The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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CALICO PRINTERS AND OVERSTOCKING WITH APPRENTICES 641 one time, and only two journeymen?; it was obvious that ADE under such circumstances, the man who had served his time had very little hope of obtaining employment. The usual contract of apprenticeship in the trade was very one-sided?; the masters were careful to safeguard themselves against any loss which arose from the unskilfulpess of the boys, and retained a right of dismissal; while the boys were compelled to work for the full period of seven years, at wages which were very much lower than those which journeymen would have demanded®. The Elizabethan custom of apprenticeship and over. was maintained, but in a form which was very oppressive oy a towards the apprentices, and most injurious to the adult Prentice workmen. A bill was introduced into Parliament for limiting the proportion of apprentices to journeymen, and insisting that there should be proper indentures for each apprentices, There was an interesting debate on the second reading, when Mr Moore® expressed strong views as to the duty of the State towards the artisan population, and Sheridan® vigorously advocated the cause of the journeymen. But, as might have been expected, the principles of laissez faire prevailed; the bill was dropped, and no other remedy for the admitted evil was attempted. The whole story presents some very curious features, and it is difficult to follow the course of the transition?; 1 This was in 1794; this extraordinary disproportion appears to have been due to wholesale dismissals of journeymen in periods of slack trade (Reports, etc., Calico Printers, 1803-4, v. 594). At the same mill in 1803 there were 51 journey- men to 44 apprentices. Jb. 599. $ Report, Calico Printers, 1806, mx. 1130. 3 A boy in his first year was paid 3s. 6d. a week, and employed on work for which a journeyman would have been paid £1. 11s. 6d. Reports, Calico Printers, 1803-4, v. 596. 4 Public Bills, 1806-7, 1. 207. Compare also the Report on the Minutes of Evidence, in Reports, 1806, mx. 1127. & “He conceived it the first duty of the government to see that the subjects of he realm had bread.” Parl. Debates (23 April, 1807), 1x. 534. ¢ “What was their complaint? Why, that after having served seven years to a business confessedly injurious to their health, and which rendered them unfit for any other occupation, they were to be turned loose upon the world, supplanted in their employments by whole legions of apprentices, at 12 or 14 years of age, for the wages of 4s., 63., or 8s. per week, instead of 253., the usual average of the journeyman, by whose previous skill and ingenuity the operations of the manufacture were so amplified that children could do the work as well as journeymen.” Ib. 535. 7 It appears that there were no complaints as to the condition of the trade in - 5

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