1 Powell, Thomas, Tom of all trades (1631), 47–8.Google Scholar

2 Clark, Alice, Working life of women in the seventeenth century, new edn. (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Snell, K. D. M., Annals of the labouring poor (Cambridge, 1985), 309CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Richards, E., ‘Women in the British economy since about 1700: an interpretation’, History 59 (1974), 337–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rose, Sonya O., ‘Proto-industry: women's work and the household economy in the transition to industrial capitalism’, Journal of Family History 13 (1988), 181–93, esp. 181–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 For a critique of A. Clark, pointing out the merits as well as the omissions in her account see Clark, A., Working life, introduction by Miranda Chaytor and Jane Lewis, esp xxx-xxxvGoogle Scholar; Prior, Mary, ed., Women in English society 1500–1800 (London, 1985)Google Scholar, introduction by Thirsk, Joan, 11–15Google Scholar; Prior, M., ‘Women and the urban economy: Oxford 1500–1800’Google Scholar, in ibid., 93–4. For education and the lack of a vocational choice see O'Day, Rosemary, Education and society 1500–1800 (London, 1982), 179–95, esp. 189Google Scholar; For the lack of formal apprenticeship for women and for a more sceptical approach towards Clark's portrayal of the participation of women in trades and crafts, see Elliott, Vivien Brodksy, ‘Single women in the London marriage market: age, status and mobility, 1598–1619’, in Outhwaite, R. B., ed., Marriage and society. Studies in the social history of marriage (New York, 1981), 91Google Scholar; Brodsky, Vivien, ‘Widows in late Elizabethan London: remarriage, economic opportunity and family orientations’., in Bonfield, L., Smith, R. and Wrightson, K., eds., The world we have gained (Oxford, 1986), 141–3.Google Scholar

4 Bristol Record Office (hereafter BRO), Burgess Books 1607–1651, 04359(2) a–b; Register of apprentices, 1566–1640, 04352(2)–04352(5)b; Ben-Amos, I. Krausman, ‘Apprenticeship, the family, and urban society in early modern England’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1985), 71–7.Google Scholar

5 The sample includes every fifth entry in the apprenticeship register in the years 1600–1605 and 1608–1620; every tenth entry in the years 1620–1645; and all entries entered between 1605 and 1608.

6 The rise in the overall number of women is evident from the mid-1610s; while in the 1530s about 5 female indentures per year were recorded, between 1617 and 1625 a total of 70 indentures of women were recorded, or 9 apprenticeships per year, and between 1625 and 1635 100 indentures were recorded, or 10 cases per year. Overall apprentice registrations in town in the course of this period rose from about 150 per year in the 1530s, to 200–250 recorded from the 1600s on.

7 In his autobiography, William Stout recalled that his sister Elin was brought up assisting their mother ‘in her housewifery’, while the mother herself worked in the fields. In addition, the mother kept a woman servant ‘to do the hardest house service’. Marshall, J. D., ed., The autobiography of William Stout of Lancaster (1665–1752), (Chetham Society, Manchester, 1967), 76.Google Scholar

8 Hollis, D., ed., Calendar of the Bristol apprentice book, 1532–1565, Part I, 1532–1542 (Bristol Record Society, 1949), vol. XIV, 177.Google Scholar

9 In a sample of 1,337 apprentices bound between 1532–1542, 623 (46.6 per cent) were sons of craftsmen and 288 (21.5 per cent) were sons of merchants, traders, and professionals.

10 267 (20.0 per cent) of 1,337 apprentices were sons of husbandmen, compared with 14 (15.1 per cent) of 93 women apprenticed who were daughters of husbandmen.

11 37 (2.8 per cent) of 1,337 apprentices, and 3 (3.2 per cent) of 93 women apprentices originated in the labouring classes.

12 Of 1,361 apprentices registered between 1532 and 1642, 312 (22.9 per cent) arrived from the Midlands, Wales, and the South West. The comparative number for women was 27 (26.4 per cent) out of 102.

13 Quoted from an indenture of Agnes Walter of Somerset, apprenticed to John Baily, a tanner, and his wife, to be brought up in silk-knitting, in 1626. BRO, Register of apprentices, 04352(5)a, fol. 26.

14 In Southampton, for example, apprentices placed by parish authorities were recorded in a separate register. Merson, A. L., ed., A calendar of Southampton apprenticeship registers, 1609–1740 (Southampton Record Series, Southampton, 1968).Google Scholar

15 The records examined were churchwardens' accounts of the parishes of Temple, St John Baptist, and St James, and vestry minutes of St John Baptist and St James. BRO, Ca 1–21; P/St JB/chw/1/a–b; P/St J/chw/1/a-b; P/St JB/V/1–3; P/St J/V/1–3.

16 In 71 cases of women privately apprenticed, 33 were placed by their father, mother, or both; and 16 were placed by uncles (6), aunts (2), sisters (2), mothers-in-law (2), and other ‘friends’.

17 In a sample of 1,945 apprentices registered between 1600 and 1645, 618 (31.8 per cent) were men whose father had died.

18 Twenty-one (75 per cent) of 28 daughters of gentlemen, yeomen, merchants, and traders were orphans; 12 (75 per cent) out of 16 daughters of mariners were orphans; but 19 (50 per cent) out of 38 daughters of craftsmen, and 7 (58.3 per cent) out of 12 daughters of husbandmen were orphans.

19 Brink, A. W., ed., The life of Rev. Mr. George (Montreal and London, 1974), 64. Born 1631Google Scholar. For another autobiography in which the author claimed that during his apprenticeship he was also employed in ‘cleaning boots and shoes, looking after horses, etc.’, see Oxley, Joseph, ‘Joseph's offering to his children’, in Barclay, J., ed., A select series … of the early members of the society of friends (London, 1837), vol. 5, 208.Google Scholar

20 BRO, Register of apprentices, 04352(5)a, fol. 2. Indenture dated 4 April 1626.

21 Indenture dating 1622; BRO, Register of apprentices, 1616–25, 04352(4), fol. 268.

22 In seven out of 28 parish or charity apprenticeships, three or four pounds were paid, while gifts and charities administered by the town allowed two pounds for the apprenticeship of a poor child. BRO, Mayor's Audits, gift of Edward Cox, 04026, 1656–1680.

23 In 41 cases of male apprentices appearing in Quarter Sessions in the seventeenth century, in which the amounts paid initially for the apprenticeship were indicated, the average amount paid was 11 pounds, with a half paying up to 9 pounds.

24 For an estimated rise of the English population as a whole from 2.5 million in the 1520s to about 5 million in the 1680s, see Wrigley, E. A. and Schofield, R., The population history of England 1541–1871: a reconstruction (London, 1981)Google Scholar. For the rise in Bristol's population see Wrigley, E. A., ‘Urban growth and agricultural change: England and the continent in the early modern period’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 4 (1985), 684–91.Google Scholar

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26 The proportions of freemen in the building industry rose from 3.5 per cent (33 out of 947) in the mid-sixteenth century, to 7.3 per cent (105 out of 1,433) in the period 1600–1645. In the metal industry, the proportions rose from 5.0 per cent (47 out of 947) in the mid-sixteenth century, to 6.9 (99 out of 1,433) in the 1600s. A similar trend can be observed among apprentices: from 3.9 per cent (57 out of 1,444) in the 1530s, to 7.9 per cent (152 in a sample of 1,926) in the building industry, and from 7.5 per cent (109 out of 1,444) to 10.8 per cent (208 in a sample of 1,926) in the 1600s.

27 In a sample of 213 apprentices bound in the textile industry between 1600 and 1645, 56 (16.6 per cent) were bound with clothworkers, and 19 (5.6 per cent) with clothiers.

28 Prior, Mary, ed., Women in English society 1500–1800, foreword by Thirsk, Joan, 13; BRO, Ordinances of Common Council, 04272(2), fol. 51.Google Scholar

29 BRO, Register of apprentices, 04352(4), fols. 222, 274. Indentures dated 7 July 1620, and 9 November 1622.

30 For fourteenth-century ordinances in which the admission of women – daughters and widows of freemen in particular – to the freedom of the town is mentioned see Veale, E. W. W. ed., The Great Red Book of Bristol (BRS publications, 1933), vol. iv, introduction, 22Google Scholar; BRO, Information Box, xxv/69. I am grateful to Ms. Lang, of the staff of the BRO, for pointing this out.

31 For the period 1558–1600, the records show the admission of four women, none through apprenticeship, to the freedom of the town. BRO, Burgess Books, 1558–1598, 04358, fols. 22, 35, 77, 100. Overall, the issue of women's entry into guild or town membership is still subject to conflicting interpretations. For a pessimistic view claiming, on the basis of evidence from London to which the Bristol evidence bears similarity, that few if any women entered guild membership, see Brodsky, V., ‘Widows in late Elizabethan London’, 141–3Google Scholar. For the view that ‘there is much evidence of women entering guilds’, see Snell, K., Annals of the labouring poor, 299, and note 57 for a bibliography supporting this claim.Google Scholar

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33 BRO, Quarter Sessions, 1653–1651, 04447(1), fol. 39.

34 For a seventeenth-century view that most London apprentices were at odds with their mistresses, see Gardiner, Dorothy, ed., The Oxinden letters 1607–1642 (London, 1933), 40.Google Scholar

35 BRO, Ordinances for the city companies, 04369(1), fol. 8, article 16; Register of apprentices, 04352(4), 1609–1625, fol. 294. For the suggestion that the naming of wives in apprenticeship contracts indicated ‘either that both wife and husband practised, and were to teach, the trade, or (perhaps less commonly) that the apprentice was to be taught the trade by wife alone’, see Snell, , Annals of the labouring poor, 301–2.Google Scholar

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37 BRO, Ordinances for city companies, 04369(1), fol. 129.

38 In the register of apprentices, there is a record of an indenture, dated 12 November 1627, in which a young man was bound with Samuel Morris, a Bristol saddler, and Margaret his wife, and which specified that ‘this boy to be brought up in tobacco-pipe making’. It is possible that the master held two occupations, but it is not less likely that the apprentice was to be taught by the wife. BRO, Register of apprentices, 04352(5)a, fol. 55. For the women listed in the guild of tobacco-pipe makers, see Ordinances, 04369(1), fol. 129.

39 Marshall, J. D., The autobiography of William Stout, 90, 157–65.Google Scholar

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49 Based on all cases of craftsmen and traders obtaining freedom through marriage to daughters of freemen, whose occupations were indicated in the Burgess Books between 1609 and 1645.

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52 For women's participation in the late medieval urban economy see Lacey, Kay E., ‘Women and work in fourteenth and fifteenth century London’, in Charles, Lindsy and Duffin, Lorna, eds., Women and work in pre-industrial England, 24–82, esp. 25, 45–57Google Scholar; Goldberg, J., ‘Female labour, service and marriage in the late medieval urban north’, Northern History 22 (1986), 18–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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54 Merson, A. L., ed., A calendar of Southampton apprenticeship, xli, liGoogle Scholar; Snell, K., Annals of the labouring poor, 286.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., 278; For early seventeenth-century London see Brodsky, V., ‘Remarriage, economic opportunity, and family orientations’, 141Google Scholar. The evidence on cases of women apprentices in late seventeenth-century London was brought to my attention by Professor Paul S. Seaver, who cited in correspondence cases of women in the cordwainers' and bakers' companies between 1660 and 1700 (Guildhall Library, MSS 3302/1, 5184/2, 5184/3). I am grateful to him for allowing me to cite this evidence. For the fall in the proportion of male apprentices in the London population see Kitch, M. J., ‘Capital and kingdom: migration to later Stuart London’, in Beier, A. L. and Finlay, Roger, eds., London 1500–1700. The making of the metropolis (London, 1986), 225–6.Google Scholar

56 Based on 32 indentures made in the 1690s by the parishes of St Stephens and St John Baptist, of which 7 indentures were of young poor women. BRO, P/St. S/ OP; P/ St. JB/ Misc 83.

57 Snell, K., Annals of the labouring poor, 233.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., 271–319, esp. 312, where it is suggested that ‘the late sixteenth century may have seen some limited but similar changes to those of the late eighteenth century, because of comparable demographic effects on the labour market’.