you the flail which I have dispatched today by passenger train. I hope it will arrive safely. I am sorry that I cannot give you any details about it, except that it comes from Cambridgeshire. I can do no more than tell you how it came into my hands. Did you happen to know a very fascinating shop - possibly unique - in Cambridge kept by a John Whitaker opposite the Round Church. So I heard him tell a potential customer 'I am sorry I have nothing useful in this shop'. My first purchase was when I was an undergraduate more than fifty years ago, and I was always in and out, looking for things that would provide background for whatever I might be teaching. And I cannot remember any occasion that I did not get what I asked for it, whether it was cuneiform tablets, French [illegible], Cross-bow bolts, distaff, except when I wanted a flail. He had one - the one I am sending - but he did not want to part with it for it is [sic] was given to him by an old friend, a farm worker. 'But' he said 'you will get it later'. Not long afterwards he died towards the end of the War, and his stock was taken on by another antiques dealer in Cambridge, Stockbridge, who very kindly let me have it. I am glad to give it a good home.
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External document
- L:\MERL\Objects\JISC 2012\60 series negatives\60_2976.tif - High resolution image
