Apprenticeship Records (281)
Apprenticeship generated a range of records, most of which provide invaluable information for tracing family history.
The practice of apprenticing young men to learn a trade is first recorded in twelfth and thirteenth century London. It gradually spread to many other towns and cities, and became subject to regulation. The Statute of Artificers 1563 required all tradesmen to serve an apprenticeship of at least seven years before they could trade.
Provision for apprenticeship was also made under the Poor Laws. Parish overseers could bind children as young as six or seven to serve as apprentices until they were adults. Such bindings were supposed to ensure that children were taken care of at little cost to the parish.
This course will familiarise you with apprenticeship records, and will explain how to find them. It will also give you a basic understanding of what being an apprentice meant in the period covered.
Lesson Headings:
- What was an Apprentice?
- Reading & Interpreting Apprenticeship Indentures
- Documents dependant on Apprenticeship Indentures
- Pauper Apprentices
Relevant countries: England, Wales
What to expect:
Each lesson includes lesson notes, activities and forum exercises for students to complete during the week and a one-hour live tutorial (text chat or Zoom) with the tutor and the rest of the class. Times for the tutorials are set at the beginning of each course by the tutor.
This is an assessed course. The length of the course given is the number of teaching weeks but students should also allow time in the couple of weeks after the course ends to complete assignments.
Students said:
"Excellent lesson notes with relevant links and sources. The Exercises, Assessments and the Chat sessions were challenging, and reinforced the knowledge and skills acquired from the lessons themselves very effectively."
"I was interested in finding out about the history of apprenticeship records and it was great to apply all that was learnt to the case study in the second assignment."
- Tutor: Richard Holt
- Length: 4 weeks
- Start date: Thu 7 Jan 2027
- Start date: Mon 7 Jun 2027