Gong farmer

Person who dug out and removed human excrement from privies and cesspits

Gong farmer (also gongfermor, gongfermour, gong fayer, gong fower or gong scourer) was a term that entered use in Tudor England to describe someone who dug out and removed human excrement from privies and cesspits. The word "gong" was used for both a privy and its contents. As the work was considered unclean and off putting to the public, gong farmers were only allowed to work at night, hence they were sometimes known as nightmen. The waste they collected, known as night soil, had to be taken outside the city or town boundary or to official dumps for disposal. Fewer and fewer cesspits needed to be dug out as more modern sewage disposal systems, such as pail closets and water closets, became increasingly widespread in 19th century England. The job of emptying cesspits today is usually carried out mechanically using suction, by specialised tankers called vacuum trucks.

"Gong" is derived from , which means "to go". Towns usually provided public latrines, known as houses of easement, but numbers were limited: in London towards the end of the 14th century, for instance, there were only 16 for a population of 30,000. Local regulations were introduced to control the placement and construction of private latrines. Cesspits were often placed under cellar floors or in the yard of a house. Some had wooden chutes to carry excrement from the upper floors to the cesspit, sometimes flushed by rainwater. Cesspits were not watertight, allowing the liquid waste to drain away and leaving only the solids to be collected. Those employed at Hampton Court during the time of Queen Elizabeth I, for instance, were paid sixpence a day—a good living for the period—but the working life of a gong farmer was "spent up to his knees, waist, even neck in human ordure". They were only allowed to work at night, between 9:00p. m. and 5:00a. m. refn| A text of 1562 states that "no Goungfermour shall carry any Ordure till after nine of the Clocke in the night. "—from which it was transported by barge to be used as fertiliser on fields or market gardens. The penalties for not disposing of waste in the approved manner could be harsh. One London gong farmer who poured effluent down a drain was put in one of his own pipes filled up to his neck with gong, before being publicly displayed in Golden Lane with a sign detailing his crime.

Gong farming can be hazardous and has a strong odor, making it a less desirable profession. The work of gong farmers was physically exhausting, with no ventilation in the cesspits, making the night long job even more challenging. The cesspits were not always maintained, and the rotting of the pit's ceiling was a common hazard. One notable incident occurred in 1326, when a gong farmer named Richard the Raker fell into a cesspit whose ceiling had rotted, and drowned while collecting feces. Due to the unsavory nature of the job, gong farmers were typically well paid, but they were not well respected and were often avoided by others in their community.

From the early 17th century onwards the larger towns and cities began to employ scavengers, as they became known, to remove human waste from the streets. Much of this waste came from overflowing privies and dunghills, or from chamber pots emptied into the streets from upstairs windows. By 1615 the town of Manchester was employing nineteen under scavengers, or rakers, managed by two scavengers.