Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T18:20:38.828Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Apprenticeship and De-skilling in Britain, 1850–1914*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

William Knox
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The publication of Harry Braverman's seminal study – Labor and Monopoiy Capital (1974) – marked a turning-point for labour and social historians. Since then they have increasingly concerned themselves with the nature of the labour process in industrial capitalism. Central to this concern has been the debate on de-skilling and the destruction of craft control over the labour process and its subordination to the needs of capital. Braverman has been heavily criticised for the one-sidedness and simplicity of his account of this development. Among the weaknesses identified in Labor and Monopoly Capital is the omission of any mention of class struggle, or worker resistance to technical change; the failure to grasp how de-skilling can be mediated and, therefore, modified through labour, market and product particularisms; the lack of a detailed analysis of the transformation of formal to real subordination (in the Marxist sense) of labour to capital – the process seems to occur automatically; and, the failure to realise how formally skilled workers can continue to occupy a privileged position in the workforce through either the mechanism of custom, or by their strategic placing in the production process, or both.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , August 1986 , pp. 166 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1986

Footnotes

*

Much of this article is based on my unpublished Ph.D. thesis, “British Apprenticeship, 1800–1914” (Edinburgh University, 1980). I would like to thank Andy MacDonald. Bob Morris and Christopher Smout for their helpful advice and perceptive comments on previous drafts of this paper. They, of course, bear no responsibility for the content.

References

1 The Degradation of Work?, ed. by Wood, S. (1982),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Elbaum, B. et al., “The Labour Process, Market Structure and Marxist Theory”, in: Cambridge Journal of Economics III (1979), pp. 227–30, for a useful discussion of the important issues, themes and weaknesses of Braverman's thesis.Google Scholar

2 Elger, T., “Braverman, Capital Accumulation and Deskilling”.in: The Degradation of Work?, pp. 23–53;Google Scholar Friedman, A. L., Industry and Labour. Class Struggle at Work and Monopoly Capitalism (1977), pp. 80–82.Google Scholar

3 Zeitlin, J., “Craft Control and the Division of Labour: Engineers and Compositors in Britain, 1890–1930”, in: Cambridge Journal of Economics, III, p. 272;Google Scholar Penn, R., “Skilled Manual Workers in the Labour Process, 1856–1964”, in: The Degradation of Work?, pp. 99–100.Google Scholar

4 Elger, , “Braverman, Capital Accumulation and Deskilling”. loc. cit., p. 28.Google Scholar

5 Ph., Sadler, “Sociological Aspects of Skill”, in: British Journal of Industrial Relations, VIII (1970). pp. 29–30. Sadler argues that, while compositors in the modern newspaper industry have effectively become de-skilled. custom and strategic placing in the production process continues to afford them high wages and an ability to counter in an effective way managerial autonomy.Google Scholar

6 Baran, P. A. and Sweezy, P. M., Monopoly Capital (1966).Google Scholar

7 Morris, R. J., review of Ch. More, Skill and the English Working Class, 1870–1914 (1980), in British Book News, 1981, p. 23.Google Scholar

8 Price, R., Masters, Unions and Men (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Id., , “The Labour Process and Labour History”, in: Social History, VIII (1983), pp. 57–75.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., p. 65.

11 Samuel, R.. “Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in mid-Victorian Britain”, in: History Workshop, No 3 (1977), pp. 6–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Joyce, P., “Labour, Capital and Compromise: A Response to Richard Price”, in: Social History, IX (1984), p. 69.Google Scholar

13 Ibid.

14 More, , Skill and the English Working Class, op. cit.; id., “Skill and the Survival of Apprenticeship”, in: The Degradation of Work?. pp. 109–21.Google Scholar

15 Id., , Skill and Ihe English Working Class, pp. 151–52, 166–67; but see also pp. 70, 81. 152 for a conlradictory point of view.Google Scholar

16 Id., , “Skill and Ihe Survival of Apprenticeship”, loc. cit., pp. 111–13.Google Scholar

17 For engineering see Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (1963), pp. 270–77;Google Scholar Burgess, K., “The Influence of Technological Change on the Social Attitudes and Trade Union Policies of Workers in the British Engineering Industry, 1780–1860” (Ph.D., Leeds University, 1970), pp. 143–44;Google Scholar for shoemaking see Gray, R. Q., The Labour Aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh (1976). pp. 40–42;Google Scholar for hatmaking see Giles, P., “The Felt-Hatting Industry. c. 1500–1850. within particular reference to Lancashire and Cheshire”, in: Transactions of the Lancashire Antiquarian Society. LXIX (1959), pp. 51–52;Google Scholar for the London cabinetmaking trade see The Unknown Mayhew. ed. by Thompson, E. P. and Yeo, E. (1971), p. 277Google Scholar; for others see Knox, , “British Apprenticeship”, op. cit., pp. 25–30.Google Scholar

18 For evidence of a wide range of trade-society practices governing the regulation of the labour supply see Report from Committees: Artisans and Machinery [Parliamentary Papers. 1824. V], and the Select Committee on the Combination Laws [PP. 1825. IV].

19 Proceedings of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. August 1874.

20 Abell, W., The Shipwright's Trade (1948). P. 77;Google Scholar Mortimer, J. E., History of the Boilermakers Society. 1: 1834–1906 (1973), p. 27.Google Scholar

21 McClelland, K. and Reid, A., “Wood, Iron and Steel: Technology, Labour and Trade Union Organisation in the Shipbuilding Industry, 1890–1914”, in: Divisions of Labour. Skilled Workers and Technological Change in Nineteenth Century England, ed. by Harrison, R. and Zeitlin, J. (1985), p. 175.Google Scholar

22 Although the shift to steel had reduced the skills of the boilermakers, they did not experience a significant decline in their material standard of life, due to the ability of the boilermakers' union to control the displacement of labour and new wages scales. Ibid., pp. 174–76.

23 The Book of Trades (1862), p. 30.

24 Clapham, J H., An Economic History of Modern Britain (3 vols; 1926–1938), III, p. 195–96.Google Scholar

25 Edinburgh Typographical Society, Minutes. 13 June 1879, National Library of Scotland, Acc. 4068.

26 The London Compositor, ed. by Howe, E. (1947), p. 310Google Scholar; Richards, J. H., “Social and Economic Aspects of Combination in the Printing Trade before 1875” (M.A., Liverpool University, 1956), p. 368Google Scholar; Gillespie, S. C., A Hundred Years of Progress. The Record of the Scottish Typographical Society, 1853 to 1952 (1953), p. 97.Google Scholar

27 Royal Commission on the Depression of Trade and Industry, Second Report, Pt II [PP, 1886, XXII], Appendix D, pp. 49, 59–60, and see also pp. 47–62.

28 Ibid., pp. 7–16.

29 Ibid., pp. 18–20.

30 Ibid., pp. 12, 14.

31 Ibid., pp. 59–60. This presents a rather different picture of the employers to the altruistic one painted by Joyce, “Labour Capital and Compromise”, loc. cit., and More, Skill and the English Working Class, pp. 151–52.

32 Royal Commission on the Depression of Trade and Industry, Second Report, Pt II, pp. 89–90.

33 Ibid., pp. 18–20.

34 Braverman, H., Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974), p. 126.Google Scholar

35 Royal Commission on Technical Instruction, Second Report, Vol. III [PP, 1884, XXXI], q. 7689.

36 Levine, A. L., “Industrial Change and Its Effect on Labour” (Ph.D., London University, 1954), PP. 156–57.Google Scholar

37 Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal, September 1906; see also Watson, W. F.. Machines and Men (1935), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

38 Levine, , “Industrial Change”, op. cit., pp. 462–63.Google Scholar

39 McClelland, and Reid, , “Wood, Iron and Steel”, loc. cit., p. 174.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., p. 173.

41 Levine, , “Industrial Change”, p. 431.Google Scholar

42 Dearle, N. B., Problems of Unemployment in the London Building Irades (1908), pp. 46–48.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., pp. 50–51.

44 Levine, , “Industrial Change”, p. 106; “Working Man”, Reminiscences of a Stonemason (1908), p. 255.Google Scholar

45 Zeitlin, J., “Engineers and Compositors: A Comparison”, in: Divisions of Labour, op. cit., pp. 207–08.Google Scholar

46 Levine, “Industrial Change”, table 4.

47 Littler, C., “Deskilling and Changing Structures of Control”, in: The Degradation of Work?, p. 135.Google Scholar

48 Zeitlin, , “Craft Control and the Division of Labour”, loc. cit., p. 271.Google Scholar

49 Hobsbawm, E. J., “Custom, Wages and Workload in Nineteenth-Century Industry”, in Labouring Men (1963), p. 360.Google Scholar

50 Littler, . “Deskilling and Changing Structures of Control”. loc. cit.. p. 137: More. Skill and the English Working Class. p. 237.Google Scholar

51 More, Skill and the English Working Class. pp. 159–60. More claims that it was not necessarily “cheap labour”, although in direct contradiction he argues that the apprentice was a source of profit to the employer, which gave the latter the economic rationale for maintaining the apprenticeship system (see p. 81).

52 Shipbuilding Employers' Federation. Minutes, 2 June 1904. Maritime Museum. London.

53 Board of Trade, Report on Earnings and Hours [PP, 1911, XXXVIII], p. 112; see also Pollard, S. and Robertson, P., The British Shipbuilding Industry, 1870–1914 (1979), p. 184.Google Scholar

54 Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal, September 1904.

55 Tawney, R. H. “The Economics of Boy Labour”, in: Economic Journal, XIX (1904), p. 521.Google Scholar

56 Knox, , “British Apprenticeship”, p. 158.Google Scholar

57 Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Report and Record, July 1901.

58 Tawney, , “The Economics of Boy Labour”, loc. cit., p. 523.Google Scholar

59 Royal Commission on Labour, Minutes of Evidence, Group A [PP. 1893–94, XXXII], q. 23459.

60 Scott, A., “The Training of Youth”, in: Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, XXXVIII (1906–1907), p. 167.Google Scholar

61 Uncatalogued manuscript, Engineering Employers' Federation, Glasgow.

62 Knox, W.,“‘Down with Lloyd George’: The Apprentices Strike of 1912”, in: Journal of the Scottish Labour History Society, No 19 (1984), pp. 22–36, discusses why similar strike activity did not occur in the building industry, which was also affected by the National Insurance Act of 1912.Google Scholar

63 More, Skill and the English Working Class, pp. 151–52.

64 Pollard, and Robertson, , The British Shipbuilding Industry, pp. 165–66.Google Scholar

65 Harley, C. K., “Skilled Labour and the Choice of Technique in Edwardian Industry”, in: Explorations in Economic History, 11(1973–1974), pp. 391–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 Hinton, J., The First Shop Stewards' Movement (1973), p. 64; Watson, Machines and Men, op. cit., pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

67 More, Skill and the English Working Class, p. 70.

68 Id., , “Skill and the Survival of Apprenticeship”, p. 120.Google Scholar

69 Braverman, , Labor and Monopoly Capital, op. cit., p. 430.Google Scholar

70 Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal, September 1904.

71 Jefferys, J. B., The Story of the Engineers (1945), pp. 102–03.Google Scholar

72 Knox, , “British Apprenticeship”, p. 340.Google Scholar

73 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws [PP. 1910, XLVIII], qq. 82944–46.

74 East of Scotland Association of Engineers, Minutes, 28 August 1901, Glasgow.

75 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, Appendix XIV. p. 512.

76 Printing News, June 1893.

77 Musson, A. E., The Typographical Association (1954), p. 162.Google Scholar

78 Evidence of Hazell, W., Departmental Committee on Juvenile Education [PP, 1917– 18, XI], p. 20.Google Scholar

79 Littler, , “Deskilling and Changing Structures of Control”, p. 152.Google Scholar

80 Price, Masters, Unions and Men, op. cit., p. 118.

81 Board of Education, Day Classes for Building Apprentices (1928), p. 5.

82 Jones, B., “Destruction or Redistribution of Engineering Skills? The Case of Numerical Control”, in: The Degradation of Work?, p. 199.Google Scholar

83 For data see Clegg, H. A., Fox, A. and Thompson, A. F.. A History of British Trade Unions Since 1889, I: 1889–1910 (1964). p. 468.Google Scholar

84 Cannon, I. C.. “The Social Situation of the Skilled worker: A Study of the Compositor in London” (Ph.D., London University, 1961), pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

85 Knox, , “British Apprenticeship”, pp. 385–87.Google Scholar

86 Littler, , “Deskilling and Changing Structures of Control”, p. 126.Google Scholar

87 Knox, , “British Apprenticeship”, p. 405Google Scholar; Board of Trade, Report on Apprenticeship and Industrial Training (1915), pp. 9–20.Google Scholar