Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (55 page)

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Domestic Records Information 24: ‘Education: Technical and Further Education
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The Education Act of 1899 put in place a register of teachers, but the National Union of Teachers protested at the manner in which the register was kept and so it was withdrawn in 1907. The Teachers' Registration Council, which had been responsible for compiling the register, was re-formed in 1912 and recommenced compiling voluntary registration lists of teachers in alphabetical order. The Council was disbanded in 1948, at which point registration ceased, but the British Origins website has digital copies of registers from 1914 to 1947 with details of teachers who began their career as early as the 1870s, at www.originsnetwork.com. The registers provide details of around 10,000 people who taught in England and Wales, giving names and maiden names in the cases of married women, dates of registration, register numbers, addresses, and details of attainments, training in teaching and their experience, listing the schools they had worked at. There is a note to say whether the teacher was retired or had died. Two of the 162 original volumes are missing, so all names starting A to ALD are absent and a small percentage of names starting ALE to BL are not there either.

In Scotland local parish authorities or burghs ran schools for centuries, and the records of these are likely to be at the local record office. An introduction to early education in Scotland can be found in James Craigie's
A Bibliography of Scottish Education before 1872
(Scottish Council for Research in Education, 1984) and thereafter the chapter on schools in Cecil Sinclair's
Tracing Scottish Local History
is worth consulting. The Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 made formal education accessible to all children, supplying local school boards with sufficient funding to open new schools and train more teachers. Older records of local authority schools are usually deposited with the county archive, though some schools have retained their records. The National Archives of Scotland has records for some schools and reports
by inspectors. A research guide to education records at the NAS is online at www.nas.gov.uk/guides/education.asp.

The National Library of Ireland holds the
Irish Education Enquiry, 1826, 2nd Report
, listing all the parochial schools in Ireland in 1824 including the names and details of teachers, and Dingfelder's
Schoolmasters and Mistresses in Ireland
contains an index to the report. The Ulster Historical Foundation has compiled a database of those teachers and schools listed in Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal and Fermanagh in 1826–7, which can be found among the occupations databases at www.ancestryireland.com. The National Archives of Ireland holds records for National Schools set up in Ireland from 1831 onwards, and has produced a research guide describing their holdings at www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/Nat_Schools/natschs.html. Of particular interest are the registers for each school dating from 1832 until 1963 and salary books from 1834 to 1918. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has corresponding files for National Schools set up in Ulster Province and has also produced an online leaflet for tracing national school records – leaflet number 5 in the Local History Series.

Like most other professions, clergymen can be found listed in specialist directories published from the nineteenth century onwards, which are widely available in major reference libraries and give details such as the clergyman's benefice, any positions previously held and his education. Since 1858
Crockford's Clerical Directory
has published biographical information about clergymen of the Church of England, the Church of Wales, the Episcopal Church of Scotland and, until 1985, the Church of Ireland. It was originally an annual publication but later was published every few years. The
Clerical Guide
published details of clergymen from 1819, and Cox's
Clergy List
was published from 1841.

The biographies of around 41,000 senior clergymen between 1066 and 1857 were published in the 1857 edition of
Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae
written by T. D. Hardy in continuation of John Le Neve's 1715 work. This work has been released in several volumes many times since, most recently edited by Joyce M. Horn who between the 1960s and recent years has had the volumes republished by dioceses. The
Society of Genealogists holds the Fawcett card index of clergymen, providing references to sources where they are mentioned, including university registers, parish records,
Gentleman's Magazine
,
Musgrave's Obituary
and probate records. The Arts and Humanities Research Council is funding the compilation of The Clergy of the Church of England Database, a biographical register of all clergymen between 1540 and 1835, though the careers of men on the database may extend past 1835. This is an on-going project that can be found online at www.theclergydatabase.org.uk.

Suggestions for further reading:

•  My Ancestor Was a Policeman: How Can I Find out More about Him?
by Antony Shearman (Society of Genealogists, 2000)

•  Records of the Medical Professions: A practical guide for the family historian
by Susan Bourne and Andrew H. Chicken (S. Bourne and A. H. Chicken, 1994)

•  A Bibliography of Scottish Education before 1872
by Jaimie Craigie (Scottish Council for Research in Education, 1984)

•  My Ancestor Was an Anglican Clergyman
by Peter Towey (Society of Genealogists Enterprises Ltd, 2006)

From the thirteenth century bishops' registers record the ordination of deacons and priests and any subsequent appointments. Until the eighteenth century the documents are usually written in Latin. They can be found among diocesan records in county record offices. If your ancestor worked in the diocese of London then records about him should be found at the Guildhall Library, which has produced an online research guide for tracing clergymen at www.history.ac.uk/gh/ clergy.htm. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century most clergymen studied at Oxford or Cambridge University, after which time theological colleges were set up to train them, so records of these may mention your ancestor.

Information about the daily toil of parish clergy can be gleaned from reading the parish records of the church from the time they worked there, such as vestry meeting minutes and parish registers signed by them. Clergymen were one of the many groups of society who were required to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown and Church of England from the late seventeenth century until the nineteenth century. The Common Pleas series at The National Archives contains Rolls of Oaths of Allegiance for clergymen between 1789 and 1836 arranged chronologically in CP 37, which can be searched in addition to the other Oath Roll series already mentioned.

Lambeth Palace Library, where records of the Archbishop of Canterbury's peculiar courts and jurisdictions are held, has produced an online research guide to tracing clergymen at www.lambethpalacelibrary.org/search/node/clergy, with tips for everyone researching clergy heritage back to the seventeenth century. For an in-depth guide to tracing Anglican clergymen read the Society of Genealogists'
My Ancestor Was an Anglican Clergyman
by Peter Towey.

This chapter will describe the way our ancestors worked as craftsmen, often in professions passed down the generations from father to son, or mother to daughter. Although the records are more scattered than in other lines of work, bearing in mind the aesthetic or prosaic qualities sometimes required in a particular field, some of the main sources are described, along with the historical context that gave rise to them.

The system of apprenticeship was practised widely in many different occupations from around the fourteenth century. The earliest apprentices were controlled by the guilds (see below) but the system soon developed independently. Apprenticeship was formalized in 1563 with the passing of the Statute of Artificers and Apprentices. The statute made it illegal to practise any trade without serving a period of apprenticeship for seven years, and this statute remained law until 1814. Those who chose to practise a trade without having first served an apprenticeship would be subject to fines and such cases would be recorded in quarter session records. Additionally, in 1601 the reforms of the poor relief system enabled parish overseers to send pauper children as apprentices, thereby increasing apprenticeship's popularity (see
Chapter 24
for further details). It remained a vital system of providing skilled workers up until the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, increasingly during the eighteenth century, many apprentices would enter into more informal agreements with masters, especially
for common trades. Moreover, as the Statute of 1563 only related to trades in existence at that date, many modern skills were bypassing the system altogether. By the nineteenth century, the vast changes brought about by the industrial and agricultural revolutions along with a large population increase meant that the system was no longer sustainable and it was no longer practised widely.

‘
Apprenticeships taught young boys a trade by binding them to a master craftsman
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The scheme of apprenticeships was to teach young boys (and occasionally girls) a profession or trade by binding them to serve a master (sometimes their father) for a number of years (usually seven), or until the individual reached the age of 21. Indeed, during an era of shorter life spans an individual could serve as an apprentice for almost a quarter of their entire life. Female apprentices would learn from the master's wife or be trained in traditionally female trades such as seamstress. The child's parents would pay a sum of money to the master in return for the master's training. The master would be responsible for clothing, housing and feeding the apprentice during his or her time serving him. An agreement, or contract, between the two parties (the child's guardian and the master) would be formalized in the form of a written document known as an indenture. These indentures would list the name of the apprentice (occasionally the age and place of his or her birth) and his or her father (occasionally including his occupation and residence), along with the master's name and trade. The apprentice was not allowed to marry or establish his or her own trade during the time of his indenture to his or her master. After completion of the period of apprenticeship the apprentice became a freeman of his company and could establish his own business in his learnt trade. These freemen were permitted to train their children in their trade without the children having to enter the formal apprenticeship system. Many apprentices did not become freemen after the completion of their service. Rather, these young men chose to continue working for their masters and were known as ‘journeymen'. Additionally, it wasn't uncommon for apprentices not to finish their term of service and, therefore, not enter the trade of their master. If an apprentice absconded or ran away his sponsor/parent would have to pay the master a surety fee for the time the master had, up until that point, spent on training the runaway. Often children living in villages in close proximity to large urban areas would be apprenticed to masters living in such towns and cities.

Surviving records for apprentices are scattered amongst The National Archives, local archives and the Society of Genealogists, and locating the appropriate record depends upon when and where your ancestor may have served.

Between the years 1710 and 1804 stamp duty was placed upon all indentures of apprenticeship (except those of pauper children). Hence, for this period only, there is a central index of apprentices as the Inland Revenue would record the process of collecting stamp duty. The Commissioners of Stamps compiled these records as they kept registers detailing the amount of income received from placing a duty on indentures. The deadline for payment was relatively flexible, being one year after the expiration of the indenture. Hence, your ancestor's record could be in a large time period, spanning the entire duration of their apprenticeship. The records themselves can be found in TNA series IR 1.

The registers should provide the names of the apprentices, dates of their indentures and names and addresses of the masters along with their trades. The registers also included the names of the apprentices' fathers until 1752. Thereafter this information was seldom recorded. There are indexes for the masters' and apprentices' names covering 1710 to 1774 available to consult in The National Archives, the Society of Genealogists and the Guildhall Library (the index of apprentices can also be searched online at www.britishorigins.com).

The National Archives also has additional apprenticeship records as follows:

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War Office Records:
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the War Office was attempting to settle the dilemma of whether to allow apprentices who had been recruited to the Army without permission of their masters to remain in service. These discussions have been referenced in
The Alphabetical Guide to War Office and Other Materials
(PRO Lists and Indexes). The piece WO 25/2962 has a list of all recruits who had joined the Army under such pretences and were subsequently returned to their masters from 1806 to 1835.

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Admiralty Records:
The Admiralty also recruited apprentices to work in the dockyards and other occupations. Their recruitment can be found in the Admiralty Digests in ADM 12. Further registers of Admiralty apprentices can be found in pieces ADM 73/421 and 448 (miscellaneous registers of Greenwich Hospital).

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Merchant Navy Apprentices:
The Merchant Navy also started recruiting apprentices to work on ships over 80 tons after the Merchant Seamen Act of 1823. Further details of these can be obtained in
Chapter 13
, which discusses Merchant Navy records in details.

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Civil Service Records:
The Civil Service Commission contains records for those being examined as apprentices from 1876 onwards in CSC 10.

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Board of Trade:
The Board of Trade has records for those apprentices working for this department in BT 19.

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Poor Law Union Records:
The main series relating to Poor Law Union records (discussed in
Chapter 24
) may also include details of pauper apprentices.

The Society has compiled an index of approximately 1,500 private indentures, dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. This index is known as
Crisp's Apprentices' Indentures
. The actual indentures if they survive may be at local archives.

The Society of Genealogists has also placed another one of its datasets online, available to search by name, at www.britishorigins.com.
This is the London Apprenticeship Abstracts, containing approximately 300,000 entries from 1442 to 1850. The entries relate to the apprentices, parents and masters of the numerous livery companies of London. The entries should also give the parish of residence of the apprentice's father.

As indentures were private documents, many have not survived, and those that do may still be in private hands or in business archives. A certain number may be held in local archives, although this varies considerably for each archive. Those that do survive may also have been published by the local archive.

Additionally, local record offices should have other collections relating to local apprentices. It may be possible to find indentures of paupers in the parish overseers' records. As disputes between master and apprentice were settled in quarter session records, these documents may also contain relevant information. Most local record offices should also have registers of apprentices, covering a variety of date ranges and trades. It is worthwhile checking on the website of your local archive to ascertain the extent of their holdings.

The choice of which trade to learn was rarely made by the apprentice but, more often, depended on what connections his family had. Fathers would often be relatives or friends with the craftsmen whom they chose as their sons' masters. If the apprentice's family was relatively wealthy, they would be apprenticed into a trade that would also be well paid. The masters themselves were often surrogate parents of the apprentice, as the apprentice would be living with the master and his family for a number of years. In certain cases apprentices would end up marrying the daughters of their masters (sometimes as a means of accelerating their career prospects with their masters), or would form close emotional bonds with the master and his family. At other times the system could be open to abuse; either by the master using the apprentice as little more then a menial servant and not teaching the adolescent his trade in earnest, or by young apprentices stealing from the master.

Guilds were another key component in the history of British trades and occupations. The very first guilds or ‘gilds' were formed in the twelfth century as religious groups but soon developed into specific trading organizations and came to be organized into three distinct bodies during the medieval period:

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Merchant Guilds:
These groups of merchants originated in the twelfth century and were umbrella organizations for a variety of crafts and trades in urban areas.

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Religious Guilds:
These guilds were founded on religious grounds and aimed to provide charitable support to the local community by operating schools and hospitals. They operated until the Reformation, and were subsequently abolished.

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Craft Guilds:
These guilds were formed during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and were specific to individual trades or crafts (such as tailors, cobblers, blacksmiths, etc.). They controlled and regulated such crafts or trades.

By the sixteenth century the craft guilds became the main type of guild and absorbed merchant guilds into themselves. They became the dominant forces in the manufacturing sectors of the economy, each guild becoming an effective trade union for that particular industry, sometimes even monopolizing the craft. Each individual who joined the guild would be placed into one of three different categories depending on his skill level: apprentices (discussed above, those learning the trade), journeymen (newly qualified in his chosen trade, but without enough experience to set up his own business and, therefore, still working for
the master) and masters (those fully qualified and established in the trade). Guilds operated as monopolies in that they were given exclusive rights to practise their trade and craft and could also control who entered their guild. As mentioned above, initially, apprenticeships were also solely controlled by guilds. Guilds also often provided welfare support to members, giving pensions to their elderly or infirm members, or their widows and children.

London became a particularly important centre for guilds. Indeed, different guilds in London each had their own distinguishing uniforms (or livery) for those in senior positions and, as such, they came to be known as ‘livery companies'. There were numerous different livery companies operating in London, numbering almost 80 in the nineteenth century. All sorts of occupations were regulated by these liveries, including bakers, butchers, drapers, haberdashers, wax chandlers, carpenters, masons, musicians, plumbers, fletchers and weavers, to name but a few. The 48 companies in existence in 1515 were organized into an order of preference by the City's Court of Aldermen. This ordering was based upon each company's political or economic power and the twelve most important were known as the ‘great twelve'. The most important of these was the ‘Worshipful Company of Mercers'. Each company had halls where members could entertain their guests or conduct any relevant business, although many were destroyed either in the Great Fire of London or in the Blitz. The livery companies could monopolize their trade in the City of London by obtaining royal grants or charters. Sometimes certain livery companies' monopolies extended outside the area of the City. Although most guilds throughout the country declined in importance after the eighteenth century, the London livery companies were still influential during the nineteenth century. Indeed, many of these livery companies survive to the present day in London, although not as regulatory bodies.

Most guilds would include the leading masters of the trade, a few wardens who would gain their position by election, assistants, freemen, journeymen and apprentices. It was possible to become a freeman (i.e. to gain membership) of a guild by the following means: membership was granted if the individual's father belonged to the guild (patrimony), if the individual had served the appropriate time as an apprentice (servitude) or the individual would buy his membership (redemption). As mentioned, most newly qualified apprentices worked as journeymen. This title derived from the French word for day (
jour
) and referred to the fact that such men were day labourers who were paid daily. Only after a number of years would a journeyman become a master.