Skilled workers and changing production 1875-1914

Culture and community in the factory became the concern of ‘scientific management’, a comprehensive strategy significantly in advance of the paternalism of the 1850s and 1860s. The working environment improved as employers implemented new factory legislation and extended the range of welfare programmes, but other initiatives were less benevolent. Pioneer forms of Taylorism provided new managerial techniques to raise labour productivity and curb the power of organised labour and were pursued with some vigour as international competition increased and prices fell.[1]

The design and planning of production processes became a managerial prerogative, a task undertaken by new production engineers, while shopfloor operatives were kept under constant surveillance by foremen. This challenged the skilled workers’ belief that they had autonomy in the sphere of production. Supervision was often accompanied by new methods of payment, elaborate incentive schemes such as bonus systems. Employers hoped to effect the maximum division of labour to take advantage of the technological developments of the ‘second industrial revolution’: semi-automatic machines, standardised and interchangeable parts and the increasing use of semi-skilled labour on tasks previously the preserve of a skilled elite.[2] These managerial and technical innovations threatened to undermine skilled status and craft organisations but, in the English context at least, they proved remarkably resilient.

The consequences of attempts to reorganise production varied from industry to industry. Craft organisation remained stronger where employers were hindered by market forces, relative inelasticity of demand for the product or its perishable nature. Hand compositors in the newspaper industry, for example, gained control of the new linotype machines for their own exclusive ‘craft’ use, a privilege extracted from employers in the competitive market for a perishable product.[3] Some employers decided against reorganisation when confronted by the threat of craft resistance. This was a sensible, if short-term, solution for family-owned firms making satisfactory profits. Also the product market for British-made capital goods was often highly individualised, a significant obstacle to the introduction of standardised mass-production techniques: ships, machines, railway engines were constructed to fulfil the individual needs of customers. It was not until the bicycle boom of the mid-1890s that a broad-based demand for a product with standardised parts emerged and at this point engineering employers began to introduce American-style machine tools and lathes.

Mechanisation was implemented in the midst of workplace conflict, as employers combined in a national organisation, the Engineering Employers Federation[4] to reverse the gains secured by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers during the craft militancy of the 1889-1892 boom.[5]

In the lock-out of 1897, the EEF insisted on the absolute right to management but their victory did not mean the crushing of the union or a thorough transformation of the division of labour. The aim of employers was to boost output and reduce labour costs without major capital spending rather than the new rationalising Taylorist mode. Throughout the 1890s there were similar disputes in other major industries as employers reasserted their authority in pursuit of lower labour costs and more efficient use of labour.[6] Between 1892 and 1897 some 13.2 million days were lost through disputes compared to 2.3 million between 1899 and 1907 when new systems of national collective bargaining, similar to those in engineering, took effect. [7] Conflict was particularly intense in the coalfields.[8] The collective bargaining arrangements of the 1890s, the outcome of national strikes and lock-outs, recognised and confirmed the role and functions of craft trade unions, while also making clear the power and prerogatives of employer authority. The compromise workplace relationships of the 1850s and 1860s were reconstructed in different forms.

Skilled workers had to resolve whether they could or should retain their exclusive status. Some workers were prepared to shed some of their exclusivism to strengthen their position against modernising employers. The aristocratic boilermakers set the example, preventing a major reorganisation of steel ship production by a flexible union policy that kept the boundaries of membership under constant review. When the need arose, semi-skilled workers central to production were granted membership, an important step towards the establishment of a virtual closed shop. Attitudes to unskilled workers depended on circumstances: some were admitted, others were not. This redefinition of their boundaries of exclusion to admit previously prohibited groups of workers proved highly effective in allowing skilled workers to retain their aristocratic status in the new conditions of late-Victorian England. It helps to explain why the Alliance Cabinet-Makers’ Association succeeded while the older Friendly Society of Operative Cabinet-Makers withered away into narrow craft restrictionism.[9] Old-fashioned prejudice was probably most difficult to abandon where gender was concerned. Craft organisation in the Potteries remained narrow and sectional, powerless to prevent displacement as cheap female labour was put to work on new machines.[10]

The persistence of exclusive status reflecting the interplay between ‘genuine skill’ (a necessary exercise of dexterity, judgment and knowledge) and ‘socially constructed skill’ (the specious status upheld by organisational control).[11] Managerial control was exerted over the technical expertise previously located on the shopfloor. A distinction emerged between planning and execution, the implementation of which depended on supervisory workers, trained technicians who owed their position to knowledge acquired at night school. Shopfloor skills were increasingly limited and specialised despite the continued existence of apprenticeship that passed on knowledge of the trade. Formal, indentured arrangements in the older crafts steadily declined but apprenticeship expanded in several growing industries like building[12] and printing[13], where there was considerable agreement between employers and workers over training methods. With the greater specialisation of work and skill, apprentice labour was quickly turned to profit by employers, a source of cheap labour that, as earlier in the century, undermined the position of adult men in the labour market. [14]

---

[1] ‘Taylorism’ originated in the United States and represented the logical development of the concept of the division of labour. The different aspects of manufacture were identified and then applied to an assembly line structure. See, Taylor, Frederick Winslow, The principles of scientific management, (Harper & Brothers), 1911 and Hounshell, David A., From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, (JHU Press), 1985.

[2] See, Zeitlin, Jonathan, ‘The meaning of managerial prerogative: industrial relations and the organisation of work in British engineering, 1880-1939’, in Harvey, Charles E. and Turner, John, (eds.), Labour and business in modern Britain, 1989, pp. 32-47.

[3] See, Duffy, Patrick, The skilled compositor, 1850-1914: an aristocrat among working men, (Ashgate), 2000.

[4] Zeitlin, Jonathan, ‘The internal politics of employer organization: the Engineering Employers’ Federation, 1896-1939’, in Tolliday, Steven and Zeitlin, Jonathan, (eds.), The Power to Manage?: Employers and Industrial Relations in Comparative Historical Perspective, (Routledge), 1991, pp. 46-70 especially 47-55.

[5] Burgess, K., ‘New Unionism for old? The Amalgamated Society of Engineers in Britain’, in Mommsen, W.J. and Husung, H.-G., (eds.), The development of trade unionism in Great Britain and Germany, 1880-1914, (German Historical Institute), 1985, pp. 166-184.

[6] This is evident in Smith, D.N., ‘Managerial strategies, working conditions and the origins of unionism: the case of the tramway and omnibus industry, 1870-91’, Journal of Transport History, 3^rd ser., Vol. 8, (1987), pp. 30-51 and Lester, V. Markham, ‘The employers’ liability/workmen’s compensation debate of the 1890s revisited’, Historical Journal, Vol. 44, (2001), pp. 471-495.

[7] Cronin, James E., ‘Strikes 1870-1914’, in Wrigley, Chris, (ed.), A history of British industrial relations, Vol. 1: 1875-1914, (Harvester), 1982, pp. 74-98.

[8] Church, Roy A. and Outram, Quentin, Strikes and Solidarity: Coalfield Conflict in Britain, 1889-1966, (Cambridge University Press), 2002, pp. 38-58, 95-112.

[9] Betjemann, Peter, ‘Craft and the Limits of Skill: Handicrafts Revivalism and the Problem of Technique’, Journal of Design History, Vol. 21, (2008), 183-193.

[10] Anderson, G., ‘Some aspects of the labour market in Britain 1870-1914’, ibid, Wrigley, Chris, (ed.), A history of British industrial relations, Vol. 1: 1875-1914, pp. 1-19.

[11] Griffiths, Trevor, The Lancashire working classes: c.1880-1930, (Oxford University Press), 2001 is an excellent case-study.

[12] Powell, Christopher G., The British building industry since 1800: an economic history, 2^nd ed., (Spon), 1996, pp. 74-98.

[13] Skingsley, T.A., ‘Technical training and education in the English printing industry: a study of late 19^th century attitudes’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, Vol. 13, (1978-9), pp. 1-25; Vol. 14, (1979-80), pp. 1-58.

[14] See, for example, Wilcox, Martin, ‘Opportunity or Exploitation? Apprenticeship in the British Trawl Fisheries, 1850-1936’, Genealogists’ Magazine, Vol. 28, (2004), pp. 135-149.

How far did standards of living improve in the mid-Victorian period?

Improved standards of living during the mid-Victorian period owed more to greater stability in employment than a marked increase in wages.[1] The economy was characterised by high, relatively stable prices and high levels of consumption. This was, however, punctuated by years of inflation between 1853 and 1855 and 1870 and 1873. Food prices rose less than most others resulting in marked increases in the consumption of tea, sugar and other ‘luxuries’. In dietary terms, however, there was no significant advance in the standard of living until the falling prices of the 1880s.[2] Brewing apart, food remained a largely unrevolutionised industry in production and retailing until 1900. Real wages kept pace with food price rises, but rent proved increasingly expensive with particularly sharp increases in the mid-1860s. For some workers substantial and lasting advances in real wages did not occur until the late 1860s. The real wages of Black Country miners actually fell by a third during the mid 1850s and did not recover fully until 1869, after which there was a major advance carrying real wages some 30-40% above the 1850 level. Money earnings in cotton displayed a similar chronology. Advances in the 1850s were relatively modest but some spectacular advances occurred after 1865: between 1860 and 1874 weavers’ wages rose by 20% and spinners by between 30 and 50%. These figures suggest a widening of differentials.[3]

As a general rule in this period skilled workers earned twice those who were unskilled and were less vulnerable to unemployment. For skilled trade unionists in the engineering, metal and shipbuilding industries, there were only two occasions, in 1858 and 1868, when the unemployment rates reached double figures. For agricultural labourers, the mid-Victorian boom brought no real improvement in standards of living.[4] Ironically, improvement was delayed until the 1870s and 1880s, a period of falling profitability for farming generally. George Bartley’s study of The Seven Ages of a Village Pauper suggested that three out of four inhabitants of the typical village would require public relief at some stage in their lives.[5] In some industrial areas there was a similar lack of material advance. In the Black Country, only the skilled building trades enjoyed an increase in real wages despite peak production in local coal and iron industries. On Merseyside, wage rates for skilled and unskilled workers remained stable until eroded by particularly high food prices in the early 1870s. Women workers in sweated trades and casual employment probably gained least from the mid-Victorian period, though there is some evidence for an improvement in day rates for charring and washing in the 1870s.

Few working-class families rose above economic insecurity and bouts of periodic poverty, despite the greater stability of employment and the belated improvement in earnings. At critical moments in the family cycle even the differential enjoyed by skilled workers proved inadequate to prevent considerable hardship. This was particularly severe at times of general distress when a downturn in the trade cycle or a harsh winter led to short-time working and unemployment. The can be seen particularly in the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861-1865, a protracted period of distress and unemployment. [6] The ‘famine’ had its origins in the over-production of the late 1850s boom and the consequent saturation of markets at home and abroad. The Federal blockade of the Confederate ports after 1861 that resulted in an intermittent supply of raw cotton was not as many contemporaries believed the sole cause of the problem. During the winter of 1862-1863 49% of all operatives in the 28 poor law unions of the cotton district were unemployed with a further 35% on short-time. The depth and persistence of such mass unemployment was unprecedented: at Ashton the worst hit town where there was little industrial diversification, 60% of the operatives remained unemployed as late as November 1864, while at Salford the unemployment rate stood at 24%.

Unemployment on this scale had a disastrous impact on standards of living and posed considerable problems for the relief agencies, both Poor Law and philanthropic once workers had exhausted their savings. The Poor Law and the charities were unsuited to the needs of unemployed factory workers.[6] They had already come under scrutiny following events in London during the harsh winter of 1860-1861 when the temperature remained below freezing for a month causing severe privation for the casual work force. Across the East End, the Poor Law system simply broke down as the number of paupers increased from about 96,000 to over 135,000. To meet the emergency charitable funds had to be distributed without investigation, an exercise condemned in the investigative journalism of John Hollingshead as indiscriminate ‘stray charity’.[7] The Poor Law Board, already under investigation by the parliamentary select committee, was determined to prevent similar problems by insisting on the strict compliance with the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order. However, local Guardians refused to force the respectable unemployed to perform demeaning work tasks in the company of idle and dissolute paupers. They paid out small weekly allowances of between 1s and 2s per head on the assumption that this meagre non-pauperising sum would be augmented from other sources, short-time earnings, income from other members of the family or charitable aid.

After 1865, Lancashire operatives began to benefit from the mid-Victorian boom but others were less fortunate. Workers in the East End were hit hard by the crisis of 1866-1868, the result of an unfortunate conjunction of circumstances. The shipbuilding industry was dependent on government favour and foreign orders but it collapsed after the banking failures of 1866, a financial panic that brought an end to the boom in railway and building construction. The winter of 1866-1867 was extremely harsh and was accompanied by high food prices and the return of cholera. This added to the hardship and caused a breakdown of the seasonal economic equilibrium. The overall effect was to augment the casual labour problem.

---

[1] Church, Roy, The Great Victorian Boom, 1850-1873, (Macmillan), 1975 provides a brief analyses of this critical period.

[2] See, Clayton, Paul and Rowbotham, Judith, ‘An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part one: public health lessons from the mid-Victorian working class diet’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 101, (6), (2008), pp. 282-289, ‘An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part two: realities of the mid-Victorian diet’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 101, (7), (2008), pp. 350-357 and ‘An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part three: Victorian consumption patterns and their health benefits’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 101, (9), (2008), pp. 454-462.

[3] Hunt, E.H., Regional wage variations in Britain, 1850-1914, (Oxford University Press), 1973.

[4] See, for example, Williams, L.J. and Jones, D., ‘The wages of agricultural labourers in the nineteenth century: the evidence from Glamorgan’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, Vol. 29, (1982), pp. 749-761 and Horn, Pamela, ‘Northamptonshire agricultural labourers in the 1870s’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, Vol. 4, (1971), pp. 371-377.

[5] Bartley, George, The Seven Ages of a Village Pauper, (Chapman and Hall), 1874, pp. 2-5.

[6] Tanner, Andrea, ‘The casual poor and the City of London Poor Law Union, 1837-1869’, Historical Journal, Vol. 42, (1999), pp. 183-206.

[7] Hollingshead, John, Ragged London in 1861, (Smith, Elder & Co.), 1861, p. 244.