the working classes

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The working classes: Diversities

Class identity was remarkably strong in nineteenth century England, reinforced through networks ofcollective mutuality and associational culture. There are, however, some problems in whether to usethe singular or plural form. Some historians argue that it is misleading and unnecessary to adopt theplural form simply to acknowledge strata of workers differentiated by income, occupations, region orsome other variable. This view neglects the gulf that existed between skilled, semi-skilled andunskilled workers between whom there were considerable cultural as well as economic differences.

Workers in this period may well have identified themselves in terms of their common class but, as wehave already seen, there were other concepts than played an significant, perhaps even moreimportant, role. Skillandstatuswere crucial concepts for male workers and the retention of skilledstatus was an ideal to which all workers aspired. Workwas defined narrowly and took little accountof unpaid housework. Communityis another problematic term, a creative mixture of social andspatial factors, of locally-based pubs, chapels, co-ops and clubs, serving the needs of relativelyindependent, self-sufficient urban villages, demarcated districts within which workers moved andmarried.

Variations in standards of living, wages and working conditions existed in both towns and in thecountryside. Average urban wages were certainly higher but so were rent and food so that urbandwellers were not necessarily better off than their rural counterparts. Womens wages were invariablywell below those of men and families dependent on a sole female wage earner were among thepoorest of the urban population.[1]Jobs guaranteeing a regular weekly wage, with little cyclicalunemployment, were rare, highly prized and jealously guarded. Cyclical unemployment was the normfor most workers and was a major factor in the urban labour market and this, in turn, had a significantimpact on standards of living, quality of housing and the residential areas to which people couldaspire.

The working population was organised in hierarchical terms, largely in terms of levels of skill.[2]Thiscan be seen in rural labour where the shepherd and ploughman stood at the peak of the employment

hierarchy and the unskilled bird-scarerat its base. In urban England, however, the hierarchical rangeof employment was at its most extreme. At the base of the urban hierarchy were the genuinely casualworkers who formed a residual labour force, sometimes called the residuum. They often moved to aneighbouring town when no other work was available in their local community. Such work as hawkingand street trading, scavenging, street entertainment, prostitution and some casual labouring anddomestic work fell into this category. Below these were begging and poor relief. Casual trades werelargely concentrated in large cities, especially London, and the number fluctuated considerably. Verylow and irregular incomes condemned families dependent on casual work to rooms in slums, but inLondon they would emerge from the rookeries of St Giles to sell their goods in the cities or in middle-class residential districts. Large numbers of street traders in prosperous middle-class areas causedantagonism and sometimes fear so that the police were often called to control street trading activitieshelping to reinforce middle-class stereotypes of a dirty and dangerous sub-class that should beconfined to the slums.

Above the casual street traders was a range of unskilled mainly casual occupations where workerswere hired for a few hours at a time and could be laid off for long periods without notice. Theseincluded labourers in the building trades, in sugar houses and other factories, carters, shipyardworkers and especially dockers. All towns had such workers but they were especially important in portcities such as London, Liverpool, Bristol and London and in industries like coal mining or clothing thathad a partly seasonal market. Precise numbers involved in casual work are impossible to determine.In Liverpool over 22 per cent of the employed population in 1871 were general, dock or warehouselabourers, many casual. When in work Liverpool dockers earned high wages, ranging from 27s forquay porters to 42s for a stevedore but few maintained such earnings for any length of time and in abad week many earned only a few shillings. Conditions changed little between 1850 and 1914. Theywere frequently in debt and regularly pawned clothes. In good times they would eat meat or fish but

normally their diet consisted largely of bread, margarine and tea. Illness or industrial injury (commonin dangerous dockland working conditions) would have led to financial disaster. Casual workersneeded to live close to their workplace since employment was often allocated on a first-come, first-
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served basis. Liverpool dockers mostly lived close to the docks and this limited their housing choice toold, insanitary but affordable accommodation.

Factories provided more regular employment after 1830 as did public services as railway companiesand many commercial organisations. Skilled manual labour was relatively privileged: a Lancashireskilled cotton spinner earned 27-30s per week in 1835 and a skilled iron foundry worker up to 40s. In

coal mining skilled underground workers earned good wages and in key jobs such as shot-firing,putting, hewing and shaft sinking usually had regular employment although this often meant movingfrom colliery to colliery and between coalfields. But did these workers constitute an aristocracy oflabour? Textile towns like Manchester, Bradford and Leeds and metal and engineering centres suchas Sheffield and the Black Country tended to suffer less from poverty from irregular earnings thancities like Glasgow, Cardiff, Liverpool or London. Skilled engineering trades were amongst the earliestto unionise, along with artisans and craftsmen, particularly in London and northern industrialtowns.[3]They protected their interests jealously and, despite some dilution in their position, theycommanded higher wages and regular employment. This conferred many advantages: renting adecent terrace house in the suburbs thus avoiding the squalor of Victorian slums but with a long walkto work or the use of the workmens trains.

After 1850 the number of workers in white-collar occupations increased and a lower middle-classemerged among the petit-bourgeoisie of small shopkeepers and white-collar salaried occupations ofclerks, commercial travellers and school teachers. White collar employment increased from 2.5 percent of the employed population in 1851 to 5.5 per cent by 1891. Such employment was found in alltowns but especially in commercial and financial centres such as Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool andBristol. White-collar workers were a diverse group: insurance and bank clerks commanded thehighest incomes of over 3 per week and the greatest prestige; in contrast railway clerks often earnedlittle more than skilled manual workers but had greater security of employment. White-collaremployees certainly perceived themselves, and were perceived by others, to be in a secure andprivileged position. White-collar workers could afford not only a decent terrace house, but by 1880could commute over longer distances by public transport, especially after 1980 when the suburbanrailway and tram network were established. Despite long hours of work for clerks and shopkeepers,their occupations were less hazardous than most factory employment and, with more regular incomesand better housing, they were more likely to enjoy good health than most industrial workers.

Women were employed in all categories of work and in textile districts female factory employment wasvery significant. Single women often entered domestic service but married women who needed tosupplement a low male wage or widows supporting several children, were severely limited in choice.

Away from the textile districts most found work as domestic cleaners, laundry workers, in sewing,dressmaking, boot and shoemaking and other trades carried on either in the home of smallworkshops. Wages were always low with piece rates producing incomes ranging from 5s. to 20s perweek. The proportion of women in industry declined from the 1890s, except in unskilled and somesemi-skilled work but their role in higher professional, shop and clerical work increased. Thetelephone and typewriter revolution from the 1880s saw the army of male clerks replaced by femaleoffice workers. The revolution in retailing provided additional employment for women and by 1911one-third of all shop assistants were female.

The number of women in commerce and many industries increased between 1891 and 1951, but theproportion of women in paid employment hardly changed and remained around 35 per cent. But thecharacteristics of female employment changed substantially. Before 1914 domestic service was stillthe overwhelming source of employment for women and girls, though the clothing and textile tradesemployed more women than men. Women, however, were also beginning to infiltrate the lower gradeclerical and service occupations. In 1901 13 per cent of clerks were women, but by 1911 this hadrisen to 21 per cent, though the higher clerical grades remained almost exclusively male.Nevertheless the employment status of women remained inferior to that of men: in 1911 52.1 per centof women occupied semi-skilled or unskilled jobs compared to 40.6 per cent of men.

The major restructuring of the British economy brought significant changes in the working conditionsand operation of the labour market after 1890. Women played an increasingly important role in the

workforce, new technology and machinery created different jobs demanding new and often lessindividually-crafted skills. Older workers, particularly in heavy industries, often found it difficult to
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adjust to new work practices. The years 1890-1914 were a transitional period that retained many ofthe characteristics of the nineteenth century economy whilst signs of the new work patterns of theinter-war years began to develop.

[1]On this see Elizabeth Roberts Women's Work 1840-1940, Macmillan, 1988.

[2]For a classification of the labouring population up to 1850 see Richard Brown Society andEconomy in Modern Britain 1700-1850, Routledge, 1991, pp. 323-328.

[3]On the emergence of trade unions see Henry Pelling A History of Trade Unionism, Penguin,5

thed., 1990, Ben Pimlott and Chris Cook (eds.), Trade Unions in British Politics: The First 250 Years,

Longman, 2nd

ed., 1991 and the more specific John Rule (ed.), British Trade Unions 1750-1850: TheFormative Years, Longman, 1988.

The working classes: Organising work 1875-1914

Culture and community in the factory became the concern of scientific management, acomprehensive strategy significantly in advance of the paternalism of the 1850s and 1860s. Theworking environment improved as employers implemented new factory legislation and extended therange of welfare programmes, but other initiatives were less benevolent. Pioneer forms of Taylorismprovided new managerial techniques to raise labour productivity and curb the power of organisedlabour 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 taskundertaken by new production engineers, while shopfloor operatives were kept under constantsurveillance by foremen. This challenged the skilled workers belief that they had autonomy in thesphere of production. Supervision was often accompanied by new methods of payment, elaborateincentive 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-skilledlabour on tasks previously the preserve of a skilled elite. These managerial and technical innovationsthreatened to undermine skilled status and craft organisations but, in the English context at least, theywere to prove remarkable resilient.

The consequences of attempts to reorganise production varied from industry to industry according tothe balance of power and authority at the workplace. In general terms craft organisation remainedstrong where employers were inhibited by market forces, by the relative inelasticity of demand for theproduct or its perishable nature. Hand compositors in the newspaper industry, for example, gainedcontrol of the new linotype machines for their own exclusive craftuse, a privilege extracted from

employers in the competitive market for a perishable product. Some employers decided againstreorganisation when confronted by the threat of craft resistance. This was a sensible, if short-term,attitude for family-owned firms making satisfactory profits. In addition the product market for British-made capital goods was often highly individualised, a significant obstacle to the introduction ofstandardised mass-production techniques: ships, machines, railway engines were constructed to fulfilthe 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 employersbegan to introduce American-style machine tools and lathes. Mechanisation was implemented in themidst of workplace conflict, as employers combined in a national organisation -- the EngineeringEmployers Federation -- to reverse the gains secured by the Amalgamated Society of Engineersduring the craft militancy of the 1889-1892 boom. In the lock-out of 1897, the EEF insisted on theabsolute right to management but their victory did not portend the crushing of the union of thethorough transformation of the division of labour. The aim of employers was to boost output andreduce 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 reassertedtheir authority in pursuit of lower labour costs and more efficient use of labour. Between 1892 and1897 some 13.2 million days were lost through disputes compared to 2.3 million between 1899 and
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1907 when new systems of national collective bargaining, similar to those in engineering, took effect.Conflict was particularly intense in the coalfields.

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 thepower 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 exclusivism. Some workerswere prepared to shed some of their exclusivism to strengthen their position against modernisingemployers. The aristocratic boilermakers set the example, preventing a major reorganisation of steelship production by a flexible union policy that kept the boundaries of membership under constantreview. 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 workersdepended on circumstances: some were admitted, others were not. This redefinition of theirboundaries of exclusion to admit previously prohibited groups of workers proved highly effective inallowing skilled workers to retain their aristocratic status in the new conditions of late-VictorianEngland. It helps to explain why the Alliance Cabinet-Makers Association succeeded but not the olderFriendly Society of Operative Cabinet-Makers that withered away in narrow craft restrictionism. Old-fashioned prejudice was probably most difficult to abandon where gender was concerned. Craftorganisation in the Potteries remained narrow and sectional, powerless to prevent displacement ascheap female labour was put to work on new machines.

The persistence of privilege depended on circumstances that varied from industry to industry,reflecting the interplay between genuine skill(a necessary exercise of dexterity, judgment andknowledge) and socially constructed skill(the specious status upheld by organisational control).Managerial control was exerted over the technical expertise previously located on the shopfloor. Adistinction emerged between planning and execution, the implementation of which depended onsupervisory workers, trained technicians who owed their position to knowledge acquired at nightschool. Shopfloor skills were increasingly limited and specialised despite the continued existence ofapprenticeship 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 andprinting, where there was considerable agreement between employers and workers over trainingmethods. With the greater specialisation of work and skill, apprentice labour was quickly turned toprofit by employers, a source of cheap labour that undermined the position of adult men in the labourmarket.

Despite the persistence of skill differentials, the working-class became more homogeneous in lateVictorian England. The proportion of the occupied population engaged in farming fell from 15 per centin 1871 to 7.5 per cent in 1901 as rural migrants entered the most rapidly expanding sections of thedomestic economy, transport and mining marking a major shift from worse to better paid jobs andfrom less to more regular employment. Small units continued to proliferate in some sectors of theeconomy but the factory was finally established as the predominant form of organisation even in thesweated and shoemaking trades leaving some poor outworkers stranded in old centres of small-scale

workshop production.

Differentials within the working-class were less pronounced than the sharp social and cultural dividethat separated the aristocracy of labour from the marginal non-manual groups of the lower middle-class. There was some upward mobility into the lower middle-class, but many working-class families,particularly at the top end of the scale, did not regard white-collar employment as an attractive escapefrom manual labour. Clerks were viewed with derision by skilled workers proud of their transmissiblecraft and workplace skills. A cultural gulf between two different ways of life, the social separation ofskilled workers and clerks reinforced the cultural and political identity of the working-class, as thearistocracy of labour, repulsed by middle-class pretensions, turned back to align themselves with theirsemi-skilled and unskilled manual colleagues.


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[1]'Taylorism'originated in the United States and represented the logical development of the conceptof the division of labour. The different aspects of manufacture were identified and then applied to anassembly line structure.

The working classes: A transition in work 1830-1850

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of work in working-class life. Work helpeddetermine two fundamental elements of working-class existence: the ways in which workers spentmany, if not most of their waking hours; and the amounts of money they had to their disposal. Workalso determined most other aspects of working-class life already considered: the standards of livingthey enjoyed; standards of health; the type of housing they lived in; the nature of the family andneighbourhood life; the ways in which leisure time was spent and the social, political and other valuesthat were adopted.[1]

The swing away from domestic forms of production can be roughly explained by three developments:the growth of population, the extension of enclosure with a consequent reduction in demand for rurallabour and the advent of mechanised production boosting productivity and fostering the growth of newtowns and cities. The result was a change in the structure of the labour market. However, this was not

a linear progression to large-scale factory production and did not necessarily entail the deskilling oflabour, though there were notable exceptions.

The enclosure of common lands had a profound impact on the livelihood of rural workers and theirfamilies. It led to a contraction of resources for many workers and a greater reliance on earnings. Thespread of enclosure pushed rural labourers on to the labour market in a search for work that wasmade the more frenzied by falling farm prices and wages between 1815-1835, in the aftermath of theNapoleonic war. The result of the growth in labour supply and agricultural depression was thecollapse of farm service in the south and east of the country. It had been customary for farm workersto be hired for a year, to enter service in another household and to live with another family, receivingfood, clothes, board and a small annual wage in return for work, only living out when they wished tomarry. Added to this was the development of factory-based textile production that had a significanteffect on the other source of earned income for rural workers: outwork. Different parts of the countrywere associated with different types of product: lace-making round Nottingham, stocking-knitting inLeicester, spinning and weaving of cotton and wool in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The appearance ofthe mills damaged the status and security of some very skilled branches of outwork. Many ruralhouseholds found themselves thrown into poverty as such work became increasingly scarce andavailable only at pitifully low rates of pay. The fate of the handloom weavers, stocking-frame knittersand silk weavers in the 1830s and 1840s, all reflected the impact of technological change on thedistribution of work[2]. Textiles were not the only industry to experience such structural changes. Inboth town and country, mechanisation had a marked impact on a wide variety of employment and theposition of some skilled workers was undermined while the demand for new skills grew.

Urban workers had always been more reliant on wages than had rural labourers. Pre-industrial townshad tended to be commercial markets rather than centres of manufacture and employment there had

been more specialised than elsewhere. Small units of production in which worked skilled artisans,providing local services and goods rather than commodities for export operated largely on a domesticbasis through frequently under the control of the craft guilds. These stipulated modes of recruitmentand training and the quality of products and founded the vocabulary of the rightsoflegalorsocietymen who worked in legalshops that permeated craft unions in the nineteenthcentury. The nineteenth century saw the position of the skilled urban artisan increasingly under threatfrom semi-skilled and less well trained workers.

The Elizabethan Statute of Artificers (or Apprentices) 1563 provided a legal framework of craftregulation but had fallen into abeyance long before its apprenticeship clauses were repealed in 1811.Under the old system of apprenticeship, the pupil was formally indentured at 14-16 and joined amasters house for a period traditionally specified as seven years before being recognised as a

journeyman, qualified to practice the trade. It was also usual for journeymen to live in, entitled to bed,

board and wages in return to work, only moving out on marriage. Often journeymen tramped thecountry in search of work in part to extend their experience and knowledge of their trade but also to
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escape increasingly uncertain employment prospects in their immediate locality.[3]To become amaster the journeyman had to produce his masterpiece, demonstrating his mastery of the skills ofthe specific trade. From the early nineteenth century fewer apprentices were completing theirindentures and journeymens wages were falling, both signs that employers were no longer botheredabout hiring only men who had served their time. This led to a dilution in the labour force and anincreased blurring of the boundaries between societyand non-societymen, a situation made worse

by the mechanisation of production that required fewer skills than handwork.

The nature of training for skilled work changed; apprenticeships were shortened and concentrated onspecific skills rather than on an extensive understanding of all aspects of production. Lads workedalongside journeymen rather than being attached to a masters household with various adverseresults. The new system bore heavily on apprentices families, who frequently still paid for indentureswhile the apprentice lived at home and could expect little or no wages for his efforts until his time wasserved. The old stipulated ratios between journeymen and boys were increasingly ignored andapprentices became a cheap alternative for adult labour thus depressing the adult labour market.Such developments were resented by the journeymen expected to train recruits, souring relations andoften making training uncooperative. The fate of boys was often instant dismissal as soon as theywere old enough to command an adult rate.

Such practices were more common during depressed times. This abuse of apprenticeship provokedsporadic industrial disputes as skilled workers tried to protect their position and to prevent their tradefrom being flooded (or diluted) by excess labour. The independence of their aristocraticstatus wasupheld through the rhetoric of custom and the invention of traditionto sanction and legitimise currentpractice. This excluded employers and market calculations from the opaque world of custom,tradition, craft mystery and skill, a separate culture upheld by secrecy, theatrical ceremony and, whennecessary, ritualised violence. Through these means skilled workers defended their position atthe frontier of control.

Reduced to wage-earning proletarians without rights to the materials and product of their labour,skilled workers fought hard to retain some control over the labour processand to defend theirworkplace autonomy against the new time and labour discipline favoured by political economists,

preachers and employers. Even in new forms of work organisations, they often succeeded inrecomposing skills and safeguarding their status, despitedeskillingtechnology and increased divisionof labour. But in defending or reconstructing skilled status, their actions were divisive: not just a linedrawn against employers but against unfair or unskilled competition in the labour market. Skill asproperty became skill as patriarchy, an appropriate that left women defenceless and marginalisedagainst the degradation of their labour.

The most obvious impact of industrialisation was found in the more intense and strictly disciplinednature of work in those industries transformed by the new technology: textiles, coal-mining, metal-processing and engineering. Skilled workers may have been able to hold the frontier of controlinrelation to their skills as property but they were unable to prevent, though perhaps delay, theinexorable march of discipline and compulsion within the workplace. None of the convivial culture ofthe workshop was allowed to interrupt the pace of factory work. Early mills were manned by convict

and pauper labour (mostly children) because the regularity of work was alien to the adult populationused to a greater degree of autonomy in conducting their working lives. The higher wages available infactories provided insufficient compensation for this loss offreedom. Impoverished handloom

weavers would send their daughters to work on the power looms but resisted the prospectthemselves. Hours in the early factories were probably no longer than those in the domestic tradesbut what made it far less acceptable was the mind-crushing tedium of the work involved, the loss ofpublic feast days and holidays and, for middle-class commentators, the physical consequences oflong hours and the appalling conditions in the factory towns.

The growth of labour market conditions in the nineteenth century makes it quite impossible to makeclear distinctions between the employed, the unemployed, the underemployed, the self-employed andthe economically inactive. Subcontracting was rife, notably in the clothing trade wheremiddlemen sweateddomestic women to earn a profit. The slopend of the fashion and furnishing

trades competed frantically for such orders as were available at almost any price. Casualism becamemore visible towards 1900 as cities spread in size. Short-term engagements and casual employment
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were particularly associated with the docks and the construction industries. The casual labour of theold East End was trapped within an economy of declining trades. Conditions of employmentdeteriorated. By the early 1870s Londons shipbuilding had slumped beyond the point of recovery andby the 1880s most heavy engineering, iron founding and metal work had gone the same way.Competition from provincial furniture, clothing and footwear factories could only be met by reducinglabour costs and led to the increasing importance of sweated trades.

[1]John Benson The Working Class in Britain 1850-1939, Longman, 1989, pp. 9-38 is the bestintroduction to this issue. Patrick Joyce (ed.), The historical meanings of work, CUP, 1987 is anexcellent collection containing a seminal introduction by the editor. Patrick Joyce 'Work'in F.M.L.Thompson, (ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750-1950: volume 2 People and theirenvironment, CUP, 1990, pp. 131-194 is a short summary of recent research.

[2]See Duncan Bythell The Handloom Weavers, CUP, 1969 and The Sweated Trades, Batsford,1978 for a detailed discussion of this issue.

[3]See E.J. Hobsbawm 'The tramping artisan'in his Labouring Men, Weidenfeld, 1964, pp. 34-63 andE.P. Thompson The Making of the English Working Class, Gollancz, 1963, Penguin, 1968 and 'Time,Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism', first published in Past and Present, no.38 (December1967), reprinted and revised inCustoms in Common, Merlin, 1991, pp. 352-403.

The working classes: Living standards 1875-1914

The Great Depressionfrom the mid 1870s to the mid 1890s saw working-class real wages risedramatically, while unemployment remained close to the levels of the mid-Victorian boom[1]. Thedecisive factor in improved living standards was not money wages, even though they continuedupwards, but the dramatic fall in prices most marked in food and other staples, goods that accountedfor much of the working-class budget. Prices tumbled by over 40 per cent, drawing real wages up in

the most substantial and sustained increase of the nineteenth century. Allowing for unemployment,the real wages of the average urban worker stood some 60 per cent higher in 1900 than in 1860.

There was considerable diversityin living standards. The advance in living standards was neitheruninterrupted nor evenly spread. All types of workers had to endure economic fluctuations of one kindor another, not least in the troughs of 1878-1879, 1884-1887 and 1892-1893, but the severitydiverged markedly. Shipbuilding felt the full impact of the world trace depression. Demand was highlyinelastic for a product that was long in construction and tailor-made to specific requirements. Therewas an over supply of ships in the early 1870s and stockpiling was not an option during the ensuingdepression. Although boilermakers and shipbuilders were part of the aristocracy of labour with over20 per cent earning 40s or more in the early twentieth century, the income available for consumptionwas substantially less than these wages suggest. At such times of full employment, skilled workerspaid off debts incurred during the last spell of unemployment and saved for the next interruption in

earnings. Workers in the building trades were subject to a different rhythm, longer than the five toseven year trade and investment cycle experienced in capital goods industries. Swings in the buildingindustry lasted twenty years or more: from a peak in 1876 earnings and work outlets were reduceduntil the mid 1890s, the start of the next boom that reached a double peak in 1898 and 1903. Duringthe up-turns, full employed builders labourers, the elite of unskilled labour, reached economicindependence and were able to live above the poverty line without supplementary income. Within thelong cycles, building activity remained at the mercy of the weather, with a seasonal trough fromNovember to February. This pushed those without savings back into poverty.

Winter remained a slack season in many other trades, bringing hardship and distress to the casuallyemployed in the docks, on the streets and in the sweatshops. This was particularly evidence whentrade continued depressed after the weather improved and, in 1879 and 1886, resulted in

unemployed riots and demonstrations. Charles Booths survey found that it was the broken time ofirregular work rather than low rates of pay that accounted for working-class impoverishment.Employment in the clothing trades was still seasonal and sweated. Female workers in the
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cheap slopend of the market in the London tailoring trade worked no more than two and a half daysa week at a daily rate of 2s 6d to 4s for machinists and 1s 6d to 3s 6d for button-holers. Wages werehigher in the West End bespoke trade. Up to 30s per week was paid during brisk periods butthe seasonexerted a greater tyranny. Milliners, dressmakers and tailoresses were frequently driveninto prostitution in the slack season returning to the shops with the advent of the new seasons trade:morals, contemporaries observed, fluctuated with trade. Irregular earnings and employment were the

norm for other women workers like box-makers, artificial flower-makers and other sweated tradesconducted at home or in small-unregulated factories. The female casual labour market reached itspeak during this period as elderly single women, widows and wives of irregularly employed labourersand others sought work at any price whatever.

All levels within the working-classes found their family and life style affected by adverse personalcircumstances that were aggravated by fluctuations in living standards occasioned by cyclical,seasonal or other economic factors. Family size began to fall in this period: the marriage cohort of1861-1869 had an average of 6.16 children while that of 1890-1899 had 4.13 and the figure continuedto fall down to and beyond 1914. Fertility rates, however, diverged markedly between social classesand within the working-class itself. Between 1880 and 1911 the fertility rate in middle-classHampstead fell by nearly 30 per cent while in working-class Poplar the decline was only 6 per cent.Within the working-classes martial fertility declined substantially faster for families headed by skilled,

semi-skilled and textile workers than for those headed by miners, agricultural labourers and theunskilled.

The introduction of compulsory education in 1880 Act was regarded as an economic threat andunwelcome intrusion by poor parents since they were often dependent on the supplementary incomeof their children. Despite this, children were still able to earn at an early age. From nine or so, boyssought out of school hours employment as delivery boys, newspaper sellers, hawkers andcostermongers. Juvenile crime, oral evidence suggests, was often inspired by a sense of family duty,a moral determination to provide for the family whatever the legal consequences. Non-attendanceremained high in large families where the father was dead or unemployed. The half time systemproved an acceptable compromise in the textile districts though twelve-year-olds that spent longmornings in the mill were often in no fit state to be taught in the afternoon.

Married womens employment was poorly paid, incurred costs and carried social stigma. Deniedworkplace equality, working women were condemned as unfair competition, undercutting wages andworkshop practices. Antagonism was particularly acute in the Potteries where the patriarchal systemof subcontracted family labour was abruptly undercut by technological innovation at the potbank thatbrought new opportunities for women in occupations previously defended as skilled male preserves.Paid at no more than two-thirds the rate for the job, women were set to work on the lighter, smallerware while men struggled to maintain former wage levels on the larger, more difficult items. Duringthe 1890s the number of male potters decreased while female employment increased by 10.9 percent; in 1901, women made up 21,000 of the total workforce of 46,000.

Families with a skilled male breadwinner were best place to benefit from improved living standards,but illness and advancing age denied them permanent economic security. Many trades remained

dangerous and unhealthy and high earnings were often interrupted by ill-health. Income andexpenditure could fluctuate widely but through credit and thrift working-class families struggled tomaintain decent standards. The corner-shop tick bookremained the most common form of credit and

during short-term emergencies the aristocracy of labour received financial assistance from the Co-op.The easy payment check system was pioneered by the Provident Clothing Company in 1881, a rapidsuccess that altered the traditional method of credit. Pawn broking declined from its 1870s peak afterwhich the trade diversified into the retail business with new fashionable lines sold for check, cash orcredit.

Poorer families, however, continued to use the pledge shop in the conventional way, as a cheapsource of second-hand clothing and as a substitute savings bank. Expensive items purchased withseasonal earnings were subsequently pawned off one by one to tide over hard times. Pledgeablearticles were the most basic form of insurance against hardship. At the other end of the scale, the

friendly societies offered systematic cover against the costs of sickness, accident and death but at aprice beyond the means of many working-class households. It has been calculated that the minimum


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weekly income necessary to be a member of a friendly society was 20s and this excluded all but themost regularly employed. Membership, however, grew: between 1872 and 1899 the Manchester Unityof Oddfellows increased from 427,000 to 713,000 and the Ancient Order of Foresters from 394,000 to666,000. Membership was a cultural badge of status and was respected and admired throughout theworking-class community.

In insurance terms, sickness benefit was the most important advantage of membership, paid at a rateof between 10s and 14s per week, a sum supplemented in some cases by trade union membership(the double cover of the aristocracy of labour). By 1900, however, the friendly societies were on theverge of crisis as an increasing number of elderly members relied on sick benefits in lieu of a pension.

As well as sick pay, friendly societies entitled members to medical treatment from a generalpractitioner but this did not prove to be successful and many societies pooled their resources toestablish medical institutes. By 1885 42 medical institutes were affiliated to the Friendly SocietiesMedical Alliance with a total membership of 211,000. Other forms of medical treatment depended onphilanthropy, employer paternalism or the overworked services of the Poor Law. Free outpatienttreatment was available from the voluntary hospitals but these were unevenly spread with a heavyconcentration in London and the larger cities. Work clubs or medical aid societies were encouragedby some employers who deducted a weekly sum to fund the scheme and by 1900 it was commonpractice for the workers to select and appoint the medical practitioner. Poor Law medical facilities lost

some of their stigma following the Medical Relief Disqualification Act 1885. The medical establishmentwas still, however, treated with some suspicion in working-class circles and various forms ofalternative medicine were favoured ranging from homeopathy, mesmerism and spiritualism, practicesbased on natural remedies to the latest patent pills advertised in the press and quack commercialsubstitutes. Poor families without access to charity or insurance schemes were forced to rely on thePoor Law unless they could muster sufficient funds for private treatment, the much-preferred option.

With or without medical cover, burial insurance was considered obligatory, particularly for wives,children and those with no independent income of their own. The alternative was the much fearedpauper burial. Much of the business was conducted by large and inefficient collecting societies:contributions were low, a penny or halfpenny a week, but expenses were high (40 per cent of incomecompared to 10-15 per cent for friendly societies). The industrial life assurance companies were moreefficient: the Prudential kept its collectors under close supervision and the company was far moreselective declining to accept Irish-born or inhabitants of certain neighbourhoods. Even in death wasmattered was the judgement of neighbours and peers. Without show and display -- an ostentatiousfuneral -- respectability would be unacknowledged.

Food was the principal item of expenditure and considerable emphasis was placed on managing diet.In 1885 the working-class spent 71 per cent of their earnings on food and drink compared to only 44per cent in the middle-classes. By this time, however, food prices were falling, facilitating a majoradvance in living standards: between 1877 and 1887 the retail price of food in a typical working-classbudget fell by 30 per cent, the most significant price change of the century. Lower prices were theresult of large-scale import of cheap wheat and meat, the progressive reduction of taxes on food andthe belated industrial revolution in food manufacture. A whole series of changes took place in retailtechnology. They were not complete until 1900. Though they were not immediate and revolutionary,

the end result was a radical change in the whole system.

The weekly market was gradually replaced by, or transformed into, the permanent shopping centre.Up to 1850 the first stage was characterised by the building of a market hall. Michael Marks, forexample, started in Leeds as a peddler or packman; by 1884 he had a stall in the open market thatoperated two days a week; from there he moved into the covered market that had been opened in1857 on a daily basis; the next stage was to open stalls in other markets and by 1890 he had five.The old core of the town, or part of it, that had been a mixture of land uses became more specialisedinto retail or professional uses. Mass produced goods undermined old local craft production and theold combined workshop-retailing establishments were replaced by specialist retailers of manufacturedgoods. The railways enhanced this process by providing speedy transport of even perishablecommodities. Part of this process was the wider occurrence of the lock-up shop to which the retailercommuted each day. By the 1880s both multiple and department stores appeared, the former

especially in the grocery trade. Thomas Lipton started a one-man grocery store in Glasgow in 1872;by 1899 he had 245 branches throughout Britain. The greater demand for professional services,


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related to urban growth, resulted in lawyers and doctors seeking central locations. But a variety ofother uses also located themselves here offering services to business, auctioneers and accountantsor to the public, such as lending libraries.

The following important changes in diet occurred after 1875. Declining bread consumption is widelyassociated with rising standards of living as more money was spent on meat. The prosperous

aristocracy of labour may have bought fresh meat but other members of the working-class boughtimported meat, whether tinned or frozen. It was good value, cheap and appetising when embellishedwith one of the new commercial sauces. Consumption of tea and sugar rose as housewives foundthemselves with more money to spare. New technology and factory production led to a dramaticincrease in biscuit, jam, chocolate and cocoa manufacture: Chivers, Rowntree, Cadbury and Fry soonestablished as household names. Jam sold particularly well and there was a huge popular demand fora sweet, highly flavoured spread that was cheaper than butter and made margarine more palatable.Some of the new developments were of dubious nutritional value. Roller-milling produced finer flourand a white loaf but the process removed the wheat germ, vitamins, mineral salts and fats. Margarinewas vitamin-deficient, as were cheap and convenient dairy products, hence the prevalence of ricketsamong children fed on canned condensed and evaporated skimmed milk. More nutritious, but muchcriticised by middle-class observers, was the development of the fish and chip trade. It made animportant contribution to the inadequate protein content of the urban diet. For working mothers, fish

and chips were a welcome and affordable convenience, saving time, effort and cooking costs.

The extent of dietary improvement in late Victorian England should not be exaggerated. Agriculturallabourers, especially in the low-wage south-western counties, seldom enjoyed meat. However,shorter working hours allowed labourers to spend more time in their vegetable allotments while thenew touring vans from nearby co-operative societies offered decent supplies in rural backwaters. Inurban households, gains were unevenly shared: the male breadwinner was accorded priority at thetable, a practice that often resulted in the underfeeding of women and children. Womens dietsremained one of bread and tea, while almost all men consumed a main meal of meat or bacon or fishand potatoes. Despite the fall in prices, families with incomes less than 30s a week wereundernourished, the consequences of which were graphically revealed in contemporary socialsurveys and the subsequent investigation of the nationsphysical deterioration.

Health became an increasingly important issue in this period. With the advantage of hindsight theyears between 1875 and 1914 can be seen as one of transition from the age-old pattern of massmortality occasioned by infectious diseases, poor nutrition and heavy labour to the modernassemblage of functional disorders, viral disease and bodily decay associated with old age. Twofactors hastened the change. First, the increased survival rates of individuals who formerly wouldhave been lost in infancy or childhood. Secondly, the new diet with its excessive sugar and saltcontent, the consequences of which were aggravated by increased addiction to cigarette smoking,encouraged by the introduction of the penny-per-five packet in 1888. Harmful or not to the bodilyconstitution, the quality of food undoubtedly improved assisted by new legislation against adulterationand by higher standards of retailing promoted by the Co-op, that secured its biggest advances inmembers in the 1880s and 1890s, and by the new multiple stores pioneered by Liptons andSainsburys. However, those still dependent ontickhad to suffer the high prices and low quality of

the small corner-shop while other poor families eked out a diet on the offal and otherwise unsaleableitems knocked down in price at Saturday night markets.

[1]S.B.Saul The Myth of the Great Depression 1873-1896, Macmillan, 2nd. ed., 1988 summariseshistoriography.

Nobody knows what persuaded a 35-year-old Quaker iron founder to move from Norwich to Ipswich in1789. All that is known is that he migrated to the Suffolk town with just 200 capital-half of it borrowed

from the Quaker bankers John and Henry Gurney-and a single workman.

Perhaps he believed there would be advantages to be gained from settling in a seaport, even thoughIpswich was suffering one of its periodic economic downturns. Possibly he considered that the market for
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his agricultural implements would be better in Suffolk, but he could hardly have foreseen the exporttrade of the later 19th and 20th centuries that would make the name of Ransome known all over the

world.

Robert Ransome was the son of Richard Ransome, a Quaker schoolmaster at Wells, which at the time ofhis birth in 1753 was a small but not insignificant port in North Norfolk. He was apprenticed to an

ironmonger in Norwich and subsequently set up what was reputedly the first iron foundry in the city, and

with another in Cambridge the first in eastern England. Quickly gaining a reputation as an innovator, heobtained a patent in 1783 for 'iron and other metal plates, for covering houses and other buildings,' andthen in 1785 another, much more important, patent for 'making plough-shares of cast-iron, which aretempered after a peculiar manner so as to stand the strictest proof.' He was advertising his cast-ironshares in Suffolk as well as Norfolk as early as September, 1786, one of his agents being at Ipswich.

Whatever his reasons, in 1789 Ransome set up a foundry in premises opposite St Mary-at-the-KeyChurch. It is possible that he made use of the premises occupied earlier in the century by John Dole,

who might well have been the first Ipswich ironfounder. Before long he moved to a former malting in StMargaret's Ditches (now Old Foundry Road), occupying a site between the old town ditch and CarrStreet, where he and his family set up home in a quite modest house with its front door on the streetand its back door opening into the works.

He was most likely welcomed to Ipswich by fellow Quakers, whose meeting house in College Street was

not far from where he first set up in business on arrival in Ipswich. Among them were members of the

influential Alexander family, bankers, merchants and shipowners, whose bank stood in Bank Street closeto the junction of Foundation Street and Lower Brook Street. They and Robert Ransome were among thepeople who, towards the end of the 18th century, called for an improvement in the Orwell. The river hadsilted up so badly that vessels drawing more than eight feet were unable even to reach the town'sdilapidated quays, and their cargoes had to be unloaded into lighters in Downham Reach, three milesbelow the town.

In 1803 Robert Ransome obtained a patent for making and tempering cast-iron ploughshares and otheritems for agricultural use; a piece of iron inserted into the sand mould chilled the under-surface of theshare and produced a hardened surface. Earlier cast-iron shares wore away too fast, and as the first

edge was worn off the share tended to 'lose its hold of the work' and to pass over weeds without cuttingthem. The new process provided a hard underside about an eighth or a sixteenth of an inch in thickness;

as this wore much more slowly than the soft metal of the upper part of the share, a constant sharp edgewas provided in everyday use.

No less important was the introduction of the cast-iron plough body. Even after an inventive Suffolkfarmer had brought into use a cast-iron plough-ground or bottom, the wooden plough was still aninconvenient and not altogether satisfactory implement. As a later member of the Ransome family wrotein 1843, 'scarcely two workmen would make them alike, and sometimes one plough would work well and

easy to the holder, while another made by the same hand would be inferior in these respects.'

The use of cast-iron meant that 'parts requiring nicety in their form could be multiplied to any extent,with the certainty of their being always alike.' Ransome took out a further patent in 1808 for the

manufacture of interchangeable plough parts, something that would have been quite impossible withoutfacilities for iron founding. The significance of this development was that Ransome was able to produce a

wide range of ploughs adapted to local needs and preferences while using interchangeable mass-produced parts.

What was probably the first steam engine in Ipswich was set to work at Ransome's foundry in February,1807. Erected by a Cornish engineer, it was employed in working the bellows for the smithies and in

operating grindstones, lathes and other machinery. In 1817 the younger Robert Ransome, his brotherJames and John Talwin Shewell, the Tavern Street draper, put up 2,600 between them to supply

Ipswich with gas. Aided by William Cubitt, who was at that time working with the Ransomes, theyinstalled a gasmaking plant in a corner of the foundry in St Margaret's Ditches. The first domestic gaslamp in Ipswich was in due course lit ceremonially, if extravagantly, with a 1 note at Mr. AllenRansome's home in Carr Street.

Robert's eldest son James was apprenticed to his father in 1795, but having learnt his trade he went offto Yarmouth to set up his own foundry there. He returned to Ipswich in 1809 to go into partnership with

his father, and three years later the Norfolk-born engineer William Cubitt took on the role of engineer to

the firm, helping it cope with the agricultural depression that came with the end of the Napoleonic Warsby expanding into such trades as bridge building and millwrighting. During Cubitt's first four years atIpswich work valued at nearly 5,000 was gained which, it was claimed, 'would probably not have beenundertaken without him.'

Several cast-iron bridges built by the firm still exist, one of them at Brent Eleigh and another at Clare,but the iron Stoke Bridge at Ipswich built in 1819 to replace the old stone bridge washed away by aflood a year earlier was itself replaced after little more than a century. It is doubtful whether the


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ironwork for these bridges was cast at the Ransome foundry; certainly the castings for Stoke Bridgewere made at Dudley. It might be that the Ipswich foundry was unable to handle such large castings at

that time. The bridge destined for the Stoke crossing was actually erected in Dudley, and Cubitt wentthere to approve its construction before it was dismantled and sent by canal boat to Gainsbrough on theTrent, where it was loaded into a seagoing vessel which brought it to Ipswich.

Robert Ransome's second son, the younger Robert, also trained as an apprentice under his father and

became a partner in 1818, at which time the firm became known as Ransome & Sons. This title was keptuntil the elder Robert retired in 1825, when the firm became J. & R. Ransome, though sometimesreferred to unofficially as Ransomes Brothers. The two brothers were both six-footers, and James inparticular had the figure to go with his height. One of the workmen wrote of the celebration inChristchurch Park in 1845 of James Ransome's jubilee year in the business:

There, side by side, in the midst of their men, stood these two brothers, James and Robert, each fullysix feet in height, the former conspicuous for the noble dignity of his manly, stalwart figure, the latter

also characterised by qualities above the average; a pair of brothers at once honoured and respectedwherever they went. . .

A member of the third generation proved just as much an innovator as his forebears and contributed a

great deal to the later success of the company. James's son James Allen Ransome was apprenticed tothe firm when a boy of 13 or 14, and his acceptance as a partner at the age of 23 resulted in another

change of name, to J., R. & A. Ransome. For almost a decade James Allen lived at Yoxford and managed

a branch that the firm set up in the village, perhaps in an attempt to compete with the Leiston firm ofRichard Garrett on their home ground. While at Yoxford he helped establish a farmers' club at whichmembers discussed practical matters of concern to the agricultural community.

A practical man, he played a leading part in the development of new implements and the improvement

of existing ones, and when the Agricultural Society of England (later to be granted the prefix Royal) wasestablished in 1838 he became an active member. Thus it was that Ransomes exhibited at the society'sfirst show at Oxford in 1839, and came away with the society's Gold Medal.

The journal of the Agricultural Society of England reported later: The Society, at the recommendation ofthe judges, awarded the gold medal to the Messrs. Ransomes, of Ipswich, who contributed largely to theexhibition, having sent up their waggons laden with more than six tons of machinery and implements,the superior manufacture and variety of which commanded universal approbation.

After five years of very active retirement the elder Robert Ransome died in 1830, having seen hisgrandson begin to play a vital part in the work of the firm. In his retirement Robert had taken upcopper-plate engraving and had made himself a telescope, for which he ground the lenses himself.

In the year of Robert Ransome's death a very capable engineer, Edwin Beard Budding, employed in anironworks at Stroud in Gloucestershire which was largely involved in the construction and installation ofmachinery used in the woollen mills of the West of England, invented the cylinder lawnmower. His

lawnmower design adapted the rotating cutting cylinder used in a machine for the shearing of cloth tothe mowing of grass. The circumstances under which J.R. & A. Ransome acquired a licence tomanufacture Budding's Patent Grass Cutting Machine are not known, nor is the name of the far-sightedperson who opened negotiations for the acquisition of that licence; all that is known is that the firmacquired a licence in 1832.

Ransomes were soon advertising the new 'Machine for cutting Grass Plats &c.' in East Angliannewspapers. 'This machine is so easy to manage, that persons unpractised in the Art of Mowing, maycut the Grass on Lawns, Pleasure Grounds, and Bowling Greens, with ease.'

Although in the early years the demand for these cumbersome machines with their heavy rollers andexposed gearing was minimal and no more than 70 or 80 machines were produced each year, theimplications for the future of the company cannot be denied. By 1866 lawnmower production had

reached more than 200 machines a year, and the following year it soared to over a thousand. From thenon Ransomes were one of the 'big three' of lawnmower makers.

The Ransomes were fortunate in the employees they attracted to their works in St Margaret's Ditches,some of whom spent their entire working lives with the family. In 1835/6 James Ransome compiled a listof about a hundred men in the firm's employ, one of whom was William Rush, son of the workman of thesame name who had in 1789 moved from Norwich with the elder Robert. 'William Rush has now lived

with us, with only a short intermission, for 42 years - He first worked for my father, he afterwards went

with me to Yarmouth in 1804, was afterwards a short time with another Founder in Beccles and thencame back to us at Ipswich in 1810 - He is now on the decline, but has been one of our best and mostfaithful workmen, has been our principal Mould Maker for Shares and Ploughs, and for many years was

our foreman in all heavy fittings of Cast Iron Work.' In the margin James added a note: 'W Rush's fatherlived with RR Nor'ch in 1782 and never left our service.'


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Though James' generous nature shows through, there were some workmen who seem to have been lessthan satisfactory and suffered his criticism. There was, for example, John Clarkson: 'This man was a

Labourer on the Parish-and taken from that into our Employ - He made a capital Warehouseman and is agood Share Trimmer, but he is sometimes so beside himself and given to break out that it is not alwayseasy to keep him in tolerable bounds-He has received a wound in his head and to this some allowancemay be made-He was with Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar and likes to keep up the remembrance of it.'

In spite of his 'breaking out' he had been with the firm for some 17 years, and so had a labourer of

whom James noted: 'A poor and muddling chap-cannot say much in his favour therefore the less we talkabout him the better.' This manuscript list of employees is now in the collection of the Ipswich TransportMuseum, along with other records of the firm.

A particularly valuable employee was William Worby, who was foreman in the 1830s and rose to be

works manager. The Ransomes were quite prepared to allow him to use his initiative, and perhaps it wasthis that caused problems when a new partner, Charles May, joined the firm in 1836. Whatever thecause, William and the new partner did not get along together.

When in 1837 the Ransomes decided that the firm was expanding beyond the capacity of the premisesin St Margaret's Ditches the opportunity occurred to separate the two protagonists, but poor Williamthought he was being given notice to terminate his employment, as he recalled later.

One morning in March 1837, I was summoned to the presence of Messrs Robert and James Ransome in

Mr Robert Ransome's room, which was then an upper room in the offices in St Margaret's Ditches. Mr

Robert Ransome told me that they had sent for me to find a place for myself. I asked if they wanted meto leave them, whereupon Mr Robert Ransome said, 'By no means-we mean that you should go and hiremalt offices or some such place, where you can take some of the men and some of the work, forming asort of branch works, as we are getting too thick here, and we do not want you and Mr May together.'

Worby found what he was looking for in a building, possibly a former malting or else part of the StClement's Shipyard, on the bend of the Orwell a couple of hundred yards below the Common Quay. It isto be seen, between the site of St Clement's Shipyard and an inlet, on the carefully drawn panorama ofthe riverside produced by Edward Caley when the Wet Dock scheme was proposed in 1837, with 'OrwellIron Works' painted on the end wall to announce the new ownership. Also visible on the drawing is an

iron crane, perhaps made by Ransomes, standing on the adjacent quay. Without a doubt Worby knewjust what he was doing; the new dock would provide unrivalled facilities, enabling raw materials to be

unloaded right outside the new works and, as trade grew and implements began to be exported,enabling Ransomes' products to be loaded into ships at what amounted to the firm's own quay. It is notto be wondered at that the Ransomes and Charles May were among those who were involved in bringing

forward the dock scheme.

As work went ahead on the construction of the dock and while the Cobbolds were concerning themselveswith bringing the railway to Ipswich Ransomes made the decision to build a new works on the riverside,

to the south of the temporary premises occupied by William Worby's branch works. It was to be knownas Orwell Works.

Almost certainly it was the increase in trade brought about by the railway work to be described later that

brought about the decision; the firm had long outgrown the somewhat restricted premises between StMargaret's Ditches (in future to be known as Old Foundry Road) and Carr Street. The first of the new

buildings were occupied in 1841, and over the next eight years more and more activities weretransferred to the new site as further workshops were erected. James Ransome took charge of the newworks, Charles May remaining at the Old Foundry in St Margaret's Ditches.

The beginning of the move coincided with the building of Ransomes' first steam engine, a little portable

engine with a vertical boiler that was shown at the Royal Agricultural Society show at Liverpool in 1841.Following its return from Liverpool the engine was made self moving by the addition of a chain drive to

the rear axle, and in this guise it was exhibited at the 1842 show in Bristol. It was not really theforerunner of the traction engine, for it was merely self moving and not intended to haul other vehicles,though it did carry a small threshing machine on a platform.

The judges at the 1842 show reported that the little Ipswich-built engine, which was of the so-called disctype patented by Henry Davies (an early attempt at producing a rotary engine), 'travelled along at therate of four to six miles an hour, and was guided and manoeuvred'-by a horse in shafts attached to the

front wheels-'so as to fix it in any particular spot with ease.' They awarded it a prize of 30, but no more

is heard of it.

Ransomes exhibited another self-moving engine, made not in Ipswich but at the Railway Foundry of E.B.Wilson & Co. in Leeds to the design of Robert Willis, at the 1849 Royal Show at Leeds. It carried off first

prize at the Royal and was afterwards employed in threshing in Suffolk, spending some days on two

farms at Bramford and then moving on under its own power to a farm near Freston. Alas, the roughroads of early Victorian East Anglia shook it to pieces all too quickly, and another pioneer disappearedfrom the country scene.


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The firm completed the move to the new Orwell Works in 1849, the event being marked by a dinnergiven by the partners to some 1,500 guests, these including the entire workforce.

By 1850 steam power was becoming accepted in the fields as it had been years earlier in the mill andthe factory. 'The use of fixed steam engines, of from four to eight horse power for impelling threshingmachines, is now common on large farms in the north of England and the south of Scotland; and the use

of both fixed and portable steam engines, of two, three and four horse power, for impelling the several

machines of the farmery, is pretty general in many of the best parts of the centre and south of England,'said the writer of The Rural Cyclopaedia, published in 1849. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde ParkRansomes showed not just a selection of their farm implements but also a fixed engine and a portable.

In later years the firm was among those that designed classes of engine specifically for service in whatwould today be termed the developing countries. John Head, who joined the firm as an apprentice in1848, invented an apparatus which enabled straw to be burnt as fuel in the firebox of portable andtraction engines. This development, made in collaboration with a Russian engineer named Schemioth,

proved a very useful one in countries where there was no wood available for fuel and where coal had tobe imported at great expense.

The Head-Schemioth system involved the provision of extra-large fireboxes and an apparatus, driven

from the crankshaft by a strap, for feeding the straw into the firebox. The system, which was also usedby other engine manufacturers, had obvious advantages where engines were used to drive threshing

machines, for they consumed no more than five or six per cent of the straw from the crop. The same

system could also be used to burn reeds, cotton or maize stalks, bagasse (sugar cane refuse) or indigorefuse, brushwood and other similar materials.

There came a time when the erecting shops at Orwell Works were full of engines under construction, andengines by the dozen can be seen in various stages of erection in old photographs of the works. Portable

engines destined for overseas countries were packed in crates, their wheels, flywheels and various otherlarge components being packed separately before despatch. On arrival at the port of destination it was asmall matter to unpack the wheels and axles and fit them to the still-crated engines for onward haulage.

Quaker business acumen, energy and principle contributed much to the development of the Ransomesbusiness. Links through marriage, friendship and religion between Quaker families in different parts ofthe country did much to assist the evolution of the firm.

The first newcomer to Ransomes was Charles May, who joined in 1836 and shouldered most of the

responsibility for the railway work that became so important to the family firm. Between the time of hisjoining the firm and 1851, when he left it, May took out eight patents, some of them in conjunction withmembers of the Ransome family. Four of them involved the construction of railways and two were

concerned with agricultural machinery. The significance of the railway trade is indicated by thecompany's balance sheet for 1851 which shows nearly 87,000 for railway and general engineering workcompared with only 35,000 for agricultural work.

Following the departure of Charles May the Ransomes invited his nephew William Dillwyn Sims to jointhe firm as a partner. William's aunt Ann was the wife of Richard Dykes Alexander, the Ipswich bankerand philanthropist, and William himself married Eliza Curtis May, while in 1892 old Robert Ransome'sgreat-granddaughter Mildred married John Dillwyn Sims, William's son, so it is possible to see a complexweb of relationships growing up. In 1865 another of the founder's great-granddaughters, Mary Ann

Ransome, married John Jefferies, who had been an apprentice at Orwell Works, and in due course he too

became a partner in the firm. Each time a new partner was taken in the firm changed its name; over theyears it had ten different titles, ending up in 1884 as Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies.

It was undoubtedly the Quaker connection that brought a certain John Fowler to Ipswich in the early1850s. John came of a long line of Friends, for the Fowlers had been among the earliest disciples ofGeorge Fox, founder of that religious movement, and it was through family links with the leading Quakerfamilies in the North of England that in 1847 John became an apprentice with a Middlesbrough

engineering firm. When the Friends decided in 1849 to send a delegation to Ireland, then sufferingseverely from the potato famine and the resulting widespread destitution, to discover what might bedone to alleviate the situation John was invited to go along to give the delegation the benefit of hisengineering knowledge.

Realising that economical drainage of the Irish wetlands could increase and help diversify agricultural

production, John set out to develop a means of mechanising the laying of field drains, up to then alaborious and expensive manual process. He turned for advice and assistance to Ransomes and to theirworks manager, William Worby, whom he first met one fine summer's evening on Brighton beach. It isrecorded that on that summer's evening the two men spent two hours 'very seriously talking and

calculating on the subject and came to the conclusion of its being impracticable. . .'. The development

work to which Ransomes contributed so much was eventually to lead not just to the successful use ofsteam power for land drainage but to the evolution of steam ploughing.


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When Fowler's system of drawing a mole plough by a man-powered windlass, with a rope attached tothe mole to drag wooden drain pipes into the drain, was first demonstrated at the Royal Agricultural

Society's meeting at Exeter in 1850 the mole plough had been built by Ransomes and May. In 1852Fowler patented a steam draining plough, but this ingenious machine proved too heavy; in furtherexperiments he used a portable steam engine with a windlass driven by belt from the engine's flywheelto haul the mole plough by cable which won him a silver medal at the Royal Agricultural Society's Lincoln

meeting in 1854.

Fowler and those working with him had already given a great deal of thought to cultivation by steam,and in the following year he devised a steam engine with a drum mounted under the boiler. The enginethat he demonstrated was made by Clayton and Shuttleworth, of Lincoln, with the windlass and drivesupplied by Robert Stephenson & Co of Newcastle, but it is almost certain that in later years Ransomes

provided portable engines for this purpose. The mole plough used in the demonstration was made byRansomes and Sims.

When Fowler performed his first experiments with steam cultivation the same year the problem arose ofreversing the plough at the ends of the furrow in such a way as to lay all the furrows in the samedirection. At the beginning of 1856 he discussed the problem at Ipswich with William Worby, whosuggested the use of the Kentish turnwrest plough, in which the mouldboards were changed alternately

from side to side. This was, however, too complicated. Fowler's associate David Greig had the idea of a

balance plough mounted on a two-wheel axle; the right-hand plough bodies were mounted on one armof a seesaw frame, with the left-hand plough bodies on the other arm. Worby immediately saw the

advantages of this and set to work to produce an experimental plough carrying three mouldboards oneach end.

Worby reported back to Fowler at a meeting of the Society of Arts. In a letter which Michael Lane foundamong the Fowler archives Worby described what happened.

Consequently I met Mr. Fowler with a favourable report at Adelphi Place when Mr. Fowler read his paperto the Society, after which much discussion took place on the subject of steam culture by the gentlemenpresent and several papers were read which were sent by persons interested who could not be present.The room was also lined with diagrams and drawings of various plans which I conceived had been tried.

Some of the above were by a gentleman who said that he had lost much time and spent 2000 inexperiments. He also said that he had come to the conclusion of its being useless to attempt steam

culture with less than 40 H.P. Mr. Fowler and I were sitting together at the time this remark was made.He said, 'What do you think of that idea?' I replied, 'My experiments lead me to think that I could makeone of our 7 H.P. engines plough on light land, nearly, if not quite, one acre per hour.' Mr. Fowler said,

'if you believe this I will give you an order home with you to make a set of tackle at once.'

Mr Fowler and myself slept at the Great Northern Hotel and next morning went to Hainault Forest to thedraining done there. We breakfasted together, I then came home with an order to Ransomes and Sims

to make a set of tackle. I made a 4-furrow balance plough, stationary windlass, rope porters, etc.-andset it to work on the 10th April 1856 on a farm at Nacton, the property of Sir George Broke Middleton, inthe occupation of Mr Farrow and we ploughed at the rate of one acre per hour. Mr. Fowler was highlysatisfied with the trial, so was his father who came with him. Mr. J.A. Ransome was there, also Mr.Biddell of Playford, who was pleased with the quickness it was turned at the end of the furrow.

In 1856 Fowler and Worby jointly obtained a patent for a specially adapted steam engine with anintegral double- drum windlass, two of which were ordered from Ransomes and Sims early the nextyear. It seems to have been at this time that Fowler considered the double engine system that was laterto be so successful, though it appears that he considered the capital cost of two engines to be too high

for the ordinary farmer. Although these two engines were not entirely successful Fowler had four further

engines built for him by Ransomes and Sims, which he took to the Royal Agricultural Society's meetingat Salisbury in July 1857. There Fowler found himself in competition with three other aspiring designersof ploughing engines and systems, one of whom upset the judges by 'the extreme discourtesy of his

language and conduct'. Although Fowler failed to win the 500 prize the judges did say that 'No one whosaw the work performed by Mr. Fowler's plough could doubt that in its use at least, steam ploughing assuch had attained a degree of excellence comparable in point of execution even with the best horsework'.

It was with a Ransome 10 h.p. portable engine and a Ransome four-furrow balance plough that Fowlerat last won the Royal Agricultural Society's 500 prize in trials at Chester in 1858. The collaborationbetween Fowler and Ransomes continued even when the former set up his own works in Leeds whichproduced its first pair of ploughing engines in 1862.

First works manager of the Steam Plough Works was an Ipswich man, Jeremiah Head, who had beenarticled to Robert Stephenson & Co. in Newcastle at the age of 17 in 1852. Head, a relative of the John

Head who became a partner in Ransomes, had played an important part in the development of thesteam plough and had at one point been assigned full time to work done by Stephensons in producing


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windlasses for Fowler. It has been said that while John Fowler was the team leader and innovator he wasgreatly indebted to those who worked with him, including Head and Worby.

In view of these local connections it is not entirely inappropriate that the Ipswich Museum should havebecome the home of a one-tenth scale model of a Fowler 14 nhp ploughing engine made in 1864 to theorder of Prince Halim Pasha, who had purchased a number of full-size Fowler engines for use in the

Egyptian cotton fields. It seems the model was never delivered, for at the beginning of this century it

was rescued from the office loft in Leeds by a Fowler employee, Percy Robinson, who spent many yearsrestoring it to its original condition.

As early as 1817 Ransomes established a relief society for their workmen which became known as the'Old Sick Fund' and was succeeded by other similar 'clubs' providing for employees unable to workthrough sickness or injury. In the late 1840s a workmen's hall was founded at Orwell Works in whichthose who lived too far away to go home for meals might eat. It also provided a meeting place for theMental Improvement Society, a form of evening class actively supported by the Ransomes on its

formation in 1836.

John Glyde when writing of this society commented that 'The employers have very wisely abstained fromany interference in the management of the Society. They have sought to cultivate the feeling of self-

dependence in the men engaged at the works. . .'

To what extent were such efforts on the part of the employers appreciated by the workers? 'The

ignorance in which the great mass of the working classes is sunk, is frequently and bitterly lamented bythe few intelligent working men,' Glyde wrote, pointing out that although Ransomes employed as manyas 1,200 men at times the average membership of the Mental Improvement Society was no more than300, although the subscription was only a penny a week.

The Ransomes were also supporters of the Mechanics' Institute, founded in 1824 for 'the instruction ofthe members in the principles of the arts they practice. . .and in the various branches of science anduseful knowledge'.

Always seeking profitable products that would carry the firm through periods of agricultural depression,Ransomes turned to producing a variety of railway materials that went into the construction of lines notonly in this country but also abroad.

A visitor in the 1860s saw the chairs in which the rails were fixed being cast by what he called 'a quickand ingenious process':

One part of the floor is occupied by a very narrow semicircular railway on which small wheeled framesare made to travel round the curve from the sand-heap at one end to the pot of molten metal at theother. In these frames the moulds are hung on pivots, so that by a touch they turn upside down at

pleasure. A boy reverses a mould and rams it from the under side full of sand. The mould rights itself;the orifice is opened, and a boy at a run pushes it to the opposite end of the railway. There the men withthe big ladle immediately pour in the liquid iron, and in a few seconds a solid railway chair is formed. Bythis time another boy has run up with another mould; and so it goes on all day, filling and casting, andturning out tons of chairs every week.

Trenails for fastening the chairs to the sleepers and keys or wedges to hold the rails tight in the chairswere also produced at Orwell Works, along with much else that was required by the engineers andcontractors who were constructing lines across the world. For many years the railway work provided the

greater share of the firm's income, at least until the 1860s when there was an upsurge in the export offarm implements, leading the partners to seek space to expand the capacity for agricultural work.

The decision to turn over the railway work to a new company, and a new works on the other side of theNew Cut, provided some of the extra accommodation needed at Orwell Works, which was itself beingexpanded from the original six acres to ten. That decision might also have been influenced by the needto specialise to a greater extent than before, since steel was taking the place of chilled iron and it wasvital the railway department should not fall behind the current developments.

In 1862 Richard Rapier, a Northumbrian who had been apprenticed to the Newcastle engineering worksof Robert Stephenson & Co., became manager of Ransomes railway department. With the formation of a

new company in 1869 Rapier became a partner with Robert James Ransome, and Ransomes & Rapierwas soon to make a name for itself that was second to none. In the 1870s it took a leading part insupplying equipment for the Welsh narrow-gauge slate railways, and also for similar railways on sugar

plantations far across the sea.

Richard Rapier was indeed an enthusiast for narrow gauge, writing a book on Remunerative Railways forNew Countries, and he had an ambition to build the first railways in China. That undeveloped country

could, he believed, be opened up to profitable trade by the construction of a network of steam-operatednarrow-gauge railways.


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Early attempts to break into that little-known country were frustrated by political and diplomaticobjections, but Rapier's opportunity came when in 1872 the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co., one of the

leading China merchants, obtained permission from the Chinese authorities to build a quay, jetty andwarehouses at Woosung, on the Yangtse River some 12 miles below Shanghai, and to construct a roadfrom Shanghai to Woosung. The object was to avoid having to navigate large ships up the difficult andhazardous reaches of the Yangtse to Shanghai. Ransomes and Rapier suggested to Jardine, Matheson

that instead of building a road they should allow R & R to lay a narrow-gauge railway along the same

route.

After much discussion between the two companies the proposal was accepted, and in the autumn of1873 work began on the design of a tiny locomotive to be used in the construction of the line. The little0-4-0 tank engine Pioneer was ready just over a year later, and tests on a circular track in the Waterside

Works yard and on George Tomline's tramway at Felixstowe showed that though it weighed no morethan 1 ton 2 cwt it could do considerably more th

the working classes

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