Some sample salaries and wages

Some Sample Salaries

Salaries in the private sector were always difficult to establish and in 1823 the unreformed public sector was the scene of many sinecures and other anomalies. It is convenient to move forward to 1840 and look at the standard bearers of Whig efficiency and freedom from corruption: the Poor Law Commissioners. The commissioners themselves were political appointees and enjoyed salaries of £2,000 pa. Below them the administrative grading structure was as follows.

Post	Number	Annual Salary £
Secretary	1	1,200
Assistant Secretary	1	700
Assistant Secretary	1	525
Chief Clerk	1	220
Clerk First Class	9	200
Clerk Second Class	5	140
Clerk Third Class	9	125
Clerk Fourth Class	9	90
Messenger	3	62 – 78
Office Keeper	1	100
Housekeeper	1	27
Source: Accounts and Papers 1841 Vol IX p 1.

Some Comparisons with Rundell

Applying these salaries to the estimates in Rundell it appears that the pay of the best paid messenger was close to estimate IV, which was based on “an account kept for the present year by a steady person, whose accuracy and veracity we can rely on … This family, though possessed of so slender an income, appears to live comfortably; doubtless from the regular mode of conduct which it has habitually acquired.” (p 19). But the budget includes nothing for the schooling of the children. Even the lowest grade of clerk might do somewhat better: “A clerk or other person, with such a family, having an income of 80 guineas (ie £84) a year, by acquiring a habit of living regularly, might live comfortably” (p 22). By way of comparison it may be noted that the average salary of a Church of England curate in the mid nineteenth century was similar to that of the Commission’s fourth class clerks.¹

Further up the scale Rundell suggested that a second class clerk would earn enough to pay for his children to attend a school and his wife might occasionally be assisted by a charwoman. The family would consume more butter and sugar and “say 14 lbs of meat at 6d per lb”. A first class clerk would be able to afford a resident maid paid £9 10s pa.

The senior of the two assistant secretaries had a salary that would (according to Rundell) enable him to employ three maids paid £10 – £16 and a groom/footman; he would have two horses and a small carriage. In the 1841 census the person concerned, George Coode, was indeed recorded as having three female domestic servants; but there was no sign of a male servant.

All of these examples were of people that had “a habit of living regularly”. There were others. Anthony Trollope received an undeserved appointment as a clerk in 1834. “My salary was to be £90 a year, and on that I was to live in London, keep up my character as a gentleman, and be happy.” He rose through the ranks of clerkship: “I remained seven years in the General Post Office, and when I left it my income was £140. During the whole of this time I was hopelessly in debt.”(Autobiography Chapter III). Further details are given in his autobiographical novel The Three Clerks. For example “£90 per annum will hardly suffice to afford an ample allowance of gin-and-water and bird’s-eye tobacco, over and above the other wants of a man’s life.” (Chapter II).

Working Class Wages

Agricultural labourers tended to have the lowest wages. The best paid agricultural workers (in Lincolnshire often called “waggoners”, though their ability to plough was as important as driving waggons) were usually on annual contracts and provided with housing and often food. Many of the remainder were weekly paid workers at rates that fluctuated according to the time of year and also from year to year; but J A Clarke estimated that in 1849 typical weekly wages on the Wolds were at least 12s in Summer and 10s in Winter.² He commented that the wage levels in 1849 seemed similar to those recorded by Arthur Young³ at the end of the eighteenth century for of rates of pay in the vicinity of Tathwell, near Louth.

Other authorities provide different figures: a weekly wage of 10s to 12s in the 1830s was suggested by T L Richardson in The Agricultural Labourers’ Standard of Living in Lincolnshire 1790–1840⁴ and Joan Thirsk estimated an average on the Wolds of “nearly 17s a week for taking the average the year round”⁵ but this was for a later date, near to 1870. A much lower figure of 9s was quoted by the well-respected James Caird; but this must be regarded as very doubtful.⁶

These weekly workers could be laid off at short notice and might then have no earnings:

“Great distress prevails among the labouring classes in this town and neighbourhood in consequence of the interference of the frost with agricultural operations. The number of applicants at the union house on Monday last was unusually large and many labourers who dread the reproach of confessing themselves paupers are foodless and fireless at times.” (Advertiser 5.1.1861)

As an example, a four room cottage built about the time of R1851 and requiring an annual rent of £5 (see the evidence of William Flint in 1860) would take nearly 15% of a weekly income of 13s. It is likely that most general labourers in Louth would have earned more than this in some weeks but not consistently; and the earnings of other family members must have varied greatly.

The wage differentials between labourers and craftsmen were relatively wide; for example for the period 1810–1846 in the building trade in southern England typical daily earnings of 2s 8d and 4s have been estimated for labourers and craftsmen respectively.⁷ However I have not found any useful general information about earnings specific to Louth, beyond a very rough estimated average of 12s per week for a labourer: see Household Expenditure. An isolated instance of a skilled journeyman’s pay in Louth is a statement in 1823 that a shoemaker, George Baildam, could generally make three pairs of shoes a day and earn a shilling a pair. (Baildam stole over £6 from his employer. He was transported for life.)⁸

Earnings