Work, income and stability: The late Victorian and Edwardian London male clerk revisited

Abstract

The article questions the view that the economic position of male clerical workers in London was deteriorating over the period 1870–1914. It is generally accepted that clerical work for men suffered a downturn due to the impact of the Second Industrial Revolution which transformed office work as a result of the application of technology, the introduction of a female workforce, rational working practices and the rise of large-scale, complex bureaucracies. Examining male clerical workers in London, the article argues that there is evidence to query this portrayal of decline. Salaries appear to have increased, promotional opportunities remained strong and clerical work was a popular choice for many individuals.

Keywords:

• London
• clerical work
• office work
• clerk
• bureaucracy
• salary
• promotion
• management

Notes

 1. Eleven interviews of London clerical workers were used for this article drawn from Paul Thompson and Thea Vigne's series of interviews carried out in the 1970s, ‘Family life and work experience before 1918’, The British Library, C707, and the oral history archive, The British Library, C900, Millennium Memory Bank. They are London Borough of Hackney Archives, DS/EVA/1-3, ‘The Diaries of William Evans, 1881–84, 1889–1900’; London Borough of Southwark Archives, MS-1982/177, ‘The Diaries of Daniel McEwen, 1887–1910’; Essex Records Office, D/DU418/1, ‘The Diaries of George Rose, 1900–1914’, London Guildhall Archives, MS-20382, ‘The Diary of Andrew Carlyle Tait, 1893–94’; Moseley, 1960, ‘The Private Diaries of Sydney Moseley’.

 2. Archives of the Prudential Plc, MS-7, ‘Minutes book, 29^th December, 1870’, MS-11, ‘Minutes book, 17^th January, 1880’.

 3. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Archives (hereafter RBSGA) GB 1502/GM/00748, ‘Rules and regulations to be observed by the officers of the London and County Banking Company Limited, 1908’. For Prudential see Dennett, 1998. See also Jordan (1996).

 4. ‘The Diaries of George Rose’, December 1900–January 1901.

 5. For the importance of contacts in obtaining good clerical positions see the magazine Business Life, June 1904, p. 280, held at the British Library.

 6. RSBGA, GB 1502/WES/271, ‘Report comparing the pay, holiday and pensions of staff of London and County Bank and London and Westminster Bank, compiled after the merger of the two banks, c. 1909’.

 7. For evidence of this see the staff cards of the National Provincial Bank, RBSGA, GB 1502/NAT/1-74. See also RSBGA, GB 1502/WES/125/14 for an overview of the central London offices of the London, County and Westminster Bank in 1914.

 8. See also ‘The guild's origin’, 1920. In this account in the BOG's own journal the Bank Clerk's Association is never mentioned. See also Klingender, 1935, pp. 32–46.

 9. RBSGA GB 1502/NAT/174/1-74, ‘Staff record cards of the National Provincial Bank Ltd’.

10. The British Library, Millennium memory bank, C900/07507, ‘Arthur Whitlock’.

11. Essex Records Office, D/DU 4/8/1, ‘The Diaries of George Rose’, 18 December 1906, 8 September 1913.

12. London Borough of Hackney Archives, DS/EVA/1-3, ‘The Diaries of William Evans’, 19 October 1891.

13. The British Library, QD1/FLWE/183, Paul Thompson & Thea Vigne, Family life and work experience before 1918, ‘Mr Frank Lee’.