Abstract
Until the late nineteenth century, apprenticeship was the main way in which young people were trained in crafts and trades. Given that most apprenticeship terms lasted approximately seven years, young people could expect to spend a large part of their youth in service to another. Apprenticeship therefore coincided with an important phase in the life cycle of many young men (and women) during this period. A study of apprenticeship not only tells us how young people learned the skills with which they made their future living, it also casts light on the process of ‘growing up’. However, we still know little about the everyday lives of apprentices, their relationships with their masters, and how young people themselves understood the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Drawing largely on the diary of John Tennent (1772–1813), a grocer’s apprentice who kept a record of his time spent in service, this article aims to broaden our understanding of these themes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland. It demonstrates that, for young middle-class men like Tennent, apprenticeship played a key role in the transition from boy to manhood.
Keywords
Leaving home and entering into some form of service was a common part of the process of growing up for boys (and less so, girls) of all social ranks across pre-industrial Europe. 1 Indeed, it has been suggested that as many as sixty per cent of persons aged fifteen to twenty-four years of age were ‘servants’ of one type or another in early modern England. 2 Dating from the twelfth century, the apprenticeship system was a long-established tradition of service that provided for the instruction of young people in crafts and trades across Europe. 3 In exchange for a small fee, young people bound themselves in service to a master craftsman, who in turn promised to train them in the skills of their chosen profession. Once an apprentice successfully completed their term, they could apply to become ‘freemen’ of the city in which they trained, a title which granted them settlement, poor relief and the right to set up their own business and trade. 4 Alternatively, those apprentices who finished their terms, but could not yet afford to set up business, spent a number of years working as ‘journeymen’, honing their craft, making valuable social connections and saving capital. Until its decline in the later nineteenth century, apprenticeship was the most important formal method of training for skilled workers. 5
In addition to equipping apprentices with the technical skills they needed to earn a living, apprenticeship also facilitated the transition that young people made from childhood to adulthood by preparing them to be good adults and citizens. 6 The age at which most young people commenced apprenticeship varied over time, by geographical location and profession of choice, but most appear to have entered service sometime in their teens, between twelve years and seventeen years of age. 7 Once bound, apprentices spent between five years and twelve years of their lives in service. 8 Considering the length of these arrangements, and the age at which most contracts began, young people could expect to spend the better part of their formative years – the period of their adolescence – in service to another. Apprenticeship therefore performed an important social function, in that it acted as a conduit through which youthful energy could be channelled and controlled. Apprenticeship agreements, for instance, were more concerned with controlling the behaviour of ‘wayward’ young apprentices than on the learning of a trade. Stress was placed on inculcating young people with the virtues of morality, soberness and honesty. As noted by Steven Smith, apprenticeship was ‘a way of life’ between childhood and adulthood. 9
While the connections between adolescence, service and ‘growing up’ are well-documented by historians in England and Europe, such extensive studies of youth and apprenticeship have yet to be undertaken in respect to Ireland. 10 In common with research into children and childhood, the study of youth and adolescence, and the experiences associated with these life stages, is only beginning in Ireland. 11 Indeed, Adolescence in Modern Irish History (2015), a collection edited by Catherine Cox and Susannah Riordan is the first sustained attempt by Irish historians to tackle this area. Despite the important contribution this volume makes, none of the essays are concerned with apprenticeship and most deal with the post-famine period. 12 As the editors have noted, adolescence in Ireland was conceptualised as both urban and problematic, reflecting wider British, American and European trends. Sources for the study of adolescence in Ireland are therefore skewed towards these themes and have subsequently shaped the focus of the collection. 13 Moreover, much of what has been written on apprenticeship and service is focused on the role that apprenticeship has played in the development of technical education. 14 Virtually nothing has been written on the experiences of apprentices or the connections between youth and apprenticeship more broadly.
Using the case study of John Tennent, an eighteenth-century grocer’s apprentice who kept a record of his time spent in service, alongside the papers of a number of other Ulster apprentices and their families, this article aims to bring into sharper focus the relationship between apprenticeship, adolescence and growing-up in Ireland. The article is organised into two sections. The first section focuses on the experience of John Tennent and explores what his journal reveals about the life of an adolescent apprentice at the turn of the eighteenth century. Drawing on material collected from other Ulster-based families, the second section considers how representative Tennent’s account is of the life of an Irish apprentice during this period.
John Tennent: An Eighteenth-Century Ulster Apprentice
Who was John Tennent, and why is he worthy of such close study? While much is known of Tennent’s activities in adulthood, such as his involvement in radical politics, membership of the United Irishmen and service in the French army, much less is known of his childhood and adolescence. 15 Tennent was born on 11 October 1772 in Ballaghmore, County Antrim, the seventh child of the Reverend John Tennent, minister of the Seceding-Presbyterian congregation of Roseyards, and his wife Anne Patton. As the son of a Presbyterian minister, Tennent was born into a family of relatively modest means. His father’s annual income was derived from two sources: a state grant of £27 per annum, known as the regium donum, and a stipend, which amounted to not more than £40 per annum, paid by the congregation. 16 While certainly not wealthy, Tennent enjoyed the benefits of a middle-class upbringing. He appears to have had a good education, attending private academies with his elder sister Margaret in County Antrim, wherein he acquired the ‘rudiments of reading and writing’. 17 After learning basic reading and writing skills, he progressed to a school managed by Mr McMullan in Roseyards, where he was instructed in Latin and the Classics, alongside his elder brother Robert. 18 In July 1786, just three months short of his fourteenth birthday, Tennent was bound as an apprentice to Samuel Givin, a grocer’s merchant in the town of Coleraine, County Londonderry, for a period of four years. 19
What makes Tennent especially worthy of close study is a journal he kept during his time as an apprentice, entitled Memoirs of John Tennent while lived in Coleraine 4 years from July 1786 with Samuel Givin. 20 Written over a four-year period, between 12 July 1786 and 4 July 1790, Tennent’s journal is one of only a handful of surviving accounts of service, written from the perspective of an apprentice. 21 Documenting his daily routines, conversations, interests, thoughts and feelings, Tennent’s journal offers a rare insight into the life of a young apprentice, as and how he experienced it.
Furthermore, Tennent’s journal holds the potential to tell us something new about how contemporaries understood the process of ‘growing up’. In addition to documenting his activities, Tennent used his diary as a space in which to reflect on his progression towards manhood. His diary entries convey a picture of a young man who was keenly aware of the changes associated with one’s adolescence, such as that dated 30 December 1789: Now, ends, the year of our Lord 1789. What a wonderful change have I undergone since 1786 to 1789. I scarce know myself to have been the same person, so altered in stature, knowledge & ideas! Before the year 1790 is expired I must launch out into the world. May I be duly prepared for it. It is an important want, as it is generally in the early years of a person’s life that they either lay up their future happiness or misery.
22
Becoming an Apprentice
As a younger son in a middle-class family, apprenticeship was the usual family strategy for settling young men like Tennent. Indeed, in choosing to enter an apprenticeship, Tennent was following the course taken by his two elder brothers, William (1759–1832) and Robert (1765–1837), who served apprenticeships with a merchant and medical doctor respectively. 23 But, how did young men choose the trade in which they entered, and how involved was the family in this decision?
John Tennent’s diary reveals much about the role the family played, or should have played in Tennent’s opinion, in such decisions. It is clear from reading Tennent’s journal that he was unhappy with his situation in Coleraine. His journal is littered with references to the banality of his working week, which he described on one occasion as a ‘continuous round of insipidity & vexation’.
24
Tennent often reflected in his diary on the events that led to his much-hated apprenticeship in Coleraine and he placed the blame on a mix of youthful rashness and bad family planning: father wishing to put me to some business gave me my choice which profession I should follow. He, not knowing what would be the truly best, he wrote to W[illia]m [Tennent’s eldest brother] but got no certain ans[we]r & I being too forward desired to be sent to Coleraine & be made a grocers of. My father not taking the time or pains to enquire into the business he was going to place me in bound me to Samuel Givin of this town.
25
If young people were not capable of choosing wisely, the weight of this responsibility naturally fell to parents. Indeed, according to Tennent, parents should not only take care to find a suitable situation, but also one with an experienced and fair master. After witnessing his master, Samuel Givin, interview potential new apprentices in January and February 1790, Tennent noted in his diary the ‘great folly in parents’ who did not consider their children’s education and future prospects. 28 Masters, he continued, were duplicitous and self-serving, taking ‘no pains to teach [apprentices] any thing not to their own advantage’. 29 As will be discussed later, Tennent did not have a good relationship with his master. Indeed, his criticisms of the ‘folly’ of parents were based on his own experience, his own not ‘taking the time or pains’ to find out more about Givin.
Why did Tennent’s father defer this important decision to his eldest son William? While this decision may seem odd, it should be remembered that parents often relied on the social contacts of well-connected family members to source places for their children. At the time of Tennent’s apprenticeship, William was involved in a number of lucrative business dealings, including wine, insurance, sugar and banking. 30 Indeed, by 1809 William was said to be worth in excess of £80,000. 31 As the Reverend Tennent put it, William was ‘rolling in wealth’. 32
William’s financial success and social contacts meant that he was often called upon by his parents to help set up his brothers and other family members in business. Indeed, when William was imprisoned for his part in the 1798 rebellion, his family rallied together to ensure that his business interests and household were kept in order for the good of the entire family group. 33 In the months following William’s arrest, the Reverend Tennent instructed his daughter Margaret to go to William’s home and ‘look over ye affairs of his house & Strive…to save from ruine & loss what may be kept safe & used to the best advantage of family’. 34
As well as being consulted on the future prospects of his younger brothers, William also played an instrumental role in setting them up in business. In July 1790, he took on both John (who was freshly finished his apprenticeship) and fifteen-year-old James (1775–94) at the New Sugar House. 35 Later in 1796, he was called upon by his parents to put his youngest brother Samuel (1779–1827), then seventeen years of age ‘in a way of Business [of] doing Something for’ himself. 36 Of these three, John seems to have fared the best under their eldest brother’s charge. In a letter to their father, William reported that whereas John was ‘slow’ but improving, James was ‘young and foolish’ and had a bad habit of distracting the servants and others from their work. 37 Indeed, within less than a year, William had resolved to turn James out of the business after discovering he had either been embezzling goods or stealing money. 38 Like his brother James, Samuel also seems to have had a penchant for unruliness, refusing to go to church services and turning up late for his work duties and his troublesome behaviour was a constant features of letters sent from the Reverend Tennent to his brothers in Belfast. 39 Indeed, his behaviour seems to have been so bad that William recorded in his diary in August 1803 how an officer on guard had told him ‘that Sam was the greatest plague that they met w[i]t[h] in the Street’ and if he had not been William’s brother, ‘he w[oul]d have been sent to the Barracks’. 40
Relationships Between Masters and Apprentices
Once families found a suitable place for their children, the next step was to formalise the arrangement with an apprenticeship agreement. While these contracts outlined the economic terms of service, such as fees and costs of boarding, the emphasis was placed on the behaviour expected from both parties, particularly on the part of the apprentice. 41 Typical of most contracts was that signed between John Tennent and Samuel Givin. As master, Givin’s responsibilities were limited to providing Tennent with the basics of education and board. He promised to ‘teach and instruct’ Tennent the particulars of his business and provide him with ‘Meat, Drinking, Washing & Lodging, and all other Necessaries befitting such an Apprentice.’ 42 In return, Tennent pledged his obedience, vowing to serve his master faithfully, keep his secrets and abide by his ‘lawful Commandments’. 43
Unlike Samuel Givin, Tennent also had to promise to adhere to a set of strict rules prohibiting him from engaging in a long list of activities: He shall not commit Fornication, nor contract Matrimony…He shall not play at Cards, Dice, Tables, or any other unlawful Games…He shall neither buy nor sell, he shall not haunt or use Taverns, Ale-houses, or Play-houses, not absent himself from his said Master’s Service, Day nor Night, unlawfully, but in all things, [act] as an honest and faithful Apprentice.
44
Despite agreeing to abide by these rules, like many apprentices, Tennent enjoyed a relatively active social life. There are numerous references in his diary to his attendance at drinking parties and participation in activities such as cock fighting, running and bowling, all of which were ‘pleasing to young apprentices’.
47
However, it is interesting to note that as Tennent matured, his attitude towards these past times shifted. Whereas in April 1789, sixteen-year-old Tennent enjoyed the company of other apprentices on the bowling-green, by the following year he appeared to have out-grown such ‘idle’ pursuits: The first & 2[n]d Easter I was here I thou[gh]t I was very happy could I get out for an evening or two. Now more sober sentiments has taken place of those giddy vain & foolish thou[gh]ts that possessed me, which made me think happiness consisted in foolish & idle play & that if I would be disappointed of getting to them I would consider it as a great misfortune.
48
Under the terms of apprenticeship contracts, masters were ideally to act as surrogate parents to young adolescents under their charge, training them not only to be competent in their craft, but also to be respectful members of society. 50 Some masters and apprentices did form good relationships, built on mutual trust, attachment and respect. There is evidence of masters marrying their daughters to young men under their charge, and some left apprentices bequests in their wills. 51 Other apprentices, however, were not so fortunate. Disputes and abuses were a typical feature of service, with both masters and apprentices accusing the other of failing to keep up their side of the apprenticeship contract. 52 Common complaints brought against apprentices included idleness, theft and waywardness, whereas masters were most commonly accused of physical abuse or insufficient instruction. 53
For some apprentices, relations between themselves and their masters grew so bad that they either absconded from service or were dismissed from their positions. 54 Tennent’s journal contains numerous references to other young Coleraine apprentices whose unruly behaviour earned them dismissal from their situations: William Gregg was turned out after he was caught ‘having slept out of his master’s house different times’; James Simpson had made a ‘ruin’ of his business by ‘whoring and drinking’; and Robert Henry, who was a ‘great drinker’, fell out with his master after he ‘got a child by a whore’. 55 Being dismissed from service left a stain on the character of many young men, marking them out as untrustworthy and hindering their chances of reputable employment. Reflecting on the fates of these apprentices, Tennent remarked that having to leave service ‘before his time is out’ was ‘the greatest misfortune that can befall a young man…for the world will too readily blame the boy’. 56
For masters and apprentices alike, a shared living arrangement generated a potentially uncomfortable mix of familial and professional roles. 57 Tennent’s journal provides a fascinating insight into how relationships between masters and their live-in apprentices could sour easily. Tennent clearly did not like Samuel Givin, regarding him ‘fit to be a master hardly for a savage.’ 58 His diary is littered with complaints that Givin treated him unfairly: he was required to undertake errands in stormy weather; he was tasked with the meanest jobs; he was prohibited from visiting his parents whenever he wished; and he was not allowed the time he wanted to devote to study. 59 Indeed, it appears to have been the lack of education that nettled Tennent most. As part of the terms of his apprenticeship contract, Tennent was to have ‘libirty to go to scholl,’ 60 as well as receive instruction from Givin. Tennent, however, complained on many occasions that he did not receive adequate training and was prevented from doing so deliberately out of spite. 61
Although personal dislike did play a part, the disagreement seems to have stemmed more from the difficulties that both men encountered in reconciling the power dynamics of their relationship in a shared domestic environment. The pair regularly clashed over household consumables, such as tea and candles. In September 1788, Givin found that someone had put tea in the teapot and accused Tennent of distributing his personal stock of tea ‘in an unlawful manner’ to the servant maid, Nancy Kelly. 62 Much to Tennent’s delight, however, a woman named Beaton came the next day and testified that she had in fact sold the tea to Nancy. 63
Although on first reading, we might regard Samuel Givin’s accusatory behaviour as unfair, later entries in Tennent’s diary reveal that when his master was out of the house, the servants and other apprentices often helped themselves to his stock of tea. In March 1790, for instance, Tennent noted that when Givin went out for the evening, another apprentice named Ben would order the ‘kettle to [be] boyled & made tea unknown’, until one ‘night [Givin] came in so unexpectedly, that he saw us all at it’. 64 Indeed, this instant was not a one-off and it happened so frequently that Tennent noted that when he thought the household drank tea every evening when he first came to Coleraine. 65 Other consumables, such as candles, were also a source of contention. Tennent complained on a number of occasions that Givin would not allow him to burn candles; an objection he attributed to his master’s meanness and dislike of reading. 66 It should be remembered, however, that like tea, candles were relatively expensive. Rather than objecting to the use of candles, it is more likely that Givin was being economical.
It is also important to remember that Tennent’s descriptions of Givin as a vindictive and spiteful master are subjective. It is clear from reading Tennent’s journal that he was not an eager apprentice and that he sometimes deserved reprimand, such as in October 1788 when he wrote his name in white paint on a wall in Givin’s home. 67 At other times, Tennent was outright confrontational and acted in ways that deliberately usurped Givin’s authority. When Givin asked Tennent to weigh a pound of molasses in January 1790, the pair ended up having a heated exchange in the shop. Tennent accused Givin of asking him to perform such a ‘trifle’ of a task for no other reason than to ‘show his authority’. 68 He further told Givin he ‘did his business better than he deserved’. 69 According to Tennent’s account of the incident, Givin responded by charging him with having a ‘bad hand & the like (just like the excuses & wiles villains make when they want to cheat you).’ 70 The matter failed to be resolved, however, due to ‘people coming into the shop’ and Givin’s apparent reluctance to ‘resume it again’. 71 On another occasion Tennent took a gun from the house without Givin’s permission. Documenting the incident in his journal, Tennent noted he told Givin ‘it did not concern him whether [he] took a gun or not’. 72 Faced with Tennent’s obstinacy and unable to do anything about it (according to Tennent), Givin ‘made a pretence that he came after [him] to…call at a man for some money.’ 73
The extent to which Tennent’s versions of these incidents is a true reflection of actual events is debatable. Indeed, it is quite possible that Tennent was much more confrontational on page than he was in reality. This in itself is intriguing for what it tells us about Tennent’s self-image as a young adolescent. As Hannah Barker has observed, diaries are important sources for the study of identity and experience because they tell us not just about how people behaved (or said they did), but how they were and how they wished to be. 74 In this context, it is more useful to view Tennent’s confrontations with Samuel Givin through the lens of youthful revolt. Given that adolescence, as a period of ‘conflict, challenge and exertion’ coincided with apprenticeship, it is perhaps unsurprising that Tennent depicted Givin as the villain in his journal. 75 It should also be noted that Tennent’s adolescence coincided with the period that witnessed the French Revolution, the revival of the Volunteering movement, and the rise of radical political sentiment. Belfast in the 1780s and 1790s was, as Jonathan Wright has noted, ‘an exciting place for a young man to be’. 76 Growing up in such an environment may well have fostered Tennent’s anti-authoritarian mindset. 77
Evidence From Other Apprentices: How Typical Was Tennent?
John Tennent’s diary provides a fascinating insight into the world of an adolescent apprentice, as and how he experienced it. But how representative is Tennent’s experience of other young apprentices in Ireland during this period. How were the apprenticeships of other young men were arranged, and how did their relationships with their masters compare?
Material collected from a number of other Ulster-based families during this period broadly confirm several features of apprenticeship recorded by Tennent. Evidence survives which reveals that parents and other well-connected family members were involved to varying degrees in the decision to enter apprenticeship. Some young men like the Reverend James Morgan, Presbyterian minister of Fisherwick congregation, Belfast, were apparently afforded little say in their future career choice. According to Morgan, it was assumed by his parents that he would become an apprentice to his uncle, a solicitor. Not long after his twelfth birthday, however, a series of events transpired that led to his paternal aunt moving into the household and it was on her recommendation that his ‘attention was turned’ to the ministry. 78 Again, Morgan was not consulted as to this career option and he admitted that although he was ‘unconverted and unimpressed’ by their choice, ‘No one spoke to [him] on the subject. It was entirely a matter of business’. 79 Indeed, it was not until his brother’s death that Morgan was finally ‘awakened, enlightened and quickened’ to his religious vocation. 80
More commonly, adolescent children and their parents took these decisions jointly and sought the help and advice of well-connected family members and friends in choosing suitable placements. A cache of surviving letters between the Reverend William Kennedy, Presbyterian minister of Carland congregation, County Tyrone, and his children, reveal that he took a keen interest in planning their future livelihoods. When Kennedy’s eldest son, Robert, expressed his intention to go to the East Indies, Kennedy asked the advice of a Mr White and a Mr Murray, who all agreed that Robert should remain in his current place in London until European affairs were more settled, and he was better qualified for service abroad. 81 Similarly, when Kennedy was deciding on what business would suit his youngest son, Andrew, he wrote to Robert about the prospect of making him ‘a good clerk’, noting that he had ‘made a pretty good proficiency in some of the higher Branches of Arithmetick.’ 82 Robert disagreed and suggested that his brother enter ‘some branch of mercantile business instead’. 83 In the end, Andrew entered a store-house owned by his uncle Simpson, who also employed his elder brother John. 84
Other parents, like the Reverend David Young, Presbyterian minister of First Londonderry congregation, County Londonderry, took the lead and micromanaged the apprenticeship arrangements of their children. Young played an instrumental role in securing his seventeen-year-old son, James Armstrong Young, an appointment at a counting house in London. He initially attempted to make James a cadet in the East India Company and wrote to his sister-in-law, Mrs Hunter, to put in a good word with her brother-in-law, James Dawes, who had connections there. Dawes was unable to procure the appointment but did find James a position as an apprentice clerk in a London counting house instead. 85
In his letters to the counting house masters, Young took pains to demonstrate his intimate knowledge of persons known to his correspondents in London, giving the impression that he too was socially well-connected and his son deserving of the post. In a letter to Thomas Reed, one of the counting house partners, Young discussed the health of Reed’s friends, how Reed’s brother had recently sold his home, the well-being of a councillor Lyttle, and his friendship with Captain James Armstrong Young, a commander under Lord Wellesley, after whom his son was named. 86 Most young men of James’s age would not have had the social contacts and networks necessary to source these types of positions, and were therefore dependent on their families to set up introductions. Indeed, after a heated argument with one of the counting house masers, James reported to his father he was told he had only been accepted into the house because of his father’s exertions. 87
Other than personal inclination, do any other factors explain such varying degrees of parental involvement? It is very likely that the economic circumstances of individual families dictated how involved they were in these decisions. While Tennent came from a relatively modest background, he did have the good fortune of a wealthy, well-connected brother on whom he could apply to for assistance. It should also be remembered that Tennent ‘walked-into’ a job with William as soon as his apprenticeship was finished. Evidence suggests that other families were not so fortunate and many struggled to meet the financial demands of keeping their adolescent children in service.
Letters passed between parents and their adolescent children reveal the financial burden that many families endured to ensure they received an adequate start in life. Although most apprentices boarded with their master’s household and were supplied with basic food and lodging, they were very rarely paid any wages. 88 The costs of apprenticeship therefore fell heavily on parents. In spite of his best efforts, the Reverend Kennedy found it difficult to support his children financially. In a letter to his nineteen-year-old son, Robert, who was at that time apprenticed in a London shop, Kennedy admitted that although he did not have enough money to pay his rent and creditors, he would rather distress himself than disappoint his son of an opportunity. 89 Robert does not seem to have had a penchant for frugality and was frequently directed by his father to be a ‘good oeconomist’ and keep track of expenses. 90 Indeed, between leaving home sometime in 1781, aged seventeen years, and the last surviving letter exchanged between himself and his father in 1791, Robert’s involvement in no less than five occupational endeavours placed a huge strain on the Kennedy household purse. 91 For parents like Kennedy, the cost of maintaining their children continued even after they left the household. It is perhaps unsurprising that Kennedy later took such an interest in securing his son Andrew a reputable post.
Likewise, the Reverend Young also had a vested interested in securing the financial future of his son. Unlike most apprenticeship arrangements, Young was to bear all the expenses of food and lodging for James while he was employed at the counting house. The terms stated that James would receive a salary in his second year (a considerable amount of fifty pounds per annum), rising at a rate of ten pounds per annum thereafter, at which point Young was promised that his son would ‘be of no further charge’ to his purse. 92 In June 1802, less than one year into James’s service, the counting house rescinded this promise of a salary, prompting the Reverend Young to enter into a long correspondence with the masters. It appears that James was inclined to slothful habits and was found ‘frequently planted at the fire or doing other different things,’ when he should have been working. 93 Upon hearing of the development, Young wrote immediately to Thomas Reed and stated that he was ‘not ashamed to acknowledge’ that he could no longer support James without the prospect of a salary. 94 Indeed, around the same time Young was forced to resign from his ministerial post after malicious rumours were spread accusing him of adultery. In a letter to his friend, William Plunket, in the wake of his resignation, Young admitted that the costs of supporting James and the rest of his family was greater than his annual £200 income for the past two years, and now with no earnings he could no longer meet these expenses. 95
Fortunately for Young, the matter was settled a few months later. Impressed with James’s apparent resolution to commit himself to his duties, Reed promised that he would receive the agreed salary and offered to find James another position if he could not keep him after a period of two years.
96
That the receipt of a salary was vital to both James’s future success and the economic survival of his family is evident from letters exchanged between Young and his son on the subject. In a letter to James dated September 1802, Young explained that the livelihood of the family now rested on his seventeen-year-old shoulders: your avowal…of adhering to the Compting house has given this family uncommon satisfaction. Any thing else would have ruined both you & us. Our circumstances are peculiarly distressing.…Labour for fav[ou]r from y[ou]r employers.…For your sake, for your afflicted mother’s & sisters; & for God’s sake exert y[ou]r self in your employment…& you may yet raise the hopes of this unfortunate family! I may say all depends on your good conduct.
97
Fed up with James’s behaviour, the counting house masters again tried to have him removed from their service, prompting the Reverend Young to become involved in the affair. 101 It was not until Reed offered to find James a position in the East India Company did the Reverend Young consent to the change in his son’s situation. After a failed attempt in January 1804, Reed was able to swap his nomination for a cadet in the Bombay marines for the following season (a nomination he had been keeping for a ‘poor relation’) and secure James an appointment. 102 Indeed, Young would again use his connections with Thomas Reed to secure a position in another counting house for his youngest son, George Gordon Young. 103
In assessing how representative these young men were of apprentices in general, it is important to consider the factors they had in common. For example, did their Presbyterian faith shape their experience of apprenticeship? Although each of these young men belonged to the Presbyterian community, there is no evidence to suggest that their faith made a great difference to their daily lives as apprentices. Wider factors, such as economic circumstances, family connections, and personal relationships were more important in determining the experience of apprentices than religious tradition. Indeed, it should be noted that when the Reverend David Young wrote to his son James of the importance of attending church, he encouraged him to attend only the ‘most Convenient’ church, which did not necessarily have to be Presbyterian: ‘I don’t mean presbeterian. you owe them nothing.’ 104
An additional factor that these young men had in common was their socio-economic position. Each of the young men discussed in this article belonged to the middle-classes of society, distinguishing their experience of apprenticeship from that of young men (and young women) lower down the socio-economic scale. 105 While not the focus here, it is sufficient to say that the apprenticeship arrangements of the middle-classes differed in two important respects to those undertaken by the working-class and poor. Firstly, such apprenticeship contracts were considerably more expensive. Young people of the middling orders generally entered more professional and commercialised trades, particularly those which required its apprentices to possess more than a basic education. Like the young men discussed above, common routes for such apprentices included merchants, grocers, book-keepers, doctors and apothecaries. By contrast, poorer apprentices were more likely to be made weavers, shoemakers, coopers and domestic servants. 106 The premiums to be paid for entry into professional trades could be as much as several hundred pounds, putting them outside of the economic reach of those from the poorer ranks of society. 107 Indeed, as revealed above, the economic costs of service could be equally burdensome for middle-class families.
Secondly, middle-class apprentices were overwhelmingly male. The opportunities for apprenticeship which were available for girls from the poorer ranks were simply not taken up in the same numbers by their wealthier counterparts. While some girls did enter ‘respectable’ trades such as dressmaking, the greater majority were kept at home with their parents until they were ready to make a suitable match and join the household of their new husband. In Ireland, as elsewhere, middle-class girls worked as companions, housekeepers, seamstresses and nursemaids within their natal families, their labour being used to the advantage of their wider family. 108
Conclusion
Written from the perspective of an apprentice, John Tennent’s journal provides a tantalising glimpse into the world and mindset of a young adolescent on the cusp of manhood. A close reading of Tennent’s journal reveals that he was consciously aware that his apprenticeship coincided with a formative period in his life, that of his adolescence. As such, the diary is written in a reflective style, mirroring Tennent’s struggles to reconcile his place in the world during a period of personal, mental and physical change. The extent to which any one case study can be regarded as truly representative is problematic in itself. Yet, as the examples of the other young men in this study have shown, Tennent’s experience of apprenticeship was not that unusual. Leaving home, assuming personal responsibility, and learning their place in the world were common features of growing up. As apprentices, the young men in this study all relied on the guidance of parents and well-connected family members, they entered into professional and mercantile trades, and they continued to depend on their families for economic support, even after they had left home.
Pulling together the findings of this article, what can we learn from a study of Ulster apprentices? This article furthers the study of adolescence in two important ways. Firstly, it develops our understanding of Irish adolescence by examining the experiences of young people through the prism of apprenticeship. Irish historians have tended to examine adolescence through the lens of institutions, reflecting wider conceptions of youth as a problematic and disruptive force. As Catherine Cox and Susannah Riordan have highlighted, however, Ireland’s institutions were not primarily concerned with adolescents. The residents of Irish workhouses were regarded as adults by fifteen and the inmates of Irish reformatories were discharged at sixteen. 109 Apprenticeship was different because it was specifically designed for the education and (moral) training of adolescents. As noted, most young people entered apprenticeship in their early- to mid-teens, spending at most twelve years in service to another. Apprenticeship therefore coincided with the duration of a young person’s adolescence, ending for some in their mid- to late-twenties. Consequently, a study of apprenticeship offers us the opportunity to examine the experiences of young people over a longer period of time. This article therefore furthers our understanding of the educational experience of young people, beyond the age distinctions imposed by Ireland’s institutions.
Secondly, a study of Ulster apprentices adds to wider debates in the historiography of youth, adolescence and masculinity in Britain. In 2002, Karen Harvey and Alexandra Shepard re-framed John Tosh’s seminal question, ‘What have historians done with masculinity?’ and stressed that there was still a pressing need to move from examining masculinity as a set of cultural attributes to considering it in terms of subjective identity. 110 Likewise, Hannah Barker has noted that while we know much about how masculine identity was represented in print, the extent to which these ideas were co-opted by those outside of the cultural and commercial elite remains unclear. 111 Given that apprenticeship coincided with the period in which middle-class boys grew into men, exploring what young apprentices thought, said, and did, holds the potential to tell us something new about the process of growing up and the transition from boy- to manhood.
John Tennent’s journal is therefore an extremely useful source for historians interested in uncovering the subjective experience of growing up. Spanning the duration of his apprenticeship, it offers an unrivalled insight into the journey to manhood. For Tennent, like many of his contemporaries, the ‘long tedious years of bondage’ spent in service coalesced with a formative period in his life wherein he left behind boyish amusements and embraced the responsibilities of adulthood. 112 As his apprenticeship progressed, Tennent used the journal to chart the milestones he reached in his transition to manhood. Indeed, Tennent’s idea of what made a man is encapsulated in an entry dated April 1790, as he entered the final months of his apprenticeship in Coleraine: ‘What different thoughts & ideas possess the mind of a man from the cradle to the tomb. How different are his sentiments of a thing at one time from another.’ 113 A study of apprenticeship, through the eyes of apprentices themselves, therefore opens a window into how young men understood and internalised the conventions of the wider world around them.
Footnotes
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the Deputy Keeper of Records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Museum, for permission to quote from archival material. Additionally, the author wishes to thank Professor Mary O’Dowd, who kindly read earlier drafts of the article, as also Dr Catherine Cox and the two anonymous reviewers, whose advice and comments helped to better shape the article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Aspects of this research were supported by a Postgraduate Research Scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) [grant number AH/J500355/1].