APPRENTICE RECORDS

The 1583 Statute of Apprentices meant that people were forbidden to practise a trade or craft unless they had undergone a period of apprenticeship: that is, training. If you practised without having done an apprenticeship or being a member of a guild (see below), you could be fined.

An apprenticeship usually started when someone was 12 or 14 and lasted for seven or eight years; for pauper children, an apprenticeship might start at the age of 7 (a minimum of age 9 from 1847) and finish at the age of 21 (24 for boys before 1768). An indenture was signed – this was the record of the contract. Two copies of the indenture were signed: one by the child’s parent or guardian, and one by the master. For pauper apprentices, two copies were signed by the parish overseers and the master of the apprentice, and they were signed by the Justice of the Peace. One copy went to the master and the other to the parish. The master agreed to give the child food, clothes and housing, do the child’s laundry, and teach him or her a trade; in return the child’s parent/guardian (or parish) would give the master a sum of money (the premium).

From 1710 to 1804, a master who took on an apprentice had to pay stamp duty on the premium, which included housing, food and clothes as well as the training. The duty was 6d in the pound for premiums under £50, and Is in the pound for premiums over £50. It had to be paid within a year after the end of the apprenticeship, either in London (where it was recorded in the City Registers) or to a local agent (where it was recorded in County Registers). There were exceptions to the stamp duty:

• ‘Poor law’ apprentices (pauper children who were sent out by their parish to learn a trade)
• Apprenticeships set up by public charities.

What information they contain

The stamp duty records are in the registers of the Commissioners of Stamps in London. They include:

• The date and amount paid
• The name, address and occupation of the master
• The name of the apprentice (and before 1752 the name of the apprentice’s father or guardian, parish of residence and occupation)
• The date the indentures were signed
• The date the apprenticeship started and how long it lasted for
• Details of any changes to the terms (such as transfers or assignments)
• The premium paid for the apprenticeship (or sometimes, if no money had been paid, an estimate of its value).

Indentures for pauper apprentices usually contain details of:

• Name of the overseers
• Name of the master
• Name of the churchwardens
• Name of the justice
• Name of the apprentice
• The length of the apprenticeship
• The consideration (how much was paid to the master)
• Any conditions (e.g. that the apprentice could not marry without the master’s permission, and would be given clothes for Sundays and holidays as well as for working days).

Indentures for apprentices usually contain details of:

• Name of the master (and his trade)
• Name of the apprentice (and sometimes date and place of birth)
• Name of the apprentice’s father (and sometimes his address and occupation)
• The length of the apprenticeship
• The consideration (how much was paid to the master)
• Any conditions.

Records of people who were fined for trading without a prior apprenticeship are in the quarter sessions records at county record offices.

Where to find them

Stamp duty registers (known as the Apprenticeship Books) are in the National Archives, series IRl. There are indexes to these at the National Archives and the Society of Genealogists.

There is no central register for indentures, although some local registers have been published. The indentures themselves (those that survive) are in local record offices, and copies are often on microfiche or microfilm. If a charity helped to pay the apprentice’s premium, there may be mention in the charity’s records in local record offices.

Potential difficulties

For the stamp duty registers, as with many taxes, evasion was a problem, so not all the apprenticeships are listed. Note that indentures are often dated in regnal years; and as with parish records, microfilm copies are negative – reading white text on a black background can be very tiring. The indentures themselves are often partly pre-printed but there may be legibility issues with the handwriting.

BUSINESS RECORDS

As well as records of apprenticeship, you may find a lot of information in business records, either in the company records of the business itself, or in organisations such as:

• Craft guilds – these were voluntary associations of craftsmen and regulated each craft or trade. They covered apprentices (trainees), journeymen (who hired themselves out on a daily basis) and master craftsmen. The guilds controlled who was admitted (and therefore who practised the trade). Some set up schools; others made provisions for sickness, old age, widows and children. Many guilds ceased by the end of the 1700s or became charitable bodies
• Livery companies – these were guilds in London; senior members wore a uniform (or livery). They normally had a master, wardens (elected every year), a court of 20 assistants, liverymen (who could become assistants), freemen and apprentices. They worked in the same way as guilds.

Some professions also had registers. Information about barristers will be in the admission registers of the Inns of Court in London. Bishops issued licences to medical practitioners, and apothecaries and GPs had to be registered from the 19th century.

Taverns and inns also had to be licensed; Justices of the Peace issued licences through quarter sessions, often with a bond of surety (sometimes called recognizances) for the orderly keeping of the house, which were kept in registers. Licensing legislation changed between 1828 and 1869, so records and registers didn’t have to be kept; a new licensing system was brought in from 1869 and registers of licences were kept from 1872.

What information they contain

• Livery companies – lists of officials, accounts, minutes of courts etc.
• Guilds – accounts, lists of guild members, minutes. For example, in the Guild of St George records 1389–1547 (published by the Norfolk Record Society, 1936), for 5 April 1547, there is a list of those present, a note of how much was paid and by whom for the guild feast, a lease of land to John Golde ‘to bild & ediffie upon the same ground next Tumlond a sufficient house off xl ffoote longith ffor a dwelling house’, and then the election of officers and admittance of almsmen
• Licences for medical practitioners – name, parish, date of issue and fee
• Registers of apothecaries – name, date of licence, place of residence
• GP registers – registration date, name, residence, qualification
• Tavern and inn recognizances – name of licensee, parish, name of person standing surety, alehouse name.

Where to find them

• Business records – archives of the business concerned or in the county record office. You could also try the Business Archives Council, 101 Whitechapel High Street, London El 7RE. There may also be information about businesses in the local papers, for example, when businesses first set up, bankruptcies and advertisements
• Guild records – county record office (some record societies have published local guild records)
• Livery companies – they hold their own records, so you will need to apply to the clerk of the company. Some have also been published (see the Guildhall Library and Society of Genealogists library)
• Inns of court registers – Inns of court. Also solicitors will be listed in the Law Lists (Brown’s General Law List 1775–1801, and The New Law List and The Law List after then)
• Licences for medical practitioners – bishops’ registers in county record offices (there are also some at Wellcome Library for History and Understanding of Medicine)
• Registers of apothecaries and GPs – Society of Apothecaries’ register and GP registers on microfiches in the library of the Society of Geneaologists
• Tavern and inn recognizances – quarter sessions records in county record offices; also some family history societies publish licensing records.

Potential difficulties

Company records vary – some are very extensive, and some are very limited in details. Many company records aren’t indexed so you may have to search through a lot of records to find what you are looking for.

CRIMINAL AND COURT RECORDS

Major crimes and some civil cases were tried at the assizes, which were generally twice a year (February to March and July to August). The records for these are held centrally at the National Archives. The kind of crimes tried at the assizes include:

• Murder
• Manslaughter
• Arson
• Theft
• Riot
• Rape
• Rebellion
• Treason
• Manufacturing counterfeit coins
• Burglary.

It is worth noting that the types of cases dealt with at the assizes depend on the position of the law, which changes over the years. For example, sheep-stealing would have been dealt with at the assize courts before 1830; when it stopped being a capital offence (i.e. punishable by death), it was dealt with by the courts at the quarter sessions or petty sessions. Middlesex didn’t have an assize circuit and the cases were dealt with at the Old Bailey (which also dealt with London cases).

Lesser crimes were tried by the Justices of the Peace at a court known as the quarter sessions, which were held four times a year. Quarter sessions were also where county government business (such as the building and maintenance of roads, bridges, hospitals and civil business) was conducted, until county councils were created in 1889.

Petty sessions are equivalent to magistrates’ courts.

Prison records (including records for Bridewells and lockups) may also be available, ranging from minute books to gaol chapel books, keepers’ daily journals, surgeons’journals, diet record books, committee records, and nominal registers. In some counties, each gaol and Bridewell were assigned to a committee of visiting justices who had to inspect the prison and report back to the quarter sessions on conditions in the prison.

Other records include coroners’ inquests, police charge books and police crime registers.

After a trial finished and a sentence was given, friends and relatives could petition for clemency. If clemency was given, it could reduce how severe the sentence was, i.e. commute (change) a death sentence to transportation, or reduce the number of years the prisoner was to be transported, or commute a sentence of transportation to a prison sentence, or reduce the number of years the prisoner was meant to be imprisoned.

What information they contain

Assize records

Indictments – the name of the accused, description, address, offence (and date), and the name of the victim. The plea, verdict and sentence are sometimes added later.

Quarter session records

Quarter sessions records include:

• For crimes information about the crime, petitions to the magistrates and records of examinations (witnesses, accused and victim), records of conviction
• For civil business – information on roads, bridges and transport; lunatic asylums and hospitals; the poor and workhouses; prisons (including reports from the committee of visiting justices); the local militia; other civil business such as apprentice records, taking oaths and licensing of trades
• For debtors – writs of distringas(issued to a bank or company to stop the transfer of stock or payment of dividend), schedules of individuals’ property, discharges.

There is a lot of information about daily life and historical detail in the quarter sessions records, and they sometimes include lists of prisoners from the assizes as well as quarter sessions. Some books include the sentences of people appearing at the sessions.

Petitions tend to have a list of names attached, as well as personal letters. They contain all kinds of information, for example, information about the prisoner’s background, the prisoner’s occupation or social status, and background to local crimes such as poaching, attacks on workhouses and factory machinery.

Petty session records

Petty session records include registers of convictions.

Prison records

Surgeon reports include names of prisoners who died in prison.

Nominal registers vary in details but may include:

• Prisoner’s name
• Date and place of committal
• Date and place of trial and of conviction
• Offence (e.g. transportation)
• Sentence
• Education
• Age
• Height
• Colour of hair
• Trade or occupation
• Religion and birth place
• Number of previous convictions
• Date of discharge
• Photographs (for late 19th-century registers onwards).

Other records

Police crime registers (registers of indictable offences) include:

• Date the crime was reported
• Classification of the offence
• Where and when the offence was committed
• Details of the person against whom the offence was committed
• Details of the accused
• Result.

Where to find them

Assize records

National Archives (mainly in series Just 3 for records before 1559 and ASSI 1-54 for English records after 1559, ASSI 57-77 for Wales since 1559), or the National Library in Wales; calendars of prisoners from the assizes may be available at county record offices on microfilm or microfiche. Much of the Old Bailey material is online at www.01dBaileyOnline.org.

There are also important secondary sources:

• The Notable British Trials series – for large trials (mainly murders), giving detailed information about the trial and witnesses’ evidence
• The Newgate Calendar(1730-1850) – contains accounts of trials and lives. It may be available in your local studies library, and is also available online at www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngintro.htm
• British Trials 1660-1900 – these are on microfiche at the Guildhall Library and consist of pamphlets and reports about trials. They tend to be cases of murder, treason and highway robbery, but also include defamation and divorce cases.

Quarter session records

These are often on microfilm at county record offices. Some counties have published their quarter sessions records; family history societies sometimes have indexes to the records.

Petty session records

These are held at county record offices.

Prison records

These are held at county record offices. The National Archives (HO 26 and HO 27) has criminal registers for England and Wales, listing those charged with offences, date and places of trial, verdict and sentence if convicted, name of prison hulk (ship) for those transported. There may also be a physical description and the date of birth. The records are arranged in order of year, then by county within the year. The National Archives also has calendars of prisoners.

Other records

These are held at county record offices.

Potential difficulties

Assize records

Records before 1732 were in Latin, heavily abbreviated and the handwriting is difficult to read; many are lost.

Quarter session records

Preservation of records tend to be patchy; those before the mid-1600s are less likely to be available, though many are in good preservation from the 1800s. Some courts authorised the destruction of previous records. For example, in Norfolk in 1879 the court ordered the destruction of the post-1800 sessions files.

Petty session records

Magistrate records less than 30 years old are not available to public view; records for the petty sessions tend not to be well preserved.

Prison records

These records may be patchy. Also records up to 100 years old may be closed to the public.

Police records

Material available depends on the date the local police force was set up; they may not be catalogued or indexed.

POOR RELIEF/WORKHOUSE RECORDS

Under the poor law legislation of 1598 and 1601, the parish vestry had to give ‘relief to the poor of the parish (e.g. tinkers, hawkers, evicted tenants, discharged soldiers, and people who were blind or lame). This could be through ‘doles’ of money, or paid in kind (such as fuel, food or clothes).

There were two kinds of relief:

• Outdoor – the paupers continued to live in their own home (or that of a relative) and were given money, food, clothing and goods. The able-bodied might also be given work, for example, men might repair roads and buildings, and women might do laundry and look after the sick
• Indoor – the sick, elderly and orphans were looked after in workhouses.

The Poor Law Act of 1601 said that relief could only be given to paupers in their parish of legal settlement: that is a place where they had lived for at least a month. Because this meant people could move to richer parishes to claim poor relief, the Poor Law Relief Act of 1662 (sometimes known as the Settlement Act) introduced stricter rules, where someone was only entitled to relief if:

• They held public office or paid the parish rate
• They rented property in the parish worth over £10 a year
• They were unmarried but had worked in the parish for a year
• They were a woman who had married a man of the parish
• They were a legitimate child aged under 7 whose father lived in the parish
• They were an illegitimate child born in the parish
• They were apprenticed to a master in the parish
• They had lived in the parish for 40 days after giving the parish authorities prior written notice.

If someone was likely to be a burden to the parish and didn’t meet the above criteria, they could be made to leave the parish and return to where they were legally settled. The Justice of the Peace would issue a pass recording their parish of legal settlement and they would be escorted by the parish constables through each parish between the one that had ejected them and their legal settlement.

There were often disputes between parishes over legal liability for a pauper, and the records of these are in the assizes papers. Because this act made it hard for people to move about in search of work, there was another Settlement Act in 1697 which let the overseers give a certificate of settlement to parishioners who wanted to move, saying that they would be accepted back in the parish if they needed poor relief.

In 1834, Earl Grey’s government passed the Poor Law Amendment Act, which meant that the parishes of England and Wales were grouped together into ‘poor law unions’ (Scotland had different legislation). Instead of getting outdoor relief from the parish, the poor had to go into ‘union’ workhouses. The workhouses were built and run by the Board of Guardians of the Poor. Men, women and children were placed in separate blocks, so families were divided.

In 1930, the local authorities took over the poor law from the Boards of Guardians, which were abolished. The Poor Law Act was finally abolished in 1948, when many workhouses became hospitals.

What information they contain

Minutes/overseers’ accounts/poor books

• Money and goods given out
• The pauper’s name
• What was given and when.

Admission/discharge books

• Name
• Age
• Occupation
• Marital status
• Parish of settlement
• Religion
• Date of admission/discharge
• Sometimes a description of the person
• The reason why relief was granted.

Minutes of meetings

These also include Guardians’ correspondence.

Punishment books

• Name
• Date
• Punishment received
• Reason for punishment.

Some workhouses may also have had rules: for example, about diets, uniforms, the kind of labour the poor had to do, times for visiting other family members in the workhouse, and if silence had to be kept at certain times during the day. Lists or pamphlets of these rules sometimes survive.

Workhouses also had to keep registers of births, baptisms, deaths and burials. Every six months they had to list the names of paupers admitted, the date of birth and the amount of time they had spent at the workhouse.

Where to find them

• County record offices – for union records 1834–1930, including admission and discharge registers
• Local press – for information about the creation of workhouses
• National Archives – Poor Law Commission records
• Family history societies – some have indexed records.

Potential difficulties

The details in the admission register might be untrue; the ‘pauper’ might have had to lie to be sure of getting poor relief (i.e. admission to the workhouse). Not all records survive.

SCHOOL RECORDS

Before 1833, schools were voluntary; they were funded locally, through charitable grants of money and buildings. In the 19th century, the church and charities set up more schools, and there were also schools set up in workhouses. ‘Ragged’ schools were set up from around the 1820s to teach the children of the very poor (for free). From 1833, a £20,000 grant was made towards the education of poor children (through National and British schools). In 1870, the Education Act created school boards to step in where the voluntary schools were inadequate, however, the board schools charged fees and it also meant that the child wouldn’t be out earning money, so the children of the poor didn’t tend to go. By 1880, all children under 13 years old were supposed to go to school (though there were some exemptions). In 1891, the government released more funds so elementary school was free for all children. In 1902, the Education Act (Balfour’s Act) put the control of elementary schools under the control of local authorities, who could also set up secondary education. The minimum age for leaving school was 14 in 1918, and 15 in 1947. From 1974 onwards, outside London, education became the responsibility of county councils and metropolitan councils.

What information they contain

School board records include minutes and annual reports of the clerk to the board.

School headteachers kept log books, which were daily records of what happened in the school. They were usually confidential and were returned to the authorities when the school was closed. These contain details such as:

• The number of pupils
• Their attendance (and reasons for mass non-attendance, such as epidemics or bad weather)
• Any problems with parents, children and staff
• General information about teachers
• Visits by local clergy, gentry or inspectors
• School events
• Any punishments (though these may be kept in separate books and will list names, dates, what they did and what the punishment was)
• Details of the school buildings
• Financial arrangements and inspections.

School admission registers (from the mid-1800s) list information such as:

• The child’s name
• The child’s age
• The dates the child joined and left the school
• The names and address of the child’s parents.

Information from the Education Act 1902 contains details about the inspection of schools, administration of endowments, and teacher training schemes.

Where to find them

School records can be found at the National Archives – series ED2, ED3, ED4, ED16. ED18 and ED21.

Records for public schools are likely to exist in the archives of the school; records for charity schools and nonconformist schools are likely to be held in the county record office (or, for Quaker schools, in the library of the Society of Friends); records for workhouse schools will be with the other workhouse records (see the section on poor relief above). Records for parish schools don’t tend to have survived before the 1800s, but the remainder will be found in county record offices.

Minutes and reports from school boards are kept in county record offices.

School admission records may be kept at the school or in county record offices if the school has closed; large schools (especially public schools) have published their registers, and copies of these are available at the library of the Society of Geneaologists.

You can also find lists of schools (and their headteachers) in street directories (see Chapter 8); there may also be information in the Victoria County History, and you may be able to see the buildings on town plans or Ordnance Survey maps (see Chapter 7).

You may also find information in the local press when the school was first planned and opened.

Potential difficulties

Not all records survive.

PUBLIC HEALTH RECORDS

There were various epidemics in the early 19th century – particularly cholera and smallpox – and the Poor Law Commission made some investigations into public health. A more extensive survey was published as the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population 1842. The Royal Commission on the Health of Towns was appointed in 1843, and the Public Health Act was passed in 1848; after that, ratepayers could choose to establish a local board of health. The Ministry of Health was finally established in 1919.

The parish vestry paid for some medical treatment for the poor, and there are records of contracts with local doctors.

What information they contain

• Information about setting up local boards of health – petitions to establish them and disputes about the petitions
• Local reports to the General Board of Health 1848–57 – information about outbreaks of disease, drainage and toilet facilities, water supplies, housing and overcrowding.

Where to find them

• Information about setting up local boards of health – National Archives, series Ml3
• Local reports to the General Board of Health 1848-57 – microfiche in National Archives
• Contracts with local doctors to treat the poor – county record offices (there may also be some in National Archives, series Ml2).

Potential difficulties

Not all towns are covered by public health records.

HOSPITAL RECORDS

Many hospitals started with charitable endowments. The County Asylums Act of 1808 said that Justices of the Peace could build asylums with money from the rates; also from 1845, the parishes had to provide suitable accommodation for pauper lunatics.

Where to find them

• Original wills with endowments for hospitals, as well as quarter sessions records showing when asylums were built, are usually at county record offices
• Hospital registers are usually at county record offices. You can search the National Archives records by hospital name to find if records for the hospital exist, for which dates, and which archives hold them
• Some hospitals keep their own records (e.g. St Bartholomew’s in London and Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge).

Potential difficulties

Many records have been destroyed. Patients’ records aren’t released for 100 years and administrative records for 30 years.

MANORIAL RECORDS

Manorial records are documents regarding the business dealings of manors. The manor was the basic unit of land ownership from feudal times; the lord of the manor was the most important resident. Manors varied in size; a parish could have more than one manor, or one manor might include several different towns.

Records exist from the mid-1200s (albeit patchy) up to 1925, when copyhold tenancies were abolished. The manor court rolls record the transfer of copyhold land between people, either by inheritance or by sale. There were four types of landholders:

• Freehold – freeholders had secure tenure and had no restrictions on their right to dispose of their lands
• Copyhold – copyholders were customary tenants. They held a ‘copy’ of the entry in the manor court roll which recorded them as tenants
• Leasehold – leaseholders held land that was leased for a specified time (often 21 years)
• Tenant at will – exactly as it sounds, tenants at will held their land at the will of the lord of the manor. They were often the poorest tenants.

Manors also had private courts, which controlled:

• The approval of tenancies
• Local customs and regulations
• Management and use of the land
• The behaviour of its tenants.

What information they contain

Entries in the rolls contain:

• Descriptions of the property
• The names of the new and the previous tenant
• The date when the previous tenant was admitted
• Manorial court minutes.

Where to find them

The Manorial Documents Register is held in the National Archives and shows where manorial records for England and Wales are held. The Welsh Manorial Documents Register and some of the English register can be searched online at the National Archives website (http://www.national archives.gov.uk).

Potential difficulties

Many have been lost. Before 1733 the records are usually in Latin. They also tend to be dated in regnal years (see Appendix 4), usually for Lady Day (25 March) and Michaelmas (29 September). Note that before 1752, New Year’s Day was 25 March, so you need to be careful about the date (see Chapter 2, page 21, for more information about dates).