Documents & Databases: Apprenticeship Project

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I. The Institution of Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is training in an art, trade, or craft, under a legal agreement that defines the relationship between master and learner as well as the duration and conditions of their relationship.  It existed in ancient Babylon, Greece, and Rome, as well as in early modern Europe. By 1609 apprenticeship was already an ancient institution. It was the only way of entering town crafts and trades with proper training. It was also the prime means to enter the medical and legal professions. Society was comparatively mobile and even the less well off had a wide choice of occupation. In theory apprenticeship led a young man to settlement and citizenship in town as a respected professional or artisan. The apprenticeship system was well suited to domestic industry. The apprentices left home and moved to their master’s house, where they both resided and worked. Consequently, an artificial family relationship was created, with the terms of apprenticeship taking the place of kinship. Masters agreed to instruct, to give shelter, food, clothing, and care during illness. After the term apprentices either became journeymen working for a master for wages, or set up as masters themselves.

The basis for apprenticeship in England in the 17^th Century was the Statute of Artificers of 1563, which defined its conditions. It was passed to end undesirable practices and meet the demand for labour, while preventing overcrowding. Under the statute, exercising many crafts, from apothecary to merchant was forbidden to those not apprenticed, and, importantly, the nature of employment was determined by the boy's parentage because property qualifications meant their parents had to be above a prescribed limit of wealth or status. The act established a 1:3 ratio between the journeymen and apprentices. Further legislation between 1559 and 1563 stated a minimum length of term of seven years, that apprenticeship records had to be kept and the apprenticeship was not meant to expire until age 24.

How closely was this legislation followed in the 17^th century? In 1606 a petition to the Privy Council complained apprenticeship registers were not being kept. The Act of 1563 was undoubtedly not universally applied to every town. Merson said that the ‘statutory regulations were never systematically enforced in smaller towns and villages…sufficient records to permit a comprehensive study in rural areas are not available.[1]’. As there was so much variation in apprenticeship practices, it is necessary to enquire into the customs of each individual town. Abundant evidence exists for the many towns and individual guilds or companies that recorded new apprentices. These sources hold significant information concerning the social and geographical origins of apprentices.

I studied the apprenticeship register of the port town of Southampton from the City of Southampton Archives. It covers the period between 8^th February 1609 and 22^nd February 1740, when 664 apprentices were entered. This period saw significant changes in both urban and rural society, when apprenticeship changed in character. Details of Southampton apprenticeship town records exist since the 15^th Century. Even before 1563 they had a 7-year minimum requirement in Southampton. No book has survived from the 15^th and 16^th century. Merson says ‘it is probable that there was not one kept[2]’.

II. Age and Length Of Term

During the period the movement towards a uniform seven-year term is obvious. Graph 1 and Figure A show that at the start of the period only half the terms were seven years but by 1670-83 it had risen to 88%.

Figure A: Length Of Term of Apprenticeship In Southampton 1610-1683

            The proportion of over 7 years records decreases from 47% in the 1^st hundred records (1610-1620) to 2% in the 6^th hundred records (1670-83). This could be because those who had longer terms were apprentices earlier if they were orphans or because their parents could not afford the premium and therefore, the apprentice ‘owed’ the master several years mature work instead. These practices decreased after the civil war (1642-9) in Southampton because charitable funds gave these apprentices grants, but they were recorded, in my opinion wrongly, in the poor child register instead of the general register. After 1650 seven years generally applied throughout the country, except when the boy was abnormally young. Over the period two thirds of Southampton terms are 7 years but there are significant variations, from 3 years (the apprentice had already served under another man) to 14 years. Elsewhere in the country it was as long as 15 years[3]. There is no correlation between length of term and social status, geographical origin, or choice of occupation.

The majority of guilds in English towns stated a minimum age to take apprentices. It varied between 12 and 16 but was usually 14. Apprenticing children and adolescents was inappropriate to trades requiring muscular strength. Most apprentices bound between their mid and late teens.

However, by the statute of 1563, apprenticeship was not to end before the age of 24. According to these figures I would expect the usual term to be 10 instead of the 7 years the chart shows. It is likely it was the statutory provision about the age at the end that was broken, many serving only until they were 21. Unfortunately, the Southampton register never gives the apprentice’s age, preventing analysis.

III. Declining Entry Into Apprenticeship

When the indentures are analysed chronologically (Graph 2), a clear decline of the apprenticeship boom of the early 17^th century is in evidence in Southampton. Merson said ‘by the death of Queen Anne, enrolment had virtually ceased[4]’. Apprenticeships fall from 93 between 1610-19 and 134 1630-9 to 13 between 1690 and 1699 and 0 1720-9. Between 1670 and 1710 there were only half as many recruits per decade in Southampton compared to the previous 40 years.

There are many possible explanations for the decline. By 1730, a very stable, hereditary civic elite had been established. The prospects for the sons of lesser landowners and rural artisans were inferior to their counterparts in 1610. Population stability and economic expansion led to higher wage levels between 1660-1750 than in the previous century. The gap between richer and poorer urban inhabitants widened, as did the gap between the wealth of town centres and suburbs. Apprenticeship was greatly affected by these factors. The economic buoyancy and new industries provided work for the children of the poor, which could not lead to self-employed mastership, the traditional purpose of apprenticeship.

A factor specific to Southampton that may have been responsible for the fall in entries could have been its economic slump, which began around 1670. At this time Southampton’s economic importance and business links rapidly deteriorated. In his History Of Southampton Patterson wrote that by 1700 its ‘economic importance had reduced the town to a minor position after its medieval and early Tudor prominence[5]’. He claimed that in 1700 only very minor industry existed: silk, paper, bricks, tobacco pipes and ship-making. Dr R. A. Pelham said guild apprenticeship imposed ‘a stranglehold upon the economic life of the town and prolonged the relatively low state of its fortunes[6]’. Although it is accepted that the town slumped to unimportance during the period, historians like Christopher Dyer argue for a positive reassessment of the town in the early modern period. Further evidence of the town’s ill health can be seen in its low population, figures that are exacerbated when the huge urban growth at the time is considered.  In 1700 it was a third less than the 1596 census figure of 4200[7]. The fact that 1700 people died in the plague of 1665 must have adversely affected apprenticeship numbers.

             Southampton’s gradual decline in apprenticeship during the period is mirrored throughout the county, especially between 1720 and 1740. Even London saw a striking decline in apprenticeship during the 17^th century. While it is important to remember that at this time the population of England stagnated at 5m in the years leading up to 1700 and then only gradually increased to 5.7m by 1750[8], the nationwide apprenticeship slump occurred despite continuing growth of existing major towns, like Norwich, as well as unincorporated towns like Manchester and Birmingham entering the urban league table for the first time.

Brooks said ‘by 1700 both the social and geographical range of apprenticeship recruitment had contracted[9]’. He described it as being diluted[10]. Self recruitment increased and long distance migrations and formal placement in another family was replaced with the apprentice living at home, earning low wages. Contrary to the traditional view of historians, the guilds remained vital institutions. Their memberships remaining high until the 1720s, after which they fell. However, most guildsmen after 1700 were recruited by other means than apprenticeship – usually by redemption (buying membership) or by patrimony (following in their father’s footsteps). Apprenticeship became ‘increasingly inbred during the first half of eighteenth century[11]’. For example, 41% of apprentices to the Newcastle Merchant Adventurers were from the town[12]. The trend towards economic oligarchy, at the time of great prosperity of the urban middling sort in the early 18^th Century, was not offset by increases either in the profession or outside the occupations traditionally associated with guilds. The number of attorneys and solicitors hardly rose at all between 1730 and 1800 despite large increases in population during the later 18^th century[13]. Brooks thought that the high levels of self-recruitment reflect a drop in the ‘push’ factors of the 1600s that led people to move the countryside, such as the high ratio of children to adults.

Between 1720 and 1740 apprenticeship remained a means of placing children in growth sectors of the 18^th century economy, such as textiles and medical professions. Yet as apprenticeship never kept pace with urban growth in the early 18^th century, some social groups were no longer willing or able to use apprenticeship to make the transition to working life, even though it remained the most certain method of advancing into the most profitable occupations. Many less wealthy families could not afford modest premiums, preferring to send their children directly instead into wage labour. For many families, even the moderately well off, formal apprenticeship may have become prohibitively expensive. For example, two thirds of Surrey apprenticeship premiums 1711-1731 were valued over £20 and the average in London was £28[14].  Recruits came primarily the relatives or associates of men already in the business, or else from the middling or lesser gentry. It is very important to remember that the decline could be a result of fewer apprentices registering or the quality of bookkeeping in Southampton deteriorating. The latter clearly occurs when the records are analysed. Towards the end of the register the ‘quality’ of the records undoubtedly deteriorates. There is far less information given and more ‘unintelligible’ or ‘irrelevant’ records, such as 635 and 658.

I was surprised that the upheaval of the Civil War (1642-9) caused a comparatively small decrease in enrolments. This is shown in the table below:

Figure B: Enrolments Per Year In The General Register in the 1640s: the Decade Of The Civil War

Across the whole country the civil war caused a pronounced decrease in enrolments. It is accepted that after it the apprenticeship laws were probably not really enforced for some time. The decline in Southampton does not appear to be related to the war.

IV. Place Of Origin Of Apprentices

Apprentices’ geographical origins are one of the most interesting areas of this study. Apprenticeship involved a considerable degree of geographical mobility. It was ‘the primary means that the urban social structure reproduced itself[15]’ so apprentices were prepared to move long distances. There is evidence of migration in the table below:

Figure C: To Show Domicile Of Father For Southampton Apprentices 1610-1683[16]

385 (over half the apprentices) came from outside the Southampton town and 196 from outside Hampshire. At the start of the period most came from farming communities rather than other towns. The majority of those from outside Hampshire came from the western counties of Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset (80 out of 163). Southampton’s connections to the east and north were far less developed.

The distance people were willing to move depended first and foremost on the importance of the town to which they were migrating. For example, Newcastle, a fast growing regional capital drew the majority of its apprentices from Durham and Northumberland. London’s ‘long distance magnetism was much more pronounced[17]’. Of the 536 apprentices listed in the chamberlain's register from 1309 to 1312, 76%, had names with a place reference from outside London. By 1550 it had risen to 83%[18]. There were comparatively low levels of long-distance migration to Southampton, whose ‘pull’ was short distance compared to York, London and Bristol. 33% of Newcastle merchant adventurers 1625-30 came from outside the town[19] and 36% of London carpenters 1690-93. In provincial centre like Norwich and Bristol many apprentices arrived from regions in which rural industries, like textiles, proliferated. Southampton’s connection with the capital was faint, for only 5 boys were apprenticed in Southampton during the entire period. I was surprised that someone came from Ireland. Would he have gone back when sworn a freeman? It is interesting that 13 apprentices came from Winchester compared to only 1 from Portsmouth. As Portsmouth was a far larger town, perhaps it sent less because it had an adequate apprenticeship system of its own.

Merson and Patterson contend that after 1670 the proportion of apprentices coming from outside Southampton significantly fell. Between 1683 and 1710 just two out of fifty boys from outside Hampshire and the Isle of Wight were entered, and one of those was from Salisbury in Wiltshire. Migration is usually as a result of regional imbalances in population, prosperity and employment levels. Southampton was now perceived to be less prosperous, so less migration would be expected. While it is true that the percentage from Southampton town increased from 32% 1610-20 to 50% 1670-83, when all those from Hampshire are grouped together, the figures (graph 3) indicate there is no fall. Throughout the period the majority are always from Hampshire and there is surprisingly little migration. The 6 pie charts show that the consistency of apprentices origins throughout the period. The proportion of apprentices from Southampton town remains around 30% for most of the seventeenth century, and around 40% when the adjacent parishes are included[20]. It temporarily fell to 22% in the 1620’s, but remained 40% until about 1670.

The country as a whole saw significant changes in the geographical origins of apprentices after 1670. Where before 1640 guild recruits came primarily from rural areas, by the 1690s London, Newcastle and Bristol guilds were refreshing themselves increasingly from their own native populations. The change in the geographical origins of recruits went hand in hand with the oligarchy. It was urban merchants and craftsmen’s sons entering all the top positions. The overall decline in migrants from the north to the south was because of the development of northern industrial and urban centres and thus apprenticeship. This decline is not evident in Southampton because there were so few apprentices from the north (less than 1%) to make it irrelevant.

I expected those serving their apprenticeships in the early years of the period to be shown in later years as masters taking apprentices. In fact, it is difficult to trace such successions.  This points to apprentices leaving Southampton after they have finished their apprenticeship to become skilled craftsmen in other towns. Krausmen said only a third of Bristol apprentices were made freemen[21]. The Southampton Register Of Free Commoners might enable more general conclusions about the proportion of Southampton Apprentices who stayed in the town after their term[22].

V. The Changing Social Composition Of Apprenticeship

During the period (1609-1740) the institution of apprenticeship went through various changes involving the social status and choice of craft of apprentices. Brooks said ‘During the course of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries apprenticeship both declined and changed character[23]’.  Social and economic trends are evident when studying the rank and occupation of the Southampton apprentices’ fathers:

 Figure D: Showing The Rank Or Occupation Of Fathers Of Apprentices In Southampton 1610-1710

         The table is difficult to interpret, because titles of rank and the status of occupations both changed in the period as the economy advanced. For example, as capitalism spread to new crafts, an apprenticeship as clothier could mean anything from a humble workman to a merchant employer. Despite these problems, certain trends are evident in the records. Over 90% of the apprentices from wealthy backgrounds (87 are from esquires and gentlemen) are apprenticed to mercantile crafts rather than handicrafts. In the early 17^th Century they were merchants, mercers, grocers and drapers. Towards the end of the period they were entering professions like surgeon and new trades like apothecary and goldsmith. In each exceptional case when a gentleman’s son entered a ‘lowly’ handicraft, such as shoemaker (217), tailor (486) or feltmaker (487), it was solely because of financial difficulties due to a deceased father. Unsurprisingly, merchants’ sons almost always went into mercantile trades, often to their father[24]. Further evidence of the ‘exclusivity’ of mercantile crafts is that handicraftsmen’s and petty tradesmen’s sons were very rarely merchants, probably due to the prohibitive cost. During the period only 6 mercantile trade apprentices had fathers who were 'craftsmen or tradesmen'.

Between 1550 and 1650 apprenticeship numbers steadily increased. While everywhere trailed behind the stunning rises of London, provincial towns, like Southampton recovered from the 15^th century slump. This was because of the combination of the ‘pull’ of the earning power of the towns, and the ‘push’ factors from rural conditions. The majority of new apprentices came from rural areas, smaller provincial towns and villages. Migration to a town was easily their best prospect, to such an extent that apprenticeship recruitment remained high even when urban economies slumped in the 1610s and 1620s. Brooks said ‘mobility for the less well off from the countryside to the towns was probably easier in 1660 then it had been before[25]’. Apprenticeship also greatly benefited from the success of substantial small farmers, the yeomantry. Although at this time apprentices’ social backgrounds were diverse, the premiums insured very few recruits came from the third of the population who lived merely on wages. The vast majority were sons of urban tradesmen, artisans, professionals and the sons of small to medium sized landholders. Between 1610 and 1650 the proportion from urban mercantile, trade and artisan backgrounds remained around 40% of all apprentices in provincial towns[26], although they mostly entered handicrafts rather than the leading occupations.

A striking feature of the table is the high proportion of yeomen and husbandmen’s (lesser landholders with incomes often not far above subsistence level) sons at the beginning of the period, despite the restrictive clauses of the statute of 1563 that only allowed sons of townsmen or of forty-shilling freeholders into the majority of crafts. In the 1610’s their sons appeared twice as often in the register as those of merchants, tradesman and craftsmen.

Historians like Linda Colley depict a significant and increasing degree of mobility between the gentry and trade during the sixteenth and 17^th centuries. But what was its composition and scope? Many who used the status label gent were not landed gentlemen. In the period status inflation was rife. Brooks said up to 20% of ‘gent’ recruits were in reality merely the sons of surgeons and attorneys[27].  While the word gent regularly appears in the register, the superior titles of esquire and knight are relatively rare (only 7 - less than 1% in the register). Even in England’s most elite companies such as the London grocers, just 4% of entrants in the period 1629-32 were from esquires or above[28]. The elite were rarely apprenticed in Southampton. 80 out of 87 gentry families were above the yeomantry but below the greater gentry. Their fathers were ‘middle’ members of landed society, measuring their ‘incomes of hundreds rather than thousands of pounds[29]’.

Whilst recruitment from the lesser gentry greatly increased 1610-1660, the husbandry and then the yeomantry substantially declined. The rise in the number of the sons of ‘gents’ from 7 in the first hundred records (1610-1620) to 19 in the fifth hundred records (1648-1669) is at the expense of the yeoman and husbandmen. They went from 37% of recruits in the first hundred records of the register to 10% in the fifth hundred records. They had outnumbered the gentlemen 6:1 in the 1610s but now only had half as many. This decline in Southampton was even more pronounced in the elite London companies, where husbandmen’s sons virtually disappeared[30]. Brooks said ‘sons of husbandmen, and to a lesser extent yeomen’s sons, were gradually squeezed out of the more elite occupation during the later years of James I [31]’. Part of this apparent change in the fortune of husbandmen’s sons may be attributable to status inflation, because more and more husbandmen were describing themselves as yeoman, but this was clearly not the only factor at work because Yeoman recruits to the London fishmongers declined from 41% in 1614-16 to 28% 1631-40[32]. There were similar developments in Newcastle and Bristol. In Bristol Husbandmen dropped from 21% in 1606 to 7% in 1690[33]. However, in Southampton, after 1670, a contrary tendency set in, husbandmen and yeoman once more outnumbering the gentry, demonstrating the beginning of the 18^th Century gentry’s ‘contempt for provincial trade[34]’.

The occupations chose by Yeoman’s sons reflect their declining status after 1683. Whereas husbandmen’s sons were almost always apprenticed to handicrafts, yeomen’s sons were in the 1610s more often, and even in the 1630’s equally often, apprenticed to mercantile crafts. However, in the late 17^th century the vast majority were humble handicrafts such as baker, shoemaker and tailor. There was not a single merchant. This could reflect the ‘lowering’ of the word yeoman, or it may be a result of rising premiums for Southampton merchants becoming prohibitively high.

The rise in the proportion of yeoman’s sons after 1683 from 11% to 22% and simultaneous fall in the proportion of tradesmen’s and craftsmen’s sons (i.e. mainly town boys) from 51% to 36% can be explained by the change in the use of the term yeoman, which was now applied to those described as husbandmen in 1610. Evidence is that in the early decades of the century over half the yeoman’s sons were apprenticed to mercantile crafts but between 1683 and 1710 75% entered merely handicrafts. In the latter half of the 17^th century more and more sons of Southampton tradesmen were being apprenticed with the aid of charitable funds and enrolled in the poor child register instead of the general register.

VI. Analysis Of Trades

The tables show the trades and crafts to which apprentices were bound:

 Figures E and F: Apprentices Trades In The Southampton General Register 1610-1710

There are problems with the categorisation of the crafts. This is because many occupations overlap. For example, Rigby said that ‘merchants engaged in virtually any activity that would bring a profit[35]’. Those described as chandlers and vinters, could also be described as merchants, although I have designated them victualling trades.  Problems also surround the cloth making crafts. As apprentices were often trained in several of them, it is impossible to tell if they were being trained as merchant-clothiers or humble workmen. A clothier might also be a merchant. I therefore treated the many different cloth-making trades as the same occupation[36]. Another problem concerns crafts whose status altered during the period. For example, goldsmith from handicraft to mercantile craft. Surgeon rose from manual craft to a prestigious profession. As many as 50 different occupations are mentioned. The register shows the emergence of new occupations, such as trunkmaker (469) or periwig maker (651) and curious specialisations, such as sheargrinder (380) or blockmaker (495).

It is hard to draw conclusions from the table because it tends to conceal the decline over time of apprenticeship. Also, it is impossible to be sure, from this evidence alone, whether a change in the percentages for a particular occupation reflects a rise in the importance of that occupation in Southampton or simply an increase or decrease in the practise of apprenticeship (or enrolment levels) in that occupation. Apprenticeship was consistently strongest in the urban skilled handicrafts, such as tailor and shoemaker, in which capitalism still had hardly any advantages and the small working master remained long after the end of the period. 

There is a steep rise in the proportion of merchant apprenticeships from 11% in the 1610’s to 37% in the 1638-48 but then a decline to only 5% 1670-1710. There is contrary movement in the proportion apprenticed to cloth-making, which cancels it out. Patterson said that ‘in the list of persons admitted between 1673 and 1726 as free commoners to practise trades or crafts in Southampton, the 105 whose occupation is stated include only one woolcomber, one rug maker and nobody else associated with the cloth trade[37]’. This shows the decline in the numbers apprenticed to the cloth trade. Many of the early seventeenth-century Southampton capitalists, especially among the French Protestant community, were simultaneously merchants and clothiers. Although they were sometimes designated by both terms in the 1610s, as they became richer they gradually changed to the more prestigious ‘merchant’. Furthermore, while early entries give enough detail to enable merchant’s apprentice to be classified into cloth-making, Merson thought ‘the brevity of later entries has almost certainly led to cloth-making apprentices being wrongly called merchants[38]’. Thus the apparent decline in apprenticeship to cloth-making after 1620 probably never occurred. However, it might reflect a slackening of recording apprenticeships. Merchants occurring more often could be down to the advance of capitalist organization and of the larger employer.

If the table is not a reliable guide to the rise and fall of occupations, it is virtually worthless in terms of the actual distribution of employment in the town. This is because apprenticeship was more common in some occupations than in others. For example, tailors and shoemakers account represent 36% of entries in the 1610s while there are no bakers or butchers apprenticed in the entire period and just one fishmonger[39]. Brewing, unlike baking, had been organised on a capitalist basis even in the 16^th century and this might explain the many apprenticeships to it[40]. I was surprised how few apprenticeships to fisherman or mariners are mentioned (only 4), especially with Southampton being a major port. The majority of them almost certainly followed their fathers without entering into formal apprenticeship. The 1563 statute stated they must register in the nearest corporate town, was surely violated. There is no apprenticeship into agriculture in the register, although as hundred Southampton based farmers are mentioned as fathers of boys in other crafts many boys obviously became farmers. I was surprised that candlestick makers, who seem to be prominent in the other registers I have looked at, were never mentioned.

VII. The Economics Of Apprenticeship

The size of apprenticeship premiums did not have to be stated in registers by law until 1709 and is never directly stated in the Southampton register. I do not think there were many premiums paid in Southampton, and the town’s low economic position guarantees there were hardly any high premiums. However, entries like 143, 372 and 391 all imply that premiums have been paid. In some entries like 163 the parents had to seal a £300 bond for the apprentices ‘truth’. All these entries are in the wealthiest mercantile trades.

The cost of being apprenticed consistently rose throughout the period, in some trades more than others. In the country as a whole, the range of premiums paid to masters could be enormous, from hundreds of pounds in mercantile trades, to a couple of pounds or less in small crafts in towns and countryside. Premiums were as high as £100 in 1610. By 1660, premiums of several hundred pounds became common in London, though this was certainly not the case in Southampton. By 1700 £400 might be required for elite wholesaling trades or overseas merchants[41]. Obviously as values increased only richer parents could afford to pay them.

The rise in premiums 1650-1750 results from complex demographic, social and economic circumstances. More recruits from the gentry and the economic recession increased demand for places and guilds limited numbers through high premiums. The guilds ‘often prevented outsiders from entering by large premiums, and restricted apprenticeship to those of native birth: sons of guild members or of their wealthy neighbours[42]’. In the wake of the Glorious Revolution, the squirearchy consolidated their dominance of property. For rich urban families, apprenticeship became a certainty. They monopolised the elite occupations in London and established incorporated towns. The higher premiums made it easier and advantageous for the sons of merchants and tradesmen to follow in their fathers’ footsteps. Rising premiums, combined with the1563 status-restricting laws reduced, but never eradicated apprenticeship of the very poor. Premiums were the major reason the social profile apprenticeship skewed towards the upper classes during the period.

Southampton apprentices were rarely paid wages, except the nominal 1p a year, which often occurs. However, in one case, the boy is not to live with his master, remaining at home. He was ‘to be paid 3s for every bit of cloth he weave[43]’. This ‘outdoor apprenticeship’ became commonplace throughout England by 1700.

VIII. Orphan Apprentices

The proportion of boys whose fathers were deceased declined from around 27% between 1610-20 to 20% between1683-1710. This decline might be because of the increase in charitable funds to provide premiums, which caused many orphans (whose parents were by no means poor) to be entered in the poor child register instead of the General Register. It might be because fewer apprentices were registered in the records towards the end of the period.

Figure G: To Show Percentages of Orphan Apprentices 1610-1710

IX. Female Apprentices

It is hard to quantify the numbers of female apprentices in Southampton because the register just gives an initial rather than the name i.e. R. Abbot instead of Richard Abbot. However, it usually says ‘his father’, showing the apprentice was male. My universally male results do not correspond with the situation throughout the nation. Female occupations were principally, but not exclusively, distinct from those of males. They are hard to analyse because women are not well represented in the documents produced by male dominated guilds and urban corporations. In this period girls served formal apprenticeships as throwsters, mercers and notaries[44]. Their training was often very similar to that of boys, even when, as in the case of Agnes Hecche of 15^th century York, who was trained by her father to be an armourer, it did not involve a formal apprenticeship. H.C. Swanson calls it a ‘misapprehension’ that men and women did different types of work. He found examples of women in numerous services, trades and ‘every conceivable form of manufacture[45]’. Swanson found evidence of female victuallers (butchers, fishmongers and brewers), textile workers (spinners, marshals, pin-makers and founders) and wills of carpenters, shipwrights and plumbers stating their widows will complete the training of their apprentices.

In Southampton, records like 164 and 338 apprentice the boy to the master and his wife. Some records state the apprentice should serve his master’s widow if the master dies (30). Women who were engaged in separate crafts from their husbands were only allowed to take on female apprentices, but they sometimes took on boys. Hutton claims that many widows did not continue the business ‘presumably because they were not allowed to[46]’ a claim supported by the evidence for Coventry where widows could neither train apprentices or take on journeyman. Yet at York, when a man married the widow of a tapiter (worsted-maker) of a tanner, he was allowed to carry on the craft so that ‘in many instances, it was the widow who carried on the business and on remarriage instructed her new husband in the craft if necessary’. In London as population growth and the labour supply increased in the 16^th century, women were denied formal apprenticeships and hence skilled labour opportunities. In York it was a slump in the urban economy that reduced female apprenticeship.

X. Analysis Of masters

The apprenticeship system is often criticised as merely a means for master craftsmen to acquire virtually free labour. However, the relationship between master and apprentice was highly regulated by indentures setting out the terms of the contract. For example, masters had to instruct the apprentice in the ‘trade or mystery which he useth[47]’ and provide him with meat and drink, linen, shoes, and everything needed for his particular trade. Masters had to be married, householders, living in the town and native to it. A master was a full citizen of a town, and many towns were fastidious about their citizens. He was expected to have established business. These requirements kept many some in continual journeyman status, forever working for other men[48].

Fathers often took sons as apprentices. The numbers of Southampton apprentices bound to their father significantly increased in the period, from 9% in the first hundred records to 27% between in the sixth hundred[49]. Many entries show apprentices bound to other relatives, such as an uncle (88), stepfather (443), or elder brother (41). Men could be bound to a man and his son (78) or to two partners of a business. Widows were the only women ‘masters’ in the register. They only appear rarely but I think this is probably because widows taking over their deceased husband’s apprentices were not entered. When a widow took on a new apprentice, it was usually her own son (237, 584, 628, 637). However, there were exceptions, like Judith de la Motte, who had already been in partnership with her husband and continued a considerable business in her widowhood. In Southampton most merchants or craftsmen took one apprentice every ten years. Some exceptions took up to four in a decade For example, John Meader took three blockmaking apprentices within a short time[50]. While perhaps exploiting cheap juvenile labour these masters might have been excellent teachers or profited from high premiums.

XI. The Realities Of Apprenticeship

The apprentices’ relationship with the master was often a difficult arrangement. Each apprentice agreed to serve his master, keep his secrets, obey his commandments and to never fornicate, gamble, or visit alehouses. He was a stranger in a new household, where discipline might be more severe or the living conditions inferior. If the arrangement was compatible it could lead to lasting devotion, but often produced deep resentment. The relationship was not simply one of domination; the master was not seen as a complete replacement of the parents. Krausman said ‘the master never completely assumed the total and exclusive authority of a father[51]’. The fundamental difference was that the master was using the apprentice for his own interests and benefits. The fact many apprentices relied heavily on relatives or friends for advice highlights masters’ inadequacies.

Masters often appeared in court for abusing or neglecting their obligations. The court could place apprentices with another master or return the premium. Complaints in court cases included that their master was dead and the widow did not keep up the trade, that the master stole their money; failed to provide adequate food and clothing, did not teach the trade, or employed excessive physical punishment. For example, John Malmayn complained that his master, John Coggeshale, a haberdasher, had agreed to a ten-year apprenticeship contract with him, but after four years he had learned virtually nothing. He claimed his only work ‘was to carry a child in the streets[52]’. After four years of baby-sitting, he was transferred to another master. Mayhew said as many as a half of apprenticeship may have ended prematurely[53]. 

In the 16^th and 17^th centuries apprenticeship was a central feature in the relationship between adults and children; and it generated a distinct set of educational and social values. Apprenticeship was seen as very important by parents. Scholars like M.J. Mascuch argue ‘finding a niche for their children that would eventually allow them to maintain a household was the overriding imperative[54]’. Some historians see in apprenticeship a lack of affection in early modern family relations. They condemn the parents who were willing to send children to often exploitative masters. However, there is much evidence to show parents spent a great deal of time finding a suitable occupation, home and, most importantly master. Ilana Krausman said parents  ‘negotiated with their children[55]’. He gives the example of Benjamin Briggs, who, aged 13 had the freedom of choose a shoemaking apprenticeship. Parents stayed in contact after the placement had been made. Defenders of early modern apprenticeship like Lynn H. Nelson believe ‘sending ones young children away from the home is not necessarily a sign of exploitation or a lack of love[56]’. Most parents in the period thought apprenticeship morally prepared children for adult life, teaching them about independence, honesty and Christian charity as well as their trade.

Once the apprenticeship was completed there were many benefits available to guild members in Southampton. For example, they had the right of first purchase of any goods offered for sale, could keep a wine-tavern, and sell honey, salt, fish and other goods[57]. However, many who completed their apprenticeship merely became journeymen, employed by those with their own workshops. In terms of their relations with their employers, there was no difference between the journeymen and those labourers with no apprenticeship. Many journeymen never became masters.

XII. Conclusion

I could have also studied areas such as the end sum paid to apprentices, the delay between indentures and enrolments, the maintenance provisions often stated in the entries and, perhaps most interestingly, the Southampton free commoners register. The institution of apprenticeship would become clearer on their analysis because we could see what happened after the end of the term – the true health of apprenticeship was surely the level of career success it brought to apprentices. 17^th Century apprenticeship is a theme that is certainly worth the closer attention of social historians.

Apprenticeship in the 17^th century was about more than merely acquiring skills. Apprenticeship was the social maturation or socialisation of young men, where they learnt adult behaviour patterns such as to act independently[58].  Despite its undeniable decline, apprenticeship ‘remained the best method of advancing into the most profitable occupations[59]’. I agree with Krausman that ‘however crucial, the decision on their marriage was a final rather than the focal point in a long process that prepared young men to set up for themselves, and through which they truly came of age[60]’.

During the period the institution of apprenticeship narrowed as it declined, with it many peoples prospects diminished. Prohibitive premiums prevented many parents from entering their sons, although occurred less pronounced in Southampton than in the rest of the country. The economic and social oligarchy became entrenched. New industries, based on less skilled labour took the place of apprenticeship for much of the middling sort. By 1800 the institution of apprenticeship, vibrant in 1630, was virtually dead. As Brooks said ‘the middling sort had been replaced by the middle and working classes[61].

Bibliography

• C. Brooks, The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England, 1550-1800, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1994. 
• R. Finlay and L. Beier, London 1500-1700: The Making of the Metropolis, New York, Longman, 1986 
• B. A. Krausman, 'Service and the coming of age', Continuity and Change 3, 1988 
• J. Lane, Coventry Apprentices And Their Masters, 1781-l806 
• D. F. McKenZie, London Stationers' Company Apprentices, 1605-1640, Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, Charlottesvile, USA, 1961 
• M. Mitterauer, 'Servants and youth', Continuity and Change 5, 1, 1990 
• S. L. Rappaport, Worlds within Worlds: structures of life in sixteenth-century London, Cambridge University press, New York, 1989 
• S.H. Rigby, English society in the later middle ages: class status and gender, Macmillan, London, 1995 
• S. R. Smith, 'London apprentices as adolescents', Past and Present 6,1,1973 
• A. Temple Patterson, A History Of Southampton: Volume One An Oligarchy In Decline 1700-1835, Camelot Press, Southampton, 1966 
• J. Wareing, 'Recruitment of Apprentices', Journal of Historical Geography 6, 1980 
• A. J. Willis and Merson, A Calendar of Southampton Apprenticeship Registers, 1609-1740, Southampton Records Series. University of Southampton Press, 1968 
• A. Yarborough, 'Apprentices as adolescents', Journal of Social History 13, 1979

• http://www.mailbag.com/users/jswatson/Apprenticeship.htm Apprenticeship and Nurture
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1248apprentice-barber.html Medieval Sourcebook:
  Apprenticeship Agreements: To a Barber, 1248
• http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol12/12ch1.html Barbara A. Hanawalt  Narratives of a Nurturing Culture: Parents and Neighbours in Medieval England.
• http://www.britannica.com/bcom/magazine/article/0,5744,7397,00.html?query=medieval%20apprenticeship C. Dyer, How Urban Was Medieval England? From History Today, January 1997. A
• http://www.ukans.edu/~medieval/melcher/matthias/t90/0335.html Lynn H. Nelson ‘Apprenticeship as a way of raising children’.
• http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/bus/A0804422.html  Apprenticeship Article. Accessed 7/10/2000
• http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/medsoc/town.htm Organisation of Medieval Society: The Towns.
• http://library.thinkquest.org/12834/text/marketplace.html Evolution of Trade and Apprenticeship.
• http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/migrate/Text/shampc.htm Online reproduction of the calendar of Southampton apprenticeship registers, 1609-1740

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