For many children, losing a parent meant more than grief. It could mean leaving home altogether. When James Conway’s father died in 1832, the ten-year-old from Handsacre became the responsibility of the parish. For the Overseers of the Poor, supporting another child placed an additional burden on the Poor Rate. One way of reducing that cost was to bind pauper children as apprentices.
James was born in Handsacre in 1822 to James and Ann (née Carrol) and baptised at St. John the Baptist under the surname Connoway. Although Ann came from Rugeley, the family lived in Armitage where James’s father worked as a labourer. James grew up with two older sisters and three younger brothers until, early in 1832, his father died, leaving the family without its main breadwinner. His sisters, aged nineteen and sixteen, were already working, but their wages were insufficient. By the spring the Overseers decided that action was needed.
Rather than simply finding anyone willing to take him, they first selected a trade that appeared suited to James’s background. His grandfather had been a blacksmith, his uncle William also worked at the forge, and James would have grown up familiar with metalworking. They therefore looked for a master connected with that trade and eventually chose James Pearson, a key filer of Willenhall.
The parish did not rely solely on its own judgement. Before the apprenticeship was approved, five respected inhabitants of Willenhall, including the local chapel warden and two Overseers of the Poor, signed a certificate declaring that James Pearson was:
“…a person of good fame and reputation and of sober life and conversation and a fit and proper person to take and instruct an apprentice in his trade.”
Only after receiving this recommendation did the parish proceed with the apprenticeship. Pearson received an apprentice fee of £5 and, on 4 June 1832, a formal Indenture bound ten-year-old James to him until he reached the age of twenty-one.
The Indenture placed significant responsibilities on Pearson. In return for the £5 premium he was required to teach James the trade of key filing and provide him throughout his apprenticeship with adequate food, drink, clothing, lodging, washing and “all other things necessary and fit for an apprentice”. The agreement even anticipated the possibility of Pearson’s death, requiring his estate to continue providing for James for a further three months while other arrangements were made. Equally important from the parish’s perspective was the requirement that James should not become a financial burden on Armitage again.
Whether James understood the agreement is impossible to know. At just ten years old, he left his family and began a new life in Willenhall.
To modern eyes this may seem harsh, but parish apprenticeship served two purposes. It reduced the cost of supporting a child while giving the apprentice food, clothing, accommodation and the opportunity to learn a trade. Success depended largely on the character of the master to whom the child was bound, and the surviving documents suggest that the Overseers took considerable care before making their decision. They selected a trade that suited James’s upbringing, sought independent references for his prospective master, obtained the approval of local magistrates and drew up a detailed legal agreement covering both James’s welfare and the responsibilities of his master. Rather than simply removing a child from the parish, they appear to have been trying to secure his future as well as protect the interests of the ratepayers.
The arrangement seems to have succeeded. Nine years later, the 1841 census records James living in Stafford Street, Willenhall, with James Pearson, his family and another apprentice. Meanwhile, James’s widowed mother Ann was living with her son-in-law James Shipley in Hamstall Ridware, together with her youngest son George, then aged ten. By 1851 James was no longer an apprentice but was still living in Willenhall, earning his living as a key maker.
For James Conway, what began as family tragedy appears to have provided a trade that supported him into adult life. Whether every parish apprentice was as fortunate is another question, but James’s story shows that, at least in this case, the parish’s efforts to secure a child’s future seem to have achieved their intended purpose.