September 12th, 2018 7:24 PM
—“The Statute of Artificers (usually called the Statute of Apprentices) was passed in 1563 and remained on the Statute Book until 1819; the Poor Law Act of 1601 – which provided for much else besides poor relief – remained largely operative until the 20th c. Between them, these Acts attempted `to banish idleness, to advance husbandry and to yield to the hired person, both in times of scarcity and in times of plenty, a convenient proportion of wages’. They controlled entry into the class of skilled workmen by providing a compulsory seven years’ apprenticeship; they reserved the superior trades for the sons of the better off; they assumed a universal duty to work on all the able-bodied; and empowered justices to require unemployed artificers to work in husbandry; they required permission for a workman to transfer from one employer to another; they severely restricted the freedom of movement of the poor by enabling a person without means to be removed, by order of the justices, to his original parish or last place of settlement; and they empowered justices to fix wage rates for virtually all classes of workmen.” —-