Gong Farming, The Most Disgusting Job In Recorded History
Few workers can claim to have worked in as foul and horrible conditions as these brave souls
We have all likely had jobs we haven’t enjoyed. There are also those who make careers out of performing tasks most of us could never imagine doing. A candidate for the most disgusting and horrifying profession in history is that of the gong farmer, the poor souls responsible for emptying the narrow but enormous raw sewage tanks of castles during the Tudor era of Britain.
Gong farmers, also known as gong scourers, were what those who emptied out and cleaned human waste from toilets and cesspits. A slang word that simultaneously referred to toilet and also what was being dug out of them, gong (translated as “to go” from the Old English “gang,” was considered taboo for mainstream society. As such, gong farmers were required to work at night after dark. This meant more people would be indoors, or sleeping, and thus avoid seeing or smelling the noxious carnage. It also gave the workers another nickname of nightmen, and the payload they carried away came to be alternatively known as night soil.
Modern society has the benefits of technology like huge holding tanks and big suction hoses to carry out this necessary work. Hundreds of years ago, these…
