In 1886 the Board of Trade conducted the only Census of Wages made in the United Kingdom prior to 1907. (We have not yet had a report on the later Census.) Sir Robert Giffen, who in his then capacity as Assistant Secretary of the Board of Trade in charge of the Commercial Department, directed the Census, describes in his General Report issued in 1893 (C. 6889) the method adopted. Schedules were sent out to employers, after careful consideration of the circumstances of each industry, specifying the various occupations of each trade and asking for details as to rates of wages, the numbers employed at each rate, the hours of labour, and so forth.
As to industrial employment generally the following trades were investigated: Cotton, woollen, worsted, linen, jute, hemp, silk, carpet, hosiery and lace manufacture, smallwares, flock and shoddy manufacture, coal and iron mines, metalliferous mines, paraffin oil works, slate mines and quarries, granite quarries and works, stone quarries, china clay works, police, construction and care of roads, pavements and sewers, gasworks, waterworks, pig-iron manufacture, general engineering, iron and brass foundries, iron and steel, shipbuilding (iron and wood), tin plate manufacture, saw mills, brass and metal wares, cooperage works, coach and carriage building, boot and shoe making, breweries, distilleries, brick and tile making, chemical manure manufacture, and railway carriage and wagon building.
The details obtained related to 355,838 men, 80,253 boys, 151,263 women and 48,772 girls, and were considered by Sir Robert Giffen to be "representative of, perhaps, three-fourths of the manual labour classes of the United Kingdom." He also expressed the opinion that the "broad results shown by the census summary would not be sensibly modified by including the great mass of other employments not comprised in that summary."
In the following table the Board of Trade summarised the proportion of men, women, boys and girls working at various rates of wages, in 1886, in the industries which I have mentioned:—
WAGES IN 1886. THE BOARD OF TRADE SUMMARY OF RATES OF WAGES
(NOT ACTUAL EARNINGS) DERIVED FROM THE DETAILED EXAMINATION
OF 38 SELECTED INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS
| Men. Per Cent. | Women. Per Cent. | Boys. Per Cent. | Girls. Per Cent. | |
| Half Timers | —— | —— | 11.9 | 27.2 |
| Under 10s. per week | 0.1 | 26.0 | 49.7 | 62.5 |
| 10s. to 15s. " | 2.4 | 50.0 | 32.5 | 8.9 |
| 15s. to 20s. " | 21.5 | 18.5 | 5.8 | 1.4 |
| 20s. to 25s. " | 33.6 | 5.4 | 0.1 | —— |
| 25s. to 30s. " | 24.2 | 0.1 | —— | —— |
| 30s. to 35s. " | 11.6 | —— | —— | —— |
| 35s. to 40s. " | 4.2 | —— | —— | —— |
| Above 40s. " | 2.4 | —— | —— | —— |
| Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| Average Rate | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. |
| of wages | 24 9 | 12 11 | 9 2 | 6 5 |
It will be seen that the average rate of men's wages came out at 24s. 9d. per week or, say, £64 per annum in a year of constant occupation. The weighted average rate for both sexes and all ages comes out at 17s. 6d. per week or, counting 52 weeks' work in the year, £45. 10s. per annum.
The Board of Trade also investigated the rates of wages in other occupations, and the following table compares the £64 of the adult males in general industries with the rates of wages paid to adult males in (1) railway service, (2) building, (3) mercantile marine, (4) Royal Navy, (5) Army, (6) domestic service, (7) asylums, (8) hospitals (in 1886 unless another date is given):—