Despite extensive research it has not been possible to identify the earliest occupants of Poplar Cottage. However, a broader analysis of 17th century cottagers enables us to draw some conclusions about the occupants’ probable social and economic status. The requirement of the 1589 act that cottages must have at least four acres of land must have represented the minimum amount of land then thought necessary to sustain a family. We know from the Washington tithe map and award of 1839 that at that date Poplar had 26 perches of land, which is about one sixth of an acre. The size of this holding (essentially a garden) has been recreated at the museum on the small plot of land on which Poplar Cottage is now situated.

Indictments before the Quarter Sessions for illegally erecting cottages which record the defendant’s status show that they were typically either husbandmen, labourers or craftsmen, with husbandmen forming the largest single group (reflecting the predominance of this group in rural society). Those granted licences either to erect or to continue cottages were typically, although not exclusively, paupers, reflecting the requirements of the 1589 act. To put these social groups in context, in 1577 when William Harrison wrote his Description of England he divided the population into four ‘sorts’ of people, gentlemen, citizens or burgesses, yeomen and ‘artificers and labourers’. The last group Harrison described as ‘day labourers, poor husbandmen, and some retailers (which have no free land), copyholders, and all artificers, as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brickmakers, masons, etc’. In terms of social status, Harrison’s ‘fourth and last sort’ were, however, above the level of the truly poor, whom Harrison divided into a further three ‘sorts’, the impotent poor, those who are poor ‘by casualty’ and the ‘thriftless poor’.

It is probable that the early occupants of Poplar Cottage were husbandmen, earning their living from the land. Since the land adjoining the cottage was clearly insufficient to sustain a family, the occupants are likely to have derived much of their household income from the exercise of unofficial use rights on Washington Common. They may also have supplemented their income by working as agricultural labourers for larger landholders. Alternatively, they may have earned a living from one of the more poorly paid rural crafts – Harrison’s ‘artificers’ – perhaps as a shoemaker, weaver, or bricklayer, all occupations present in 17th century Washington.