Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume XX. Report by Mr. Cyril Jackson on boy labour together with a memorandum from the General Post Office on the conditions of employment of telegraph messengers.
- Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905-09
- Date:
- 1909
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume XX. Report by Mr. Cyril Jackson on boy labour together with a memorandum from the General Post Office on the conditions of employment of telegraph messengers. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
20/276 (page 10)
![This aspect is dwelt upon in the reports of many of the skilled employment com- mittees. If the father is not himself in a position to get a boy into a good trade, he does not know in many cases how to manage it. It is here that these committees or managers of boys* labour bureaux can do a real service if they will take pains to select suitable boys and see they are placed in the way to learn useful work. Northey Street and Gill Street Schools, Lime- house. See Chart D. Table 15, p. 47. It is clear that the real problem is the normal boy who leaves school about 14. It is very difficult to get any full information. It is seldom that he has been followed up by anyone, if he does not join a night school or club. The schools that have furnished us with any at all complete lists of boys who left 4 or 5 years ago, are only 2, and these both from a riverside neighbourhood in the East End. A number of other industrial biographies have, however, been obtained, and the table and chart compiled relates to- nearly 500 boys. On the whole, these show that those who become clerks or enter skilled trades remain in them, and are somewhere between 27 per cent, and 30 per cent, of the whole. The Army, the sea, emigration casual labour, and the low-skilled trades take in the errand boys. The low-skilled trades do not give up the boys who once enter them to any great extent, though some of the boys in them may be displaced by errand boys, and fall into casual labour. Schoolmasters' Opinions. Various experienced schoolmasters have taken great pains to find places forboySy but they are much too busy to be able to hunt about for apprenticeships. Their opinions generally are very similar to the following, which are taken from a letter from a head- master in South London, though others add further details, e.g., that streets or courts tend to have a fashion in employment. The writer gives us the following reflections :— (1) Character and steadiness in the scholar should be developed to the utmost-—these are the qualities which tell most in the success of my boys. (Home influence and surroundings are strong factors.) (2) Interest shown by a scholar in any one subject or thing is a very strong: factor, too, in after-life success. (In my experience with old scholars, I have- found young men and young women, who took an interest in any subject [or object] when a scholar, more desirous of obtaining further education and advance- ment than the average old scholar. Let the interest be—nature, drawing, music, pets, games, science, reading, or whatever the hobby. I place interest before diligence even. (3) Irregularity, dullness, and employment out of school l ours (milk and newspaper distributing) causing slow progress through the standards, all make against due progress in after-life. (Boys answering to the above are holding poor positions as a rule.) (4) The posts, such as messengers, errand boys, van and cart distributors, collectors for laundry work, etc., are the posts the old scholars do not hold after a time. They are discharged as soon as they demand adequate wages, and younger boys are put into their places. (5) Clerkships seem to be sought after by a number in this district with not very satisfactory results. Failure, change, uncertainty of employment and unemployment (or partial or temporary unemployment) result, followed by emigration or entering the Army. Note.—I have genuine instances of this, but I cannot gi t particulars for the forms, as the old scholars have gone out of the district and families have removed. I will give a few references :— L. family (shopkeepers in district, now removed). Two sons, clerks, want of success. Emigrated to Canada. S. family (shopkeepers in district, now removed). Two sons, clerks, want of success. Emigrated to Canada. H. (one son, parent a collector and agent). Son now in Army after non-success in office work. NOTE.—References made in this volume and in the Reports of the Commission to the pages in this volume](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24399966_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
