VICTORIAN SHOP ASSISTANTS
The ‘shop assistants’ listed in censuses may
often have been apprentices. It is surprising how much of the formal Indenture
of Apprenticeship used in the sixteenth century survived in nineteenth century
form:
[during the six or seven-year term] the
apprentice his masters faithfully shall serve, their lawful commands everywhere
gladly do . . . He shall not contract matrimony within said term, nor play at
cards or dice tables . . . he shall not haunt taverns or playhouses, nor absent
himself from his said Masters service day or night unlawfully. . . [his father] will find the said son during the said term
sufficient washing, clothing, medical attendance and other necessities and . .
. [the Masters] engage to instruct the said apprentice in the Art of a draper .
. . finding unto the said Apprentice sufficient Meat, Drink and Lodging . . .
Men are given one evening a week for
courting purposes and two if they go to prayer meetings regularly.
Probably few apprentices served out their
time.
Shops needed more and more staff as the
middle classes found more ways to spend their money. Most staff lived in rooms
above the shop, then as trade boomed and the value of fashionable sites rose,
in hostels round the corner [one draper’s shop woman described her life]:
. . . One of eight staff,
four men and four women, all living in, except one man. They had use of
a basement room next to the kitchen, and a ‘drawing room parlour’
at the top of the house . . . [she] worked from 8 in the morning until 9
at night. ‘I stand behind the counter —
we have one counter, men the other. . . .
On Sundays we all dine with the master; we go to church, and have to be
in for all meals unless we ask leave, but we have [Sunday] evenings to
ourselves from 6.30 to 11.’ She was paid £20 a year
A fashionable
. . . More like a mansion for a nobleman
than a milliner’s establishment . . . These large houses are not only milliners
and dressmakers, but they supply every kind of ladies’ wearing apparel with the
exception of shoes. A lady goes to order perhaps her wedding trousseau . . . or
her morning and evening dresses. She alights from her carriage,
The hall-door is opened by a footman who bows her into what is called the ‘premier
magazin’ or first showroom. Then comes
a French lady, dressed in a silk dress and a very small lace cap with long
streamers of ribbon. These French ladies are styled ‘magazinières’
or show-room women. There are generally five or six of these show-room women.
The first show-room is about 130 feet long and 60 feet wide. In every other
panel there is a looking glass from the floor to the ceiling, set in a handsome
carved gilt frame. The floor is covered with a very expensive carpet. In
different parts of the room there are counters of polished ebony, elegantly
ornamented with gilding. The lady is then shown an assortment of magnificent
silks and velvets. She asks the [magazinière] which
is the most becoming by daylight and which by candlelight . . . she selects one
or two [dress lengths] . . . as soon as convenient to
the lady, the ‘first hand’ goes [to her house] to take her measure . . . a one
horse Brougham, with a servant in livery, is brought to the door and the first
hand goes in it.
The dress will be finished by the next day,
if the customer wants it. [The cost] could be as much as ₤300.
[Dressmakers at] salons producing those
elaborate Victorian gowns worked under inhuman pressure. A customer expected
her new dress to be delivered the day after she had ordered it, even before the
advent of the sewing machine [in 1856]. The pressures on those unfortunate
girls finally caused a scandal, when a twenty-year-old girl, Mary Ann Walkey died after being made to work for more than 26 hours
without a break. Her death led to the founding of the Association for the
Aid an Benefit of Dressmakers and
Milliners, to ‘induce’ the principals of dress-making establishments to adopt a
twelve-hour day, and to ‘induce ladies to allow sufficient time for the
execution of orders’
[from Victorian London by Liza
Pickard, 2005, Orion Books, London]