By Colin Burbidge
The following notice appeared in the” Western Times” on April 9th, 1842.
Robert Northcott aged 55, a farmer from Higher Murchington had under his control a group of four young men, almost certainly all Indentured Apprentices.
All four appear on the 1841 census as being resident with Robert & Elizabeth Northcott and their 2 daughters, and all four are described on the census as agricultural labourers.
They were: Apollas Elston then aged 16, James Bond aged 13, John Bond aged 21, and William Lee aged 21.
The Poor Relief Act of 1601 (Old Poor Law) had given parish officials the power to bind a child to a master. Originally children could be apprenticed from the age of seven but in the early nineteenth century the age was raised to ten. The child was originally bound until the age of 24 but this was lowered to 21 in 1778.
Most pauper apprenticeships were arranged to remove the child as a financial burden on the parish. Many children were sent miles away from home to work as cheap labour in factories or merely as unpaid servants (they were not generally apprenticed to learn a specific craft or skill, which required the apprentice’s family to pay a fee). Other pauper children were contracted out to local families for a period of seven years and were often used by the master as menial, low paid labour. However, the child did receive board and lodging until the age of 21 in the case of boys and the age of 21 or marriage, if a girl. The pauper apprentice also gained legal settlement in his master’s parish. An Act of Parliament in 1801 required the keeping of an apprenticeship register, although not many survive.
With the advent of the New Poor Law in 1834, responsibility for pauper children was placed in the hands of the newly established Poor Law Unions.
Apollas Elston took a risk in absconding, for early in the nineteenth century it was, and for a long time had been, illegal for apprentices to resign. A "runaway apprentice" could be arrested and returned to his master, to continue working for room and board and instruction until he was 21. Hiring someone else's runaway apprentice was a tort under the law, and the rightful master could sue the illicit employer and be awarded monetary damages. The following note appeared in the “Western Times” on September 23rd, 1848, showing what could befall a runaway:
“John Cornelius, apprentice to Mr. W. Anning owner of coal vessels, was sent to prison school for a month for running away from his master’s service”
To be continued……..