APPRENTICESHIP. The idle or industrious apprentice, fed, clothed and lodged by his master, was learning his craft at least ioo years before 1383 when apprenticeship was first noticed in an act of parliament. In the 12th century the craftsmen of the towns were associated in gilds for their mutual protection, for the advancement of their crafts, and later to hinder com petition from those who were not free of the town. The gild (q.v.), which was a form of the mediaeval corporation or uni versitas, consisted of masters and apprentices, the masters being those who were skilled in an art, a science or a craft, and the apprentices those who were learning its mysteries. Thus barris ters were apprenticed to the law, apprenticii ad legern, just as the sons of freemen might be apprenticed to a slater, a carpenter or an armourer.
The Gild Apprentices.—The gilds concerned themselves closely with the enrolment and training of the apprentices. No master was allowed to take more apprentices then he could prop erly train, and the method of training was rigidly prescribed, even to the tools which should be used and the manner in which they should be handled. The period of apprenticeship was almost invariably seven years. When the full apprenticeship had been served the apprentice became a journeyman working for wages, or practised his craft as a master with his own journeymen and apprentices.
Having obtained certain privileges, including the exclusive right to practise a particular craft in a town or locality, the gilds began to use these privileges in an arbitrary and exclusive manner. As early as 1437 a statute was promulgated against the "unlawful and unreasonable ordinances" made by gilds "for their singular profit and to the common hurt and damage of the people." To avoid the overstocking of a trade, or often to preserve their monopoly, the number and proportion of apprentices were definitely limited. At Newcastle, for example, a slater could not take a second appren tice until the first was in his last year, while the common practice was to allow one apprentice to every two or three journeymen. Difficulties were placed in the way of those who had served their apprenticeship and wished to become masters; and attempts were made to reserve the full freedom of the craft to those born in the gild. The result of these and other restrictive measures was the tendency which became marked at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the i6th centuries for journeymen to set up as masters outside the towns, free of all gild and municipal re strictions. The craft gilds' monopoly was further weakened by the growth of such new trades as the hardware, cutlery and textile trades in towns such as Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester, which were under manorial control; by the rise of the merchant companies, and later by the confiscation of the gilds' religious property in the time of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. The decline of the gilds and the loosening of their authority brought about the Statute of Labourers and Apprentices in 1563.
Gild apprenticeship had already been regulated in part by suc cessive Statutes of Labourers. The statute of 1563, so far as it was concerned with apprenticeship, gave statutory authority to a system which was. beginning to break up, and at the same time substituted uniformity for a number of conflicting local variations. The statute, therefore, was primarily a consolidating enactment and produced no revolutionary changes. The act prescribed seven years at least as the period of apprenticeship, the term to extend until the apprentice was 24 years old ; no boy could be apprenticed who was not a yeoman's son or had been engaged in agriculture; and no person might exercise a craft unless he had been appren ticed. Every master with three apprentices was compelled to keep at least one journeyman. Justices of the peace were bidden to ad minister the statute, and at first Elizabeth's attempt to perpetuate this gild apprenticeship seemed likely to be successful. The jolly pictures of apprentice life to be seen on the boards of the South wark theatres, the ballads and rhymes of the apprentice who mar ried his master's daughter, and the roystering apprentice mobs of London during the Civil War represent the apprentice system as it existed, at least in London, during the 17th century. But the ap prentice laws were not popular. The judges carefully limited their operation to the crafts named in the statute, or those existing in Elizabeth's time.
The Act of 1814 marked the end of compulsory apprenticeship, and (although it was not appreciated at the time) of domestic apprenticeship also. Long before 1814 in trades which were out side the scope of the apprenticeship laws a new kind of apprentice ship had come into being. The apprentice no longer lived without wages and under the personal control of his master, but served under a strict apprenticeship contract and lived with his parents and received wages. Despite the introduction of machinery and the increasing subdivision of labour, apprenticeship in its new form persisted as an important element in the industrial organ ization of the country. Although skilled handicraftsmen were no longer employed on all forms of productive work, there were still trades dependent for their existence on the individual skill of the craftsman. But at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the loth centuries apprenticeship was threatened from another quarter. Employers became less willing to spend time and money on the training of apprentices which the specialization of processes and the speeding up of production had rendered more difficult and more expensive. The trade unions realizing that the employ ment of cheap juvenile labour needed protection, called in aid the time-honoured methods of the gilds and of the apprentice laws, and imposed restrictions on the number and proportion of appren tices and the conditions of their employment, which bear a curious resemblance to those which were imposed by the officers of the gild some six or seven hundred years before.
The period of industrial confusion which succeeded partially obscured the problems of apprenticeship, but the British Govern ment saw that if industry was to regain the position which it held before the war every effort had to be made to secure a future supply of skilled men. With this end in view the interrupted apprenticeship scheme was launched, the main object of which was to bring back into the skilled trades those whose apprenticeships had been interrupted by the war. Most of these men were now above the normal age of apprenticeship and many had incurred family responsibilities and could not be expected to return to employment at apprentice wages. With the financial assistance granted by the Exchequer under the scheme employers were able to pay to these ex-service apprentices wages approximating to those which they would have received if their services had not been interrupted by the war. Directly or indirectly about ioo,000 ap prentices were prevented from drifting into unskilled or semi skilled employment. Within the general scheme separate schemes for the various industries concerned were drafted by joint com mittees of employers and workers after useful enquiries into trade customs and practices. In Great Britain apprenticeship has now regained the place which it held before the war as the normal method of recruiting and training young workers for certain of the more important trades in the country, and is still playing an important part in the industrial life of the community.
Varieties of Apprenticeship in Great Britain.—Appren ticeship is the most usual method in Great Britain of recruiting and training the skilled worker in the engineering and allied in dustries, shipbuilding, building, electrical contracting, wood-work ing, printing, pottery, glass, scientific instrument making and the baking industries, as well as in the mercantile marine and in the manufacture and supply of electricity and gas. Girls are em ployed as apprentices mainly in the clothing and distributive trades. In other important industries, such as the textile indus tries, in which modern methods of manufacture require a com paratively short period of training, a second method of entry usually known as "learnership" is common. The difference between an apprentice and a learner is that in the case of the learner there is merely a tacit or implied understanding that the employer shall provide facilities for learning some branch of a particular trade; the employer does not undertake to teach or to retain the young worker for the whole of the period necessary for the learning of the trade. A third method of entry is termed "upgrading." In certain trades in which the introduction of machinery has reduced the amount of skill required, or in which men work in groups, un skilled men who have acquired some degree of skill by working in association with skilled men are in time "upgraded." In several industries two or three of these methods of entry to the ranks of the skilled men are to be found side by side in different occupa tions; in some industries skilled workers may be recruited by way either of apprenticeship or learnership. Often it is difficult to distinguish between the looser forms of apprenticeship and the stricter forms of learnership. It is estimated that about one seventh of the youths under 21 in industrial occupations in Great Britain in 1928 were serving recognized apprenticeships, and probably about one-fifth were receiving a systematic training either as apprentices or as learners.
There are several different kinds of apprenticeship in common use. The ordinary apprentice is known as the "trade apprentice." The "pupil apprentice" has usually received a post-primary edu cation and is given a wider training in order to qualify him for posts of responsibility. The "student apprentice" has received a full-time technical education at a university or technical institu tion or school and his training is designed to fit him for higher positions on the commercial or technical staff. Premiums are usually required by employers from pupil and student apprentices, but the custom of demanding premiums from trade apprentices has died out except in certain trades and districts.
Indentures, which are normally in the form of deeds, contain a number of provisions setting out in some detail the conditions of employment. They must contain an undertaking by the em ployer to train the apprentice, and on the part of the apprentice to serve the employer. It is usual to provide also for the term of apprenticeship, for the wages to be paid in each year of appren ticeship, and for the trade which the apprentice is to be taught, while the boy's parent or guardian is commonly bound as a third party to the agreement. In addition the apprentice may be re quired to attend specified technical classes, or restrained from working for another employer, or even prohibited from joining a trade union for industrial purposes. The indentures may also provide for the apprentice to be "stood off" with or without wages if the employer has no work for him, or for the binding of a fourth and independent party to secure the proper training of the apprentice. Written agreements which are not "indentures" are usually much simpler, and may contain nothing more than the undertaking of the employer to teach and of the apprentice to serve.
The age of entry into apprenticeship is from 14 to 164, the usual age being from 15/ to 161. In many cases there is thus a gap of a year and a half or more between the time of leav ing school (boys leave the primary schools at the end of the term in which they attain the age of 14) and entry into apprentice ship, while boys who leave secondary schools at 16 or 16/ may find themselves too old to become apprentices in certain industries. The period of apprenticeships varies ; it is usually from five to seven years, the shorter period being the more common. In a particular industry the period is often customary or traditional, and is not necessarily the time required to train a boy in a given occupation under modern conditions.
Wages of British Apprentices.-.-The wages paid to appren tices are based on the principle that in the first years of appren ticeship the apprentice is not an asset but a liability. Apprentices' wages vary widely from industry to industry and from district to district, but are always considerably below those of boys who are not employed under a definite system of training. In 1925 the average wage for the apprentice in his first year varied according to the industry and occupation, from 8s. 8d. to 12s. 4d., and in the last year from 19s. 9d. to 38s. 7d. There is usually a standard rate for each year of apprenticeship which is commonly a fixed proportion of the approved journeyman's rate.
Employers usually recruit their apprentices from among boys who apply at the works, preference being given to boys who are related to or are recommended by their workers, and particularly by their foremen. The actual selection is often left to the fore man. In some cases apprentices are selected from among the boys already employed on unskilled or semi-skilled work. Many employers are beginning to realize that it is worth their while to adopt more scientific methods based on vocational selection ac cording to industrial fitness and promise, or involving educational or vocational tests. More attention is also being given to the training of apprentices. The traditional method is to place the boy under the care of a journeyman or the supervision of a fore man, or to employ him as a mate. But employers are appreciat ing more and more that the best kind of training is a judicious mixture of technical instruction and workshop training. An in creasing number of employers are making use of the facilities provided by local education authorities. The "sandwich" system is sometimes adopted, under which the apprentice spends alter nate periods at technical classes and in the works, or the appren tices may be released on one or two half days a week or allowed to leave work early in order to attend classes; or classes may be established in the works with or without the local education authority's help.
Joint Industrial Agreements.—In many industries the con ditions of employment of apprentices is the subject of special consideration by employers' organizations and trade unions or of joint agreement between employers and workers. Employers' organizations are sometimes inclined to leave questions of ap prenticeship to their individual members, but rules affecting ap prenticeship or learnership are made by most trade unions whose members are engaged in the skilled occupations. These rules are often embodied in joint agreements. A number of joint industrial councils have concerned themselves with apprenticeship, and several trade boards (which have the power subject to the ap proval of the minister of labour to fix minimum rates of wages for apprentices and learners) have prepared schemes for the training of apprentices. It is sometimes thought that the rules of trade unions, whether or not they are embodied in joint agree ments with employers' organizations, in so far as they tend to restrict the number of apprentices to journeymen that may be employed, have unduly limited the recruitment of apprentices, but it is doubtful whether in fact, except in certain cases, they have had this effect.
British Law Relating to Apprenticeship.—In order to make a contract of apprenticeship enforceable a written agree ment is necessary if the period of apprenticeship is more than one year, but indentures are only necessary in exceptional cases where they are specifically required by statute. Indentures of apprenticeship, with certain statutory exceptions, are required to bear a stamp to the value of 2s. 6d. An infant cannot be bound without his own consent, but he can bind himself without his parents' consent. The validity of the contract depends upon whether it is on the whole beneficial to the apprentice. An agree ment empowering the employer to stop work or withhold wages at his own option would probably not be regarded as beneficial. The apprentice must be taught the whole and not merely a branch of the trade to which he is bound. He cannot normally be dismissed for misconduct which is not of a gross character rendering the contract impossible of performance, unless he has given the employer by covenant a right to dismiss him for mis conduct. An apprentice may be compelled to complete his ap prenticeship, but if he fails to observe his part of the contract he cannot be sued for breach of the covenants. The parent or guardian, however, if he has bound himself as a party to the agreement, will be liable to be sued if the agreement is broken by the apprentice. A contract of apprenticeship may be dissolved by the mutual consent of all parties, and it may be determined by the permanent illness or death of the apprentice, or by the death of the employer. If the employer dies, the apprentice is not bound to serve the executors and the executors are not liable to the apprentice, unless the agreement expressly provides other wise. The bankruptcy of the employer is a complete discharge of the indenture of apprenticeship upon notice in writing to that effect being given to the trustee, who may pay a reasonable sum to or for the use of the apprentice, or may on the application of the apprentice, transfer his indenture to another person. Dis putes between employer and apprentice, in cases where no premium has been paid, or where the premium has not exceeded £25, are dealt with by courts of summary jurisdiction. Appren tices are afforded the protection given by the Factory and Work shop Acts and by the Workmen's Compensation Acts, and if they receive regular payments from their employers are insurable under the National Health Insurance and Unemployment Insur ance Acts. Under the Trade Board Acts minimum rates of wages for apprentices have been fixed in certain trades, and payment at less than these rates renders the employer liable to prosecution.
The Act of 1814 marked the end of compulsory apprenticeship, and (although it was not appreciated at the time) of domestic apprenticeship also. Long before 1814 ir, trades which were out side the scope of the apprenticeship laws a new kind of apprentice ship had come into being. The apprentice no longer lived without wages and under the personal control of his master, but served under a strict apprenticeship contract and lived with his parents and received wages. Despite the introduction of machinery and the increasing subdivision of labour, apprenticeship in its new form persisted as an important element in the industrial organ ization of the country. Although skilled handicraftsmen were no longer employed on all forms of productive work, there were still trades dependent for their existence on the individual skill of the craftsman. But at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the aoth centuries apprenticeship was threatened from another quarter. Employers became less willing to spend time and money on the training of apprentices which the specialization of processes and the speeding up of production had rendered more difficult and more expensive. The trade unions realizing that the employ ment of cheap juvenile labour needed protection, called in aid the time-honoured methods of the gilds and of the apprentice laws, and imposed restrictions on the number and proportion of appren tices and the conditions of their employment, which bear a curious resemblance to those which were imposed by the officers of the gild some six or seven hundred years before.
The period of industrial confusion which succeeded partially obscured the problems of apprenticeship, but the British Govern ment saw that if industry was to regain the position which it held before the war every effort had to be made to secure a future supply of skilled men. With this end in view the interrupted apprenticeship scheme was launched, the main object of which was to bring back into the skilled trades those whose apprenticeships had been interrupted by the war. Most of these men were now above the normal age of apprenticeship and many had incurred family responsibilities and could not be expected to return to employment at apprentice wages. With the financial assistance granted by the Exchequer under the scheme employers were able to pay to these ex-service apprentices wages approximating to those which they would have received if their services had not been interrupted by the war. Directly or indirectly about 1oo,000 ap prentices were prevented from drifting into unskilled or semi skilled employment. Within the general scheme separate schemes for the various industries concerned were drafted by joint com mittees of employers and workers after useful enquiries into trade customs and practices. In Great Britain apprenticeship has now regained the place which it held before the war as the normal method of recruiting and training young workers for certain of the more important trades in the country, and is still playing an important part in the industrial life of the community.
Varieties of Apprenticeship in Great Britain.—Appren ticeship is the most usual method in Great Britain of recruiting and training the skilled worker in the engineering and allied in dustries, shipbuilding, building, electrical contracting, wood-work ing, printing, pottery, glass, scientific instrument making and the baking industries, as well as in the mercantile marine and in the manufacture and supply of electricity and gas. Girls are em ployed as apprentices mainly in the clothing and distributive trades. In other important industries, such as the textile indus tries, in which modern methods of manufacture require a com paratively short period of training, a second method of entry usually known as "learnership" is common. The difference between an apprentice and a learner is that in the case of the learner there is merely a tacit or implied understanding that the employer shall provide facilities for learning some branch of a particular trade; the employer does not undertake to teach or to retain the young worker for the whole of the period necessary for the learning of the trade. A third method of entry is termed "upgrading." In certain trades in which the introduction of machinery has reduced the amount of skill required, or in which men work in groups, un skilled men who have acquired some degree of skill by working in association with skilled men are in time "upgraded." In several industries two or three of these methods of entry to the ranks of the skilled men are to be found side by side in different occupa tions; in some industries skilled workers may be recruited by way either of apprenticeship or learnership. Often it is difficult to distinguish between the looser forms of apprenticeship and the stricter forms of learnership. It is estimated that about one seventh of the youths under a 1 in industrial occupations in Great Britain in 1928 were serving recognized apprenticeships, and probably about one-fifth were receiving a systematic training either as apprentices or as learners.
There are several different kinds of apprenticeship in common use. The ordinary apprentice is known as the "trade apprentice." The "pupil apprentice" has usually received a post-primary edu cation and is given a wider training in order to qualify him for posts of responsibility. The "student apprentice" has received a full-time technical education at a university or technical institu tion or school and his training is designed to fit him for higher positions on the commercial or technical staff. Premiums are usually required by employers from pupil and student apprentices, but the custom of demanding premiums from trade apprentices has died out except in certain trades and districts.
Indentures, which are normally in the form of deeds, contain a number of provisions setting out in some detail the conditions of employment. They must contain an undertaking by the em ployer to train the apprentice, and on the part of the apprentice to serve the employer. It is usual to provide also for the term of apprenticeship, for the wages to be paid in each year of appren ticeship, and for the trade which the apprentice is to be taught, while the boy's parent or guardian is commonly bound as a third party to the agreement. In addition the apprentice may be re quired to attend specified technical classes, or restrained from working for another employer, or even prohibited from joining a trade union for industrial purposes. The indentures may also provide for the apprentice to be "stood off" with or without wages if the employer has no work for him, or for the binding of a fourth and independent party to secure the proper training of the apprentice. Written agreements which are not "indentures" are usually much simpler, and may contain nothing more than the undertaking of the employer to teach and of the apprentice to serve.
The age of entry into apprenticeship is from 14 to 161, the usual age being from 151 to 161. In many cases there is thus a gap of a year and a half or more between the time of leav ing school (boys leave the primary schools at the end of the term in which they attain the age of 14) and entry into apprentice ship, while boys who leave secondary schools at 16 or 161 may find themselves too old to become apprentices in certain industries. The period of apprenticeships varies; it is usually from five to seven years, the shorter period being the more common. In a particular industry the period is often customary or traditional, and is not necessarily the time required to train a boy in a given occupation under modern conditions.
Wages of British Apprentices.—The wages paid to appren tices are based on the principle that in the first years of appren ticeship the apprentice is not an asset but a liability. Apprentices' wages vary widely from industry to industry and from district to district, but are always considerably below those of boys who are not employed under a definite system of training. In 1925 the average wage for the apprentice in his first year varied according to the industry and occupation, from 8s. 8d. to 1 as. 4d., and in the last year from 195. 9d. to 38s. 7d. There is usually a standard rate for each year of apprenticeship which is commonly a fixed proportion of the approved journeyman's rate.
Employers usually recruit their apprentices from among boys who apply at the works, preference being given to boys who are related to or are recommended by their workers, and particularly by their foremen. The actual selection is often left to the fore man. In some cases apprentices are selected from among the boys already employed on unskilled or semi-skilled work. Many employers are beginning to realize that it is worth their while to adopt more scientific methods based on vocational selection ac cording to industrial fitness and promise, or involving educational or vocational tests. More attention is also being given to the training of apprentices. The traditional method is to place the boy under the care of a journeyman or the supervision of a f ore man, or to employ him as a mate. But employers are appreciat ing more and more that the best kind of training is a judicious mixture of technical instruction and workshop training. An in creasing number of employers are making use of the facilities provided by local education authorities. The "sandwich" system is sometimes adopted, under which the apprentice spends alter nate periods at technical classes and in the works, or the appren tices may be released on one or two half days a week or allowed to leave work early in order to attend classes; or classes may be established in the works with or without the local education authority's help.
Joint Industrial Agreements.—In many industries the con ditions of employment of apprentices is the subject of special consideration by employers' organizations and trade unions or of joint agreement between employers and workers. Employers' organizations are sometimes inclined to leave questions of ap prenticeship to their individual members, but rules affecting ap prenticeship or learnership are made by most trade unions whose members are engaged in the skilled occupations. These rules are often embodied in joint agreements. A number of joint industrial councils have concerned themselves with apprenticeship, and several trade boards (which have the power subject to the ap proval of the minister of labour to fix minimum rates of wages for apprentices and learners) have prepared schemes for the training of apprentices. It is sometimes thought that the rules of trade unions, whether or not they are embodied in joint agree ments with employers' organizations, in so far as they tend to restrict the number of apprentices to journeymen that may be employed, have unduly limited the recruitment of apprentices, but it is doubtful whether in fact, except in certain cases, they have had this effect.
British Law Relating to Apprenticeship.—In order to make a contract of apprenticeship enforceable a written agree ment is necessary if the period of apprenticeship is more than one year, but indentures are only necessary in exceptional cases where they are specifically required by statute. Indentures of apprenticeship, with certain statutory exceptions, are required to bear a stamp to the value of as. 6d. An infant cannot be bound without his own consent, but he can bind himself without his parents' consent. The validity of the contract depends upon whether it is on the whole beneficial to the apprentice. An agree ment empowering the employer to stop work or withhold wages at his own option would probably not be regarded as beneficial. The apprentice must be taught the whole and not merely a branch of the trade to which he is bound. He cannot normally be dismissed for misconduct which is not of a gross character rendering the contract impossible of performance, unless he has given the employer by covenant a right to dismiss him for mis conduct. An apprentice may be compelled to complete his ap prenticeship, but if he fails to observe his part of the contract he cannot be sued for breach of the covenants. The parent or guardian, however, if he has bound himself as a party to the agreement, will be liable to be sued if the agreement is broken by the apprentice. A contract of apprenticeship may be dissolved by the mutual consent of all parties, and it may be determined by the permanent illness or death of the apprentice, or by the death of the employer. If the employer dies, the apprentice is not bound to serve the executors and the executors are not liable to the apprentice, unless the agreement expressly provides other wise. The bankruptcy of the employer is a complete discharge of the indenture of apprenticeship upon notice in writing to that effect being given to the trustee, who may pay a reasonable sum to or for the use of the apprentice, or may on the application of the apprentice, transfer his indenture to another person. Dis putes between employer and apprentice, in cases where no premium has been paid, or where the premium has not exceeded £25, are dealt with by courts of summary jurisdiction. Appren tices are afforded the protection given by the Factory and Work shop Acts and by the Workmen's Compensation Acts, and if they receive regular payments from their employers are insurable under the National Health Insurance and Unemployment Insur ance Acts. Under the Trade Board Acts minimum rates of wages for apprentices have been fixed in certain trades, and payment at less than these rates renders the employer liable to prosecution.
Schools may be classified under four heads: public schools; trade schools maintained by trades unions; trade schools main tained by employers' associations, and trade schools maintained by individual large employers. All these classes of schools frequently work in close co-operation with members of trade unions and also of employers' associations. As a rule the student enters at 16 to 18 years of age and remains from two to four years, according to the thoroughness of the schools and the difficulty of the craft in which he is being trained. In the public schools the technical train ing is supplementary to the general course of elementary educa tion given, whereas in the typical trade schools a certain amount of general subjects, such as English, mathematics, etc., is given, but these are made supplementary to the study of the craft and are usually based directly on craft problems. A large number of the trade schools maintained both by unions and employers, either in dividual or association, put the student at part time work in the shop after he has spent a year or so at the fundamentals of the craft. In such cases it is usual to allow him a certain wage for his work, part of which is paid to him directly and part of which accumulates as bonus to be paid to him in a lump sum when he has completed his training and become a full-fledged journeyman.
(X.) See P. H. Douglas, American Apprenticeship and Industrial Educa tion (1921) .
(W. H. L. W.)