The Child in Human Progress

by George Henry Payne

“22 Richard II., A. D. 1398. Letter-Book H., fol. cccxviii. (Norman French).

“On the 20th day of August, in the 22d year, etc., the following Articles of the trade of Hurers were by Richard Whityngtone, Mayor, and the Aldermen, ordered to be entered.—

“In the first place,—that no one of the said trade shall scour a cappe or hure, or anything pertaining to scouryng, belonging to the said trade, in any open place: but they must do this in their own houses; seeing that some persons in the said trade have of late sent their apprentices and journeymen as well as children of tender age and others, down to the water of Thames and other exposed places, and amid horrible tempests, frosts, and snows, to the very great scandal, as well of the good folks of the said trade, as of the City aforesaid. And also, because of that divers persons, and pages belonging to lords, when they take their horses down to the Thames, are often-times wrangling with their said apprentices and journeymen; and they are then on the point of killing one another, to the very great peril that seems likely to ensue therefrom.”[439]

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the peasants were the villeins of the owners of the land and held their small farms in return for the work done, the work of children was contracted for, “the lord very frequently demanding the labour of the whole family, with the exception of the housewife.”[440]

Nearly all the trades and manufactures in the Middle Ages were under the control of the guilds, so that almost all of the children working, excepting those on farms or in domestic service, came under their supervision. The attitude of the guilds toward child labour is shown in the regulations of the apprenticeships, but this interest was mainly industrial, for in regulating the work of the children they protected their members from cheap labour and at the same time, by their supervision over the work of the rising generation, saw that the guild’s reputation for the proper kind of labour was kept up and prices therefore held to a desirable level.[441]

At the same time there was a religious side to the guilds, a strong religious side, and while everything they did, such as the prohibition of night work (not out of consideration of the health of the workers but because it might lead to bad work),[442] had a purely industrial aspect, there is no doubt that this social and religious side developed in the guilds and their members an outlook on the broader and more humane aspects of their own place in society. The custom of not permitting a man to employ other than his own wedded wife and his own daughter was not humanitarian in its intention but its effect could not be other than beneficial.

“No one of the said trade,” said the ordinances of the Braelers (makers of braces) in 1355, “shall be so daring as to work at his trade at night ... also, that no one of the said trade shall be so daring as to set any woman to work in his trade, other than his wedded wife, or his daughter.”[443]

In 1562 the Statute of Artificers was passed, regulating the system of apprenticeship which had hitherto been a matter of regulation only among the guilds themselves. The national sanction thereby given to the apprentice system meant much and had a great influence in the years to come. The chief features of the Act, binding by indenture, registration of the agreement, and a minimum term of seven years on the indoor system, led to the master’s entire control of the boy and up to 1814 affected the relationships of the child employed or otherwise under the control of an employer.

Coincident with the development of the interest in the child as an industrial factor arose the interest in the child as a charge on the State, a phase of the child question that in the ancient civilizations had found its answer mainly in the toleration of infanticide. The Common Council of London on September 27, 1556, passed an Act, the following extract from which will go to show that there was then an attempt to go back of the child problem and an endeavour to regulate marriage.

“Forasmuche as great pouertie, penurye and lacke of lyvynge hathe of late yeres by dyverse and soundrye occasyons wayes and meanes arysen growen and encreased within this Cytye of London not onelye amongste the pore artyficers and handye craftes men of the same Cytie but also amongest other Cytezens of suche Companyes as in tymes paste have lyved and prosperouslye and in greate wealthe and one of the Chiefeste occasyons thereof (as it is thought and semeth to all men who by longe tyme have knowne the same Cytie and have had experyence of the state thereof) is by reason of the ouer hastie mariages and ouer soone setting vpp of howsholdes of and by the youthe and yonge folkes of the saide Cytye whiche have commenlye vsyd and yet do to marye themselues as soone as euer they comme out of their Apprentycehood be they neuer so yonge and unskyllfull....”[444]