Let's hop into our time machine and travel back to the 1500's when - as usual - young people are running wild in the streets and the world is fast approaching judgement day. Nothing unusual there, then. However, in 1563, the Statute of Artificers put paid to a lot of the problems brought on by youth unemployment by defining the terms of an apprenticeship of any kind.
To start with, at least in England, nobody could take up a trade or craft without serving an apprenticeship of at least seven years, and just about every kind of job had some kind of apprenticeship scheme.
Usually, an apprenticeship started when a person was in their late teens, but in farming communities apprenticeships could start at the age of 10... and then continue to the age of 21. Interestingly enough, the average age of marriage for men in those days (at least for the first marriage) was 25 - purely because an apprentice wasn’t allowed to marry or start a household.
As for choice, nobody aged between 12 and 20 was allowed to refuse to become an apprentice if a "householder of sufficient means" demanded it, however it was up to that householder to take the apprentice in to live with his family. The householder was, however, entitled to treat any apprentice like a servant while teaching them the trade. And like today, if the terms of the contract of an apprenticeship were not met, it was possible for an apprentice to get out of that particular obligation.
Medieval apprenticeships
These days, you can research available apprenticeships before you choose the one that's best for you. In medieval times, however, that wasn't the case - it was all about the connections your family had - whether directly or through people they knew. No matter what kind of apprenticeship was in store for you, it would have been a formal arrangement, with contracts and sponsors enabling your new master to cover your living expenses for the next seven years or so. That's because you'd be living in your master's home - usually as part of the family, meaning you ate with them, had your clothes provided by them ... and perhaps even find yourself marrying into the family. It was known to happen. You might even have had a mention in your master's will. You were there to learn, and the master was there to teach you.
It could be that you'd be doing a bit of unrelated fetching and carrying while you were learning the master's craft, but if you were lucky enough to have a master with servants, then most of your time would be spent in training while the servants carried out all those menial tasks. And it was definitely to your master's advantage to teach you the skills of the trade as fast as possible - after all, once you knew what you were doing you could be very useful to his business for the rest of your apprenticeship ... or even the rest of your life. That's because back then - sorry to put a damper on things - you'd be lucky if you made it much past thirty. But like today, at the end of your medieval apprenticeship there was the distinct possibility of being taken on as an employee.
Indentures
In business today, any agreement needs to be written up and signed by both parties - and the same has held true for apprenticeships for hundreds of years. Known as "indentures" (and having nothing to do with false teeth) they were legal documents in which a master agreed to instruct the apprentice in their trade (AKA "mystery") for a set number of years. Generally food, clothing and accommodation were part of the deal, too.
Now, somewhere in Somerset House, where records of births, marriages and deaths used to be kept, the Inland Revenue Office kept tax records of approximately 350,000 indentures, with more than a million names on those records. These started in 1710, thanks to an Act of Parliament ruling that tax had to be paid on all indentures, with the exception of trades that hadn't existed in 1563 (the cotton industry probably being the best example) ... apprenticeships arranged by charities ... or where the apprenticeship fee (or "premium") was less than the grand sum of one shilling - which, translated to decimal currency, amounted to five pence, but back then it could buy a great deal more than it can today. The highest premium on record amounted to £500, for one John Abercromby in 1768 to London merchants “Jane & Peter & Dan & John Berthomas".
The Apprentice Tax, which fell due not later than one year after the end of the apprenticeship was at the rate of sixpence in the pound on premiums of less than £50, and a shilling for every pound over that limit. These tax payments were recorded in registers divided between London (or, as they called it, "town") and the rest of the country. These records not only give us an amazing slice of social history, but to family tree researchers they're an absolute goldmine, in that for almost the whole of the eighteenth century they give the name, occupation and place of origin of the apprentice's father, as well as the name, occupation and place of work of the master. In addition, they show the children of skilled artisans, yeomen farmers, tradesmen and even some of the lower upper class of the time learning something other than their father's trade.
So not only were apprentices back then benefiting their employers - and, of course themselves - back then, but also today's genealogists!
- Below,Ian actual indenture agreement, stating that arrowmaker John de Walton will be taking John Adamson of Sodbury on as an apprentice.
- Some interesting aspects of this document include the dating convention right at the beginning,the interchangeability of the surname “Adamson” and “FitzAdam” ... and especially that warning about "knowing the women servants of his master carnally (!)
This indenture made at Bristol on the Monday next before Christmas day iv Edward between John de Walton of Bristol fletcher on the one hand and John Adamson of Sodbury on the other hand witnesses that the aforesaid John Adamson of Sodbury will serve and minister to the said John de Walton in pure apprenticeship for the term of six years from the date of the sealing of this present agreement and he will pay to the said John de Walton a small and reasonable sum from his goods and merchandise for merchandise and payments as often when he shall be required to do so by the same John de Walton and he shall be bound to do all and singular things for the same John de Walton as such an apprentice is rightfully bound to do for his master during the aforesaid term. And also the aforesaid John de Walton shall instruct and inform the aforesaid John FitzAdam in his art and shall let him out reasonably and shall keep him in food and clothing in shoes and all other necessary things during the aforesaid term as other merchants do for their apprentices of similar condition in the city or in the borough and as they are bound to do by common custom. And the aforesaid John Adamson de Sodbury shall not be found free from the exercise of his art without the licence of the aforesaid master nor shall he be excused from it without reasonable cause. He shall not leave doors and windows of his master open at night by his negligence. He shall not know any of the women servants of his master carnally and he shall not take a wife within the term aforesaid without his master's consent on pain of doubling the aforesaid term. He shall see no harm come to his master without making compensation as far as he can or letting his master know about it. He shall not hide away money lawfully due to his master nor take it away on pain of double the sum thus hidden. And the aforesaid John de Walton during the sixth year of the aforesaid term shall pay to the aforesaid John Adamson of Sodbury ten shillings of silver of good and lawful money for his pay for that year on pain of doubling of that ten shillings. In witness whereof the aforesaid parties have interchangeably affixed their seals: Witnessed by Richard Blundell, Henry de Walton and others. Given at the day and at the place aforesaid.
Let's get physical
Back in the 1700’s – and at least several decades on either side – there was very little in the way of Health & Safety regulations – if any at all. So the trouble with young people working long hours in, shall we say, not the most brilliant of conditions was that since they were still growing, that growth would be affected. Well, yours would be if you stayed in much the same position throughout fourteen hour days … and you *are* sitting up straight with your monitor at eye level while you’re reading this, aren’t you? Good.
Unfortunately, there was nothing in the nailmaking rules and regulations to stop apprentices in that trade – especially in the Black Country, between Birmingham and Wolverhampton – from growing up with one shoulder higher than the other. Which was why, around then, the region was nicknamed “Humpshire”.
We all know about hatmaking and mercury, having read “Alice in Wonderland” and seen it in animated, 2D and 3D formats, so we’ll move on to apprentices in such trades as shoemaking and tailoring who would, over time, develop a crooked spine, sciatica and lameness of one kind or another ... and those were just the males.
Female apprentices who spent long days sitting in the same kind of position creating lace or millinery didn’t have it easy, either. In those times, girls from the age of nine or ten traditionally wore tightly laced stays which constricted their waists to an unnaturally small size. Theywere still growing both on the outside and the inside, and being squeezed like that didn't do their growing insides any good at all. And that's why a visitor to the lacemaking areas in Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire in the late 1700s, wrote: "Many of the workers of lace are deformed, occasioned by their uneasy posture, and many more are diseased, seemingly owing, in great measure, to their inclined posture while working, which prevents their lungs from having free play".
What was an apprenticeship for?
Let's hop into our time machine again, this time to discover precisely why apprenticeships were so important in seventeenth-century London.
So. Welcome to London, a bustling hub of commerce – with each trade overseen by a Guild (as in "City & Guilds"). A Guild looked after the trade and traders, made sure the quality of the goods provided were up to a proper standard in terms of both materials and workmanship ... and trained new Guild members. In short, Guilds back then were very important - both in terms of commerce and political clout. And pretty good for networking, too. There was a hierarchy of Guilds, headed at the time by twelve Great Companies, at the top of which was the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who were general merchants, as well as other Worshipful Companies of Drapers, Fishmongers, Ironmongers ... Cordwainers ... Tallow Chandlers ... Scriveners ... and the most ancient one: Weavers.
Here's a little side note, in case you've heard somebody use the expression "at sixes and sevens" The Worshipful Companies of Skinners and Merchant Taylors have always been at odds about where they should be in that hierarchy. The Merchant Taylors say they should be sixth and that the Skinners should be seventh. The Skinners hold the opposing viewpoint. There may or may not have been punch-ups in the street to start with, but what's been happening for centuries now is that whoever's at number six swaps with whoever's at number seven every year, at Easter. Sixes and sevens, then. So now you know.
And there was a definite hierarchy within the Guilds themselves. There was the master, two wardens and the Court of Assistants, there to create Guild policies, oversee the administration of Guild properties and distribute charitable funds. However, it wasn't a simple matter to become a Guild Member.
You could join a Guild in any of three ways. If your father already was a member of that particular Worshipful Company, then you were in straight away, no worries. The technical term was "patrimony". The technical term for paying a joining fee was "redemption". And, of course, the technical term for a seven-year stint learning the Guild's trade was "apprenticeship".
Back then, an apprenticeship was, of course, concerned with preparing a young man for his future trade, but also it had a lot to do with his leaving the family home and preparing for all the other facets of adult life. Guilds registered and regulated their apprentices and registered those who had successfully completed their apprenticeships. They also regulated how many apprentices a master could supervise at one time. The Guilds themselves were made up of experts in their field, known as master craftsmen, but it was a long haul from the start of an apprenticeship to attaining that rank. For a start, an apprenticeship was little more than a course in the basic techniques of the trade until it was proven that the apprentice could be trusted to keep all those trade secrets to himself. From there on in, learning the trade became somewhat more intense.
At the end of an apprenticeship, the young man had to produce a piece of trade-related work to demonstrate his competence, and if it was good enough, the apprentice was granted the rank of "journeyman". A "journey" was originally the definition of how far a person could travel in a day (as in the French "jour"), and in this context a journeyman could work for other masters, being paid, naturally, by the day. A journeyman was also issued with documents that entitled him to travel, so he could learn and pass on new techniques while working for other masters throughout Britain and Europe.
Following that journey, and after several more years of experience, a journeyman could - at long last - make it to the level of master craftsman. But then again, there are always exceptions to any rule: some Guilds promoted the apprentice directly to master craftsman status on receipt of something that illustrated the up-and-coming master craftsman's abilities (technical term: "masterpiece") ... together with a sizeable donation of money and other goods (technical term: "bung"). So essentially, an apprenticeship per se, when it came to Guilds, was an introduction to the trade, preceding something that could equate to a modern-day gap year - although much longer - before being admitted to the Guild as a master craftsman.
A little modern apprenticeship history
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, apprentices had it slightly rougher than they do today. For example, human rights currently prohibit the clip 'round the proverbial ear that apprentices would receive when they stepped out of line back in the day.
Apprentices at that time were expected to be living at home, not least because an apprentice's rate of pay was nothing like the average £190 we hear about today (2016). Here's a rundown on one apprentice engineering draughtsman's wages in the late 1940's: Year 1 - Just over 3.5 (old) pence an hour Year 2 - Just under 5 pence an hour Year 3 - Just under 6 pence an hour Year 4 - Just over 7 pence an hour Year 5 - Just under 8 pence an hour.
Admittedly, you could buy a lot more with sixpence then (that's 2.5 new pence) than you could ever do now. However, apprenticeships occurred at the time of a young man's life when however much he wanted to fly the coop, he was still living at home with mum and dad, paying for his keep, borrowing a few shillings to get by until payday ... when he'd pay those few shillings back. And then borrow them again in the middle of the following week. So all in all, because an apprentice's wage packet was too small to enable them to enjoy a little domestic independence, it was a very frustrating time of life for many of them.
However, at the end of the 1940's and throughout the1950's there been still the National Service you hear grandparents wishing was still around today. It was a form of compulsory military service for up to two years, meaning as soon as someone finished their apprenticeship they could find themselves out of the frying pan and under fire anywhere from Korea to Suez. And after their time was up, they returned to the company where they'd previously served their apprenticeship, because their contract stipulated they should be re-employed for a further two years.
