Under the régime of the gilds apprenticeship was enforced, but in addition its conditions were determined by a careful system of regulation. The gild, an association representing the three classes concerned--masters, journeymen, apprentices--supervised the industrial organization in the interests of all alike. In the best days of the gilds the trade, as a whole, inspected the workshops; the trade, as a whole, watched over the training of the youth; the trade, as a whole, so fixed the number of those entering, that at the conclusion of the apprenticeship there was room in the ranks of the skilled artisan for those who had learned their craft.
During the disintegration of the gilds, this second factor gradually disappeared. The Statute of Apprentices did indeed make apprenticeship compulsory, but provided no efficient system of regulation. Measures were frequently advocated and occasionally embodied in Acts for determining the proportion of apprentices to journeymen, but never proved effective. We see gradually emerging the struggle between the conflicting interests of those engaged in production. A seven years' apprenticeship, enforced by law, gave the employers a source of cheap labour, and we begin to hear complaints that the number of apprentices was unduly multiplied and that boys were taking the place of men. To what extent this practice prevailed it is not easy to ascertain; but there is no question that, at any rate among one class of apprentice--the pauper apprentice--abuses were grave and frequent.
The whole story of the pauper apprentice forms an ugly episode in the industrial history of the period. The Statute Book is punctuated with frequent allusion to his unfortunate lot, coupled with proposals for reform, for the most part ineffective. As already mentioned, the overseers had large powers of compulsorily apprenticing the children of the poor. A sum was paid to the employer, the lad handed over, and no steps taken to guard his well-being or guarantee his training. It was inevitable that under conditions such as these abuses should occur. The employer found himself provided with a continual supply of lads, bound to serve him until the age of twenty-one, or sometimes twenty-four; he was not troubled by visits of inspectors; he could use them as he pleased. The luckless apprentices were herded together in overcrowded and insanitary dwellings; they were overworked and underfed; they learned no trade, and were regarded as a cheap form of unskilled labour. If they misbehaved themselves the justices of the peace would punish them; if they ran away the law would see to it that they were returned to their masters; if they complained of ill-treatment there was no one to substantiate the charge. Whole trades seemed to have flourished by exploiting the parish apprentices; and not infrequently the overseer, himself an employer, made a comfortable profit out of their misfortunes.[20] In his "History of the Poor Law" Sir G. Nicholls summarizes the legislation on the subject.[21] With the rapid increase in the number of paupers at the close of the eighteenth century these evils multiplied, and to an increasing extent engaged the public attention.