MARKET GARDENERS AND THE LABOUR QUESTION
As will be seen from a communication from Mr T A Cox (Hon Secretary of the Evesham Market Gardeners Labour Committee), published in another column, arrangements have been made for the engagement of a considerable number of men from Holland, with a view to meeting the shortage of labour in the market gardens. The committee, we understand, were unable to make any progress in engaging labour from any sources until Mr. George Jones arranged for his Dutch foreman, Mr Vryenhoef, who has been in Mr. Jones’s employ for a considerable time now, went to Holland, advertised in the Dutch papers for men to work in “the famous market gardens at Evesham, Worcestershire, England” and announced that he would be at certain cafes at stated times to interview applicants. He was soon able to get all the men he wanted, and he communicated his success to Mr. Jones. Mr Jones cabled to him to obtain a certain number of men, but the cablegram was stopped by the censor “for full explanation of the text”. Possibly the censor thought the message had to do with some desperate military exploit, instead of the peaceable avocation of market gardening.
This was probably George Jones of 19 Bridge Street, Evesham, fruit grower and market gardener, rather than George Edwin Jones of Badsey. This was probably Sander Vryenhoef who, with his brother, Cornelius, had come to work in England. Sander had married Alice Vander Akker in about 1908. They lived at 3 Castle Terrace, Evesham, in 1911 and a son, John, was born at Evesham, in 1912.