The Bible Society controversy.
The struggle which the bookbinders fought with most pertinacity was, however, that which they waged against the Religious Societies—particularly the British and Foreign Bible Society—when attempting to cheapen the production of religious literature by means which, the bookbinders contended, involved unreasonably low rates of pay. In this struggle women played a prominent part.
It broke out as early as 1825 when the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge reduced its prices and the master bookbinders working for it reduced wages. The strike which followed collapsed for want of funds. In 1833 the contest was resumed with the British and Foreign Bible Society. That year the five houses then employed by the Society reduced wages, and it appears that when the dispute was about to be settled by both sides accepting a compromise, a representative of the Bible Society instructed the masters to hold out. The men appealed to the Society, but were told that it could not intervene. No definite settlement was ever arrived at.
The first petition which the men addressed to the Society in 1833 made special reference to the condition of the women workers. "Your memorialists beg leave to state," they wrote, "that there are a number of females (about 200) employed in binding the books of your Society, the whole of whose wages have been reduced in consequence of the late alteration in the prices of these books. Their wages were before very low. Your memorialists respectfully submit that the making it more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for females to earn an honest subsistence, by their labour, is in the same proportion to give potency to the seducers of female virtue." Reply and counter-reply were made, and the Society was heartily attacked by the Union with texts from Scripture and reflections on applied Christianity. In the defence which the Society issued in 1834, it is stated that its binders informed it that "competent and industrious men in our employ earn on an average 6d. an hour or 30s. weekly when in constant work; and women in the same description from 8s. to 10s. and upwards."
Mr. Dunning, the Union Secretary, replied that he could prove that the scale given was an "entire falsehood," and published a second "Address to the Religious Public," in which the wages paid by the principal firm were given, the average for thirteen men working out at a small fraction over a guinea per week, and of twenty-four women at 5s. 11d. per week. In 1843 the dispute was allowed to end, when the five firms promised to pay the women on timework at rates between 7s. 6d. and 15s. per week, and to work them only ten hours per day.
In 1845 the Society decided to give all its binding to one firm, the proprietress of which was Miss Watkins, and four years later the most famous dispute of the series broke out. The "controversy," as it is called in the bookbinders' records, opened by an appeal addressed to the Society on August 17th, 1849, by the journeymen bookbinders of London and Westminster, in which it was alleged that Miss Watkins had returned to piecework, and that the wages she was paying to women averaged only 5s. 6d. to 6s. per week for a longer day than ten hours. Learners were taken on and were discharged so soon as they were entitled to increases in wages, and a rule was said to be in operation by which, so soon as a woman worker was qualified to be paid more than 7s. a week, she was discharged. "Exorbitant" fines were also imposed. "Females," remarks the appeal, "often have not the power to plead their own cause in such matters, and being helpless in many respects where their wages are concerned, they are trodden down until a state of things such as described in the 'Song of the Shirt' appals the mind with the enormity of their injuries, their suffering, and their moral condition." The appeal contained the following table, showing the difference in wages paid to women working for the Bible Society and those working for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
| Bible | Society | Society for Christian | Promoting Knowledge | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| s. | d. | s. | d. | |
| 5 | 0 | Pearl Bibles, per 100 vols. | 7s. | 6d. |
| 5 | 1½ | Ruby Bibles, per 100 vols. | 7s. | 0d. |
| 6 | 10½ | Large Pica Bibles, per 100 vols. | 8s. | 4d. |
| 6 | 8 | Small Bibles, per 100 vols. | 8s. | 4d. |
One of the grievances specially mentioned in this appeal was that women were not allowed hot water, except between 4 and 4.30 p.m., and were then charged 1d. per week for it.
Immediately (August 22nd, 1849) after the issue of the "Appeal" the women employed by Miss Watkins were asked to sign a statement that they were perfectly satisfied with their pay and conditions. Several signed, not knowing the purport of the paper; others refused. On the advice of the men's Union a counter-statement was drawn up and signed, and sent in to the Bible Society, and on finding that the forewoman who had taken their part, together with the active promoters of the counter-petition, were to be discharged, the women left work, and demanded:—
1. That prices should be raised to the standard paid by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
2. That fines should be abolished.
3. That they should have access to cold water as well as hot for tea.
4. That after the learners then employed had completed their apprenticeship, not more than twenty learners should be employed at one time.
About a hundred women had come out, and the men's Union organised a relief fund.[20]
[20] It may not be amiss to copy a few sentences from Mr. Dunning's obituary notice in the Bookbinder's Trade Circular, January 21st, 1862, of the women's leader, Mary E. Zugg, an early and humble worker in women's organisations. "Nothing could exceed the temper, moderation and firmness she displayed. Possessing great energy, strong sense and great acuteness of perception, detecting at a glance pretence from reality, she was not what was termed a strong-minded woman, commanding great respect and but little affection, for her goodness of heart and great regard for the feelings and welfare of others endeared her to all." She died at the age of thirty-three of consumption on November 13th, 1861, and is buried in Bow Cemetery.
Miss Watkins replied, denying every charge made by Mr. Dunning, and giving 10s. as the earnings for a week of sixty hours. The Union replied by asking that a deputation should be allowed to inspect the wages books of the firm. It claimed to be in possession of the rates of wages paid to ninety-seven folders and sewers for three weeks in August, and gave the average as 6s. 2½d. for a sixty-hours' week, and in other respects it supported its original charges.
The Times of January 25th, 1850, contains in its advertisement columns the report of a Committee of the Southwark Auxiliary of the Bible Society, which examined Miss Watkins' books, and it supported her statements. The women earned from 9s. to 14s. per week. But Mr. Dunning was not silenced, and on March 25th he issued a long pamphlet, the last of the "controversy" for the time. In it, it is stated that the committee of investigation had been deceived so as to mistake wages paid for ten days as though they were paid for a week, and a table of wages for three weeks in September and October, for the week ending July 28th, 1849, and for the four weeks preceding the strike, was printed.[21] The wage average of the periods was from 5s. 9½d. to 6s. 4½d. per week of sixty hours.
[21] See p. 184.
The agitation failed. The women either found work elsewhere, or went back under the conditions against which they had struck. Mr. Dunning could only say that the dispute had arrested a downward tendency in prices and wages.
The dispute cost the men's Union £146. This was spent mostly in printing and postage, but it included grants amounting to £22 given to the separate Women's Committee, which had collected an additional fund of £650 to aid the strikers.
The finishers had strongly opposed the support which the Union had given to the women, and their section, to the number of 150, was finally expelled from the Union.
But whilst this unusual harmony existed between the men's Union and the women workers, no serious attempt had been made to organise the women permanently, either as members of the men's Society, or in one of their own. In 1833, in an address to the London journeymen bookbinders, a Mr. Benjamin Teasdale, of Manchester, advised the formation of a women's Society, but nothing appears to have been done. In 1855 they were allowed to borrow books from the men's library on the payment of 6d. a quarter. It is impossible to ascertain how far the agreement between men and masters for a nine hours' day in 1872 really affected women, as a considerable proportion of them had been working only for nine hours before the agreement was made.