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In Search of the Average Craftsman: Understanding Skilled Work and Wages in the Early Modern Building Trades and Wider Economy

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Seven Centuries of Unreal Wages

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History ((PEHS))

Abstract

The figures from London building accounts 1650–1800 that have been collected as ‘wages’ are no such thing. This chapter describes how skill and pay really worked in the London construction industry and asks whether Bowley’s assumptions about building craftsmen and the average worker can be upheld.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/people/sites/allen-research-pages/.

  2. 2.

    Calculated at http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/; Westminster Abbey Muniments, Christopher Wren Fabric Books, 34513, 34514.

  3. 3.

    Gilboy, Wages in Eighteenth Century England, p. 13.

  4. 4.

    Schwarz, ‘The Standard of Living’, pp. 36–41.

  5. 5.

    Boulton, ‘Wage Labour’, pp. 288–289.

  6. 6.

    Bowley, ‘Wages in the UK’, pp. 59–60.

  7. 7.

    Gilboy, Wages in Eighteenth Century England. pp. 5, 11–13, 46.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., pp. 6–17.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., pp. 17, 46.

  10. 10.

    Gilboy, Wages in Eighteenth Century England. p. 17.

  11. 11.

    Knoop and Jones, ‘The London Mason’.

  12. 12.

    McKellar, The Birth of modern London.

  13. 13.

    Campbell, ‘The finances of the carpenter’.

  14. 14.

    Pollard, Genesis of Modern management p. 11.

  15. 15.

    Woodward, Men at Work, pp. 268, 270, 273.

  16. 16.

    See Airs The Making of the English Country House, pp. 45–47; Campbell ‘The Finances of the Carpenter in England’.

  17. 17.

    See TNA WORK /5; by way of example see Warrant Books: April 1715, 21–30′, in Calendar of Treasury Books, pp. 490–498.

  18. 18.

    Powell, The British Building Industry since 1800, pp. 30.

  19. 19.

    Phelps Brown and Hopkins ‘Seven Centuries of Building wages’ p. 195.

  20. 20.

    Donald Woodward, ‘The Determination of Wage Rates in the Early Modern North of England’, p. 23.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., p. 38; Woodward, Men at Work, pp. 169–209.

  22. 22.

    Cliff Webb, Masons’ Apprentices.

  23. 23.

    See Ayres, Building the Georgian City, pp. 109–160.

  24. 24.

    Shepherd and Cotterill, ‘Middlesex Deeds’.

  25. 25.

    Westminster Abbey Muniments 34513. Plumbers’ bills.

  26. 26.

    TNA WORK 5/67.

  27. 27.

    See Wren Society accounts, all years, all months.

  28. 28.

    It is known that contractors and senior craftsmen were not above claiming for days worked that they had not, though, Latham ‘The City has been wronged and abused’.

  29. 29.

    COL/CC/BHC/ 10 003–006.

  30. 30.

    TNA WORK6/46 p. 19 and Etheridge’s (carpenter’s) bills for winter only.

  31. 31.

    Woodward, Men at Work, p. 49.

  32. 32.

    J. Mordaunt Cook in Colvin et al., The History of the King’s Works, vol. V, pp. 107, 108, 110. Funds were found from the sale of old building materials.

  33. 33.

    Campbell, Building St Paul’s p. 39.

  34. 34.

    BL MS27587 p. 12.

  35. 35.

    Bowley Wages in the UK, pp. 18–23, 59–60.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    Feinstein, Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain During and after the Industrial Revolution, The Journal of Economic History 58, no. 3 (1998).

  38. 38.

    Broadberry et al., ‘British Economic Growth’ Chap. 5; Angeles, ‘Real wages and GDP’.

  39. 39.

    Humphries, ‘The Lure of aggregates’; Hatcher ‘Unreal wages’, Merry and Baker ‘For herself and one Servant’.

  40. 40.

    de Pleijt and Weisdorf, ‘Human Capital Formation from Occupations’.

  41. 41.

    Stephenson, ‘The pay of labourers’.

  42. 42.

    https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk; https://collab.iisg.nl/web/hisco/about

  43. 43.

    Durand, ‘Recherche sur les salaires des maçons Paris au xviii siècle’; Baulant, ‘Le salaire des ouvriers du bâtiment à Paris, de 1400 à 1726’.

  44. 44.

    Erickson ‘Married women’s occupations’; Humphries ‘Lure of aggregates’.

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Archival Material

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wadham College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Judy Z. Stephenson

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  1. Judy Z. Stephenson
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Correspondence to Judy Z. Stephenson .

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  1. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    John Hatcher

  2. Wadham College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Judy Z. Stephenson

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Stephenson, J.Z. (2018). In Search of the Average Craftsman: Understanding Skilled Work and Wages in the Early Modern Building Trades and Wider Economy. In: Hatcher, J., Stephenson, J. (eds) Seven Centuries of Unreal Wages. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96962-6_5

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