In August 1872 the hope was realised. A scheme of classification was introduced, and its reception was hailed with increased satisfaction when it was found that it dated back nearly a year, and covered the strike period. Under this scheme some few clerks received an immediate rise in wages, and considerable sums in back pay. That in itself was a most palatable sauce, and helped the digestion of the scheme very considerably for some. Whatever the intention of its authors, it proved to be not so fair as it appeared on the surface; and its application to practical uses proved its worthlessness in meeting all the demands of the telegraphists. With the monetary improvements, so far as the maximum was concerned, there was perhaps least to grumble at; but it left entirely untouched the other grievances which pressed so sorely upon them.
Perhaps the name of “Scudamore’s Folly,” by which it afterwards came to be distinguished, most aptly described it. The dissatisfaction which it so soon produced placed it almost beyond doubt that it was full of leakages. The higher rates of pay were regarded as so far beyond the immediate reach of the majority that the solatium of back money bestowed on the fortunate few was soon forgotten; it was found that the promised promotion speedily came to a standstill; and there obtained, generally, the same annoying and irritating conditions as prevailed before the strike. The evils which the Scudamore scheme was set to cure, were by its operation rather accentuated than mitigated. The telegraph staff, which then numbered 5233, were divided into numerous classes with absurdly low wages, and increments which were microscopic. The ultimate prospect of a decent living wage was so dim and distant that it was scarcely worth taking into account. By the scales of pay indicated in the scheme, a telegraphist had to creep up from a minimum of eight or ten shillings a week by annual increments of a shilling till he reached the halting-ground of twenty-one shillings a week. By the time he reached this guinea a week he was a full-grown man, ready in the natural course of things to become the head of a family in the full performance of his duties as a father and a citizen. Many of them then, needless to say, had so far tempted misfortune. And having arrived at the guinea a week, the lowness of their wage rendered them the ready slaves of the department at sixpence an hour for overtime. A period of sixteen years was allowed by the scheme for a man to reach the Elysium of the second class, which rose from £70 to £90 a year. For the sum of a guinea a week gratuitous Sunday labour was imposed, and for eighteen years was rigidly exacted because it was in the bond. When at last public opinion compelled the resumption of payment for Sunday work, the department with unconscious irony granted it as a “concession,” and afterwards pointed to it as a reason for continuing an inadequate scale of wages.
At the introduction of the scheme the London force consisted of 688 men and 1038 women. To seven-tenths of the male staff it gave an average mean wage of 23s. 5d. a week, and to the remaining three-tenths, 55s. 4d., or 32s. a week more than the others. The reason for such a striking difference on so trifling a wage-scale was not made public. The female section met with similar Shylock-like generosity. Eighty-one per cent got between 16s. and 17s. weekly, and the rest 31s. The actual scale in the Central Telegraph Office was:—
| Senior Class | £140 to £160 | by £5 per annum. |
| First Class | £100 to £130 | ” ” |
| Second Class | £70 to £90 | ” ” |
| Third Class | £45 to £65 | ” ” |
What has always been derisively referred to as “Scudamore’s Folly,” condemned the London telegraphist to a life of poverty; but it condemned his fellow in the provinces to something worse. The provincial male force numbered 3507, and out of this number the generous author of the scheme placed 213 male officers on fixed wages of 7s., 8s., and 10s. a week; while to 151 young men it gave 12s. a week, rising by annual increments of 6d. to 15s.—a state of things closely analogous to the disgraceful boy-sorter system in vogue on the postal side at the same period. The rest of the provincial male officers were divided into small groups, but it is sufficient to say that the greatest money-making department of the State had the effrontery to fix the average mean pay of 3012, or 88.4 per cent. of the whole staff, at less than a guinea a week. Only 405 received the weekly wage of 50s.
By the great majority the “Scudamore Folly” was received with resentment; and it was not long before it produced a plentiful crop of petitions, protests, and appeals, which, however, were only received politely to be pigeon-holed indefinitely.
A Select Committee of the House of Commons sat in 1876, to inquire into the whole working of the telegraphs, and in their report to the House strongly recommended the desirability of training the operators in the scientific and technical knowledge of the complex and delicate apparatus by which they had to perform their official duties. This was expected to procure some further official acknowledgment of the value and importance of telegraph work. But the importance and signification of this recommendation does not appear to have struck the official mind till June 1880, when the Secretary notified that in future promotion would to a considerable extent be dependent on the acquisition of this technical knowledge. The invitation was responded to very largely in the hope that some benefit would accrue; but all the time energy and confidence were wasted completely.
Men had still to perform overtime at inadequate rates of pay to supplement their incomes, and they were still inordinately punished for comparatively trivial errors and shortcomings. Altogether the service, in spite of this Scudamore scheme, became so unpopular and so unbearable for a number that, according to a special Parliamentary return, no fewer than 2341 out of 6000 telegraph clerks left during a period of eight and a half years, a large number joining the cable companies, where they received better treatment and more encouragement. Certainly there must have been something radically wrong to account for this extraordinary exodus, and for the fact that public servants were driven wholesale to seek refuge with private employers.
Dissatisfaction became so rife that after about eight years, namely in November 1880, a fresh movement was set afoot. This time it was at Liverpool that the phœnix was to rise from its ashes.