Like us, our ancestors, unless they were independently wealthy, had to work to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their heads. For our earlier ancestors, this often meant working the land or fishing the seas but when the industrial revolution brought change to the employment landscape, the growing number of jobs in the manufacturing sector pulled the rural population from the villages and hamlets of their ancestral homes to the expanding industrial towns and cities.
This change in the socioeconomic structure of Britain meant that rather than working on their own account as they had in generations past, our ancestors were increasingly working for someone else. How then, did they find employment?
They read the help wanted section.
Prior to the industrial revolution, many of our ancestors found work by attending local fairs where prospective employers would come looking for domestic staff, farm labourers and other workers. Other times, they found employment through word of mouth, recommended by previous employers or by people that they knew.
The quarter days were the four days in the year where servants were traditionally hired in England. Lady Day, March 25; Midsummer Day, June 24; Michaelmas, September 29; and Christmas, December 25. Those seeking employment would often inquire in person, presenting their references to their prospective employer. Those further afield would apply in writing directly to an employer who was looking for workers, sometimes with the assistance of a literate person who could draft a letter on their behalf.
But by the eighteenth century, with the literacy of the general population slowly improving, newspapers became more plentiful and affordable to the common person. Increasingly, our ancestors would apply for employment in response to an advertisement in the newspaper where most job seekers were invited to address the newspaper with their inquiries.
Domestic Help
[aesop_image imgwidth=”400px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Maid-1906-Paris.jpg” offset=”-250px” credit=”Wikipedia” align=”right” lightbox=”on” captionposition=”left”]In the eighteenth century, when most of the aristocratic old families were still holding on to their ancestral estates, many of the postings in the newspapers were for domestic help. The gentry and upper classes placed advertisements for housekeepers, cooks, maids, footmen, butlers, nannies and governesses, sometimes in local newspapers, but also further afield in the larger cities, hoping to attract better employees to come and work in their country homes. Beyond the basics required by the occupation in question, employers were all looking for honest, sober and diligent people to work for them. Positions for hire often described the type of person being sought in particular detail including the gender, age, religion and sometimes even the physical appearance of the prospective employee.
Like the employment agencies of today, some newspapers, as part of the service provided for the fee for placing the advertisement, would collect the responses for the employer, allowing them to remain anonymous during the initial screen process.
It was not unusual to specify age, religion or other very personal attributes when advertising for an employee in our ancestors’ day, something that would never be allowed in our time of equal rights. In this advertisement, not only is the employer looking for an older woman, but they must be of the Protestant religion.
To attract the best staff, the advertisements sometimes mentioned the number of servants already employed in the household, so that the perspective employee could be assured that they would not have to attend to tasks outside of their position, although sometimes extra duties were specified, to avoid disagreements later. The following advertisement is for a cook and specifies that they must be about 30 years of age. Presumably the employer was looking for a mature woman but one who was still young enough to get the job done. Although the advertiser boasts of having four other servants, the cook would still be required to assist with the cleaning, washing and ironing, and apparently be cheerful while doing so!
The prospective footman, in the advertisement below, is required to ‘walk out with the children’, an activity normally done by a nanny or governess.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Footman.jpg” credit=”Robert Sharp Flickr” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Footmen in the United Kingdom wearing their ceremonial livery” captionposition=”left”]
Some positions required the servant to ‘live in’, generally suggesting that long hours were expected. This advertiser is searching for a very specific type of woman to be a housekeeper at a school just outside of the city and responses are asked to be sent to a local shop, rather than to the newspaper or to the advertiser.
Labourers
Even with industrialization, hard working labourers were in constant demand. Some could expect to be given room and board as part of their employment, while others were required to provide their own necessities. Wages were sometimes seasonal, and in this example, the wages during the off-season were guaranteed not to fall below a certain amount. And as an added bonus, the applicants could expect free beer as part of their remittance, although ironically, sobriety was an important requirement.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Beer.jpg” credit=”Plum leaves on flickr” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Albert Anker “Still life of beer and black winter radish” 1898″ captionposition=”left”]The following advertisement appeared in an Arbroath newspaper, seeking young men to work as yardsmen and brakemen almost 100 miles away near Glasgow, with an offer of free passage to Glasgow on acceptance.
Sometimes advertisements for able bodied men even appeared for employment in other countries, such as in this call for 2000 men to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway in Canada. As an added incentive to the high wages being offered was a notice that farms would be available under the Homestead Act should the men want to remain in Canada afterwards.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Canadian-Pacific-Railway.jpg” credit=”Wikipedia” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Driving the last spike on the Canadian Pacific Railway” captionposition=”left”]
Similarly, in this advertisement, farm and railway labourers, masons, carpenters, wheelwrights and blacksmiths were offered free passage to New Zealand and land grants.
Skilled Help
With industrialization came factories, and with factories came the need to find skilled employees in a variety of occupations. Steam engines were a relatively new addition at the end of the eighteenth century and finding someone knowledgeable in their maintenance and repair was key to the success of the factory.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Steam-Engine.jpg” credit=”Wikipedia” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Horizontal Steam Engine” captionposition=”left”]Employers searched far afield for skilled workers. Throughout the nineteenth century, the population of Sheffield grew rapidly with a large percentage of the work force engaged in the metal working trades. Despite this, the following advertisement for a skilled electro-plater was placed in a Birmingham newspaper, suggesting that the right man for this job could not be found in Sheffield.
It was not only employers who placed advertisements, but sometimes prospective employees. This young lad is looking for a position in an office and is willing to work without pay for the opportunity to advance himself in the business.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/office.jpg” credit=”Wikipedia” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Inland Letter Office 1845″ captionposition=”left”]
Opportunities for the educated man or woman became more plentiful as well and teachers were very sought after as more schools were opened. Sometimes, the opportunity for supplementing the wages supplied in a position was given as an incentive such as in this advertisement where the married couple could charge for the boarding of students in addition to being paid for teaching and running the school. Although the ideal applicant in this case would be a married man whose wife was able to manage a school for girls, no mention is made of paying his wife beyond the £20 per annum offered to the applicant.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/School.jpg” credit=”Richard Croft – Geograph.org.uk” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Brazenose House from Stamford School” captionposition=”left”]By the nineteenth century, employers were looking for specific skills and specializations. Albion Fire and Life Insurance was founded in 1805 and offered fire insurance, life insurance and annuities. In this advertisement, the company was looking for a clerk who could calculate the risks associated with the life insurance business, a very specific skill and one that was relatively new at that time.
With new technology came new occupations. Those skilled in such new trades such as photography, telegraphy, telephones and other inventions of the late nineteenth century were highly sought after. Ironically, in the advertisement for the telephone operator, applications were accepted by letter only. No telephone calls accepted.
Employment and Unemployment
Statistics of occupations for earlier years are approximate and incomplete but in 1841, the first all-name population census was taken in England, Wales and Scotland and the government finally had the data required to analyse the work force of Britain. In that first complete census, there were approximately 11,000,000 people enumerated in England, Wales and Scotland combined. Of these, about 8,000,000 were employed in some fashion or another, supporting the remainder who were mostly children or the elderly. 1Knight, Charles. “The Popular History of England.” Google Books. 1880. Accessed May 30, 2016. https://books.google.ca/books?id=Yn5UAAAAYAAJ.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/1841-census-occupations.jpg” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”1841 census occupations” captionposition=”left”]Not surprisingly, at the time of the 1841 census, some 36% of the workforce were in manufacturing of one type or another, with a further 33% working in services. In 1841, the percentage of people working in farming and fishing was 22% but this fell steadily throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. 2Office for National Statistics. “170 Years of Industrial Change across England and Wales.” The National Archives. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://bit.ly/emphist.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”600px” img=”https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Graph-of-industry.jpg” credit=”Office for National Statistics” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”2011 Census Analysis, 170 Years of Industry” captionposition=”left”]By the beginning of the twentieth century, the population of England and Wales had risen to 32,527,843 people, almost triple what it had been in 1841 when the total also included Scotland and almost four times the population in 1801. Of these, 83.7% said that they were employed, despite the decline of employment amongst school aged children, aged 10 to 15 who were now attending school, and a marked decline in the number of employed married women, especially in rural districts. Of those between the ages of 65 and 75 years of age, 15.7% were still employed, and even 7.5% of those over the age of 75 were working in some capacity.
No doubt, many of our ancestors found their employment from the multitude of advertisements in the newspapers. Check out the help wanted section of a newspaper in your ancestor’s place and time and see what jobs they had to choose from.
References
| ↑1 | Knight, Charles. “The Popular History of England.” Google Books. 1880. Accessed May 30, 2016. https://books.google.ca/books?id=Yn5UAAAAYAAJ. |
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| ↑2 | Office for National Statistics. “170 Years of Industrial Change across England and Wales.” The National Archives. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://bit.ly/emphist. |