APPRENTICESHIPS

by Geoff Nicholson

1. WHAT IS AN APPRENTICESHIP?

Apprenticeships are the traditional way of training a novice in the ways and "mysteries" of a particular craft or skill, and so were particularly important in the days when most trades involved the use of a great deal of manual skill and general know-how, much of which was kept a closely-guarded secret, not to be divulged to those not "in the trade". The fact that a tradesman had served an apprenticeship meant a secure career for him, as his qualification would be generally recognised, and he would be able to work as a "journeyman", someone whom an employer could give a day's work (French journee), and then be confident in letting him get on with it without having to exercise continual supervision. To his master it was a means of recruitment to his workforce which, albeit slow, did at least guarantee quality, an understanding of that master's ways and, for the period of the apprenticeship, cheap labour.

Formal apprenticeships began in medieval days as the organisation of trade in general and, in those places which had them, Town Guilds, grew, then so did the importance of apprenticeships. An apprentice almost always was bound, originally at his father's cost, for a period of seven years, usually at the age of 14 to that of 21. During that time his employer or "master" undertook to teach him the necessary skills and to pay him a wage which, although usually pitifully small, did increase greatly as the apprentice grew in skill and which at least proved a regular income. In many cases the master also undertook to provide the apprentice with board and lodging, and sometimes even with food and clothing. That applies particularly when a country lad was apprentice to a town tradesman, and was expected to live "over the shop' with his master's family, virtually as one of them.

 Apprenticeships were usually made formal and legally binding by the execution of an Apprenticeship Indenture, signed and witnessed, the parties being the employer and the apprentice's father, the father originally paying a fee or "binding money" (but see section 5). As the lad would be well under the age at which he could be held legally responsible for anything he signed, his father was always made a party to the Indenture, thus guaranteeing that any apprentice so foolhardy as to run away back to his home would be returned to his master immediately.

 2. THE STAMP DUTY

In 1710 the government of the day, realising that apprenticeships had become an important and very necessary part of commercial life, did what all

governments do when they see a sitting duck situation - they taxed them. This was done by imposing Stamp Duty on all apprenticeship Indentures. The records of that Duty, to 1811, are held in the Public Record Office at Kew, where they are in a series of "Apprenticeship Books". In theory, at least, those books should contain details of every apprenticeship entered into in England and Wales between those years. Some of the books, or copies of them, are actually in the Library of the Society Genealogists, in London, and for which an index exists.