William was the sixth child born to Henry Richins and Sarah Haynes. He made his appearance on December 27, 1806 at Ebworth Park in Sheepscombe, Gloucestershire, England. Two months later his parents took him to the parish church at Painswick to be christened and given the name of William.

Christening in the Church of England involved baptizing infants by sprinkling and giving them a name. This was expected to occur soon after birth, as the Church taught that babies that died before being baptized would not be able to go to heaven. On February 15, 1807, Henry and Sarah walked the several miles to the church in wintry weather to have their son christened.

William was born into a family of five children: Sarah was the eldest, followed by Elizabeth, Richard, Henry and Miriam. William was later joined by Joseph, which brought the number of siblings to seven. Henry Richins, Sr. was an agricultural laborer on the Ebworth farm. I believe he was a contemporary tenant and he rented a home with land to raise some crops, as well as land on the Commons to pasture a few sheep and cattle.

The years from 1814 to 1836 were some of the bleakest years for agricultural laborers and small farmers. The fields of available land were nearly exhausted from the many centuries of over-cropping and not replenishing the soil nutrients. It was evident changes were needed if England wanted to continue feeding her burgeoning population. Some visionary farmers began rotating their crops and use lime to fertilize their fields. While this practice worked for the larger plots of land, it was impractical for the fields located in the long narrow plots in the open field farmed by the villagers to supplement their meager wages. The Commons were also rented by tradesmen to pasture a few head of livestock to augment their livelihood.

Parliament (many of whom owned land) passed laws to enforce the enclosure of fields and the Commons. Some landowners enclosed their farms by planting hedges, while others had stonewalls built around their property.[1] The Enclosure Act disenfranchised many small farmers, tenant farmers and yeoman who could not afford to enclose their fields. To make matters worse, England had lost much of her foreign trade during her war with France and was in a post-war economic depression.

The Industrial Era caused widespread unemployment as machinery began to replace manual labor. The soldiers returning from France swelled the already the numbers of unskilled laborers looking for work. With rampant unemployment at home, many workers migrated to other countries, such as the United States and Canada, in hopes of finding work to enable them to support their families.

Farming became a trade, an occupation, rather than just a way to supplement one’s income. The countryside changed as large landowners bought up the smaller fields and enclosed them with stonewalls or hedges. The depression and added costs of enclosing the fields drove down the wages of the agricultural laborer. An added blow was the change from paying the farm workers a monthly or weekly salary to a daily wage. This meant that if a laborer was unable to work because of inclement weather or illness he wasn’t paid for that day. The lives of farm laborers was tenuous in the best of times, but the decreased wages and not being able to grow crops or raise livestock to supplement their earnings brought poverty to many farm laborers.