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Between 1869 and 1875 there was such a profession as a human scarecrow. Because the bird population had temporarily increased owed to industrial displacement, farmers and other landowners experimented with tougher security measures. The idea was to employ poor people to march around their land wearing terrifying costumes, hoping this would deter what one farmer called ‘bird savagery’.

The experiment appeared to work which gave those Victorians stranded in villages an opportunity to earn money. Needless to say it was an arduous profession. The hours were long and, for the most part, extremely boring. Yet approximately 10% of a scarecrow’s day was also increasingly dangerous.

After some years of being scared off, birds gradually began to organise themselves almost like armies and visciously attacked the human scarecrows. This perhaps explains why some of them are carrying weapons. The assaults became increasingly bloody and after five years, a total of 204 people had been murdered by crows.

Eventually and begrudgingly Parliament stepped in. But instead of banning the profession outright, they suggested that scarecrow employers pay for their employees’ funeral services and donate a little to their families. The reaction among the employers was outrage and scorn. They tried to reverse this decision but ultimately it remained in place until health and safety laws became a thing. Consequently the scarecrow trade grinded to a halt. Images from our archives are all that remains of this obscure trade.

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