EARNING A LIVING
The labourer’s appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on. (Proverbs, 16: 26)
Sweating, slaving, and tormoiling,
When in the midst of all their toiling,
When most they thought to reap the pleasure,
And sattisfaction of their treasure
Just at the instant they propose,
To have the blessings of repose,
Some most unlucky thunder shower,
Come down from heaven upon the poor.
(John Hemmingway, p. 27)
IT IS TO work that we turn first, inevitably and necessarily. The poor spent most of their lives working hard to keep the proverbial wolf from the door. With work starting in childhood and continuing for as long as one had the health to perform it, it was, without a doubt, the central experience of any labourer’s life.
But the nature, necessity and rewards of work were experienced by different members of the working-class family in very uneven ways. At the head of the ideal family stood the male breadwinner. Men were called upon to take up the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous occupations. But with this responsibility came certain compensations – the possibility of learning skills, of earning better wages, of improving one’s status and even of deriving a measure of satisfaction from work. How different the purpose and rewards of work for small children. The prospect of earning status, satisfaction, or even a fair reward for their labour was almost non-existent for these most vulnerable members of the workforce. And for women, matters were different yet again. Paid employment did not mix well with the running of a household and the care of small children. Not of course that the endless scrubbing, cooking, washing, and all the rest required to keep the workman’s family clean, fed and clothed do not constitute work. The point rather is that many women spent much of their lives performing the unpaid work of the home rather than in paid employment for the market.
This then determines the format of the three chapters that follow. We consider, in turn, the experience of men, children, and women in the workplace. How did the individuals within each of these groups procure the wherewithal to eat? How did the experience of work vary according to age, gender and class? And how were these working lives disrupted or changed by the onset of the industrial revolution?