Website publishes online history of apprenticeships
Family history website Ancestry.co.uk yesterday revealed details of a million apprentices and their masters from 1710 to 1811 during a time when apprenticeships were a legal requirement for someone to take up a trade.
Official records were not kept until the early 18th century, when the government started taxing the premiums of between £10 and £50 (equivalent to £1,700 to £8,600 today) paid by parents to masters for taking on their children.
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Hide AdThe collection lists the names of apprentices and their masters, the trades and locations, and includes details of furniture-maker Thomas Chippendale, who employed an apprentice in 1772 for £31, and writer and artist William Blake, who was taken on by an engraver in 1772.
About 97 per cent of the apprentices were boys.