Board of Stamps: Apprenticeship Books

IR 1

1710-1811

Registers kept by the Board of Stamps of the moneys received in payment of the duty on apprentices' indentures under the statute of Anne c5 and subsequent acts.

In addition to the sums received the registers record the names, addresses and trades of the masters, the names of the apprentices and the dates of the articles. Until the year 1752 the names of the apprentices' parents are given, but after that year very rarely.

The volumes consist of: City or Town Registers, 0ctober 1711 to January 1811, with daily entries of the indentures upon which duty was paid in London; Country Registers, May 1710 to September 1808 with entries, made in London, of the indentures upon which duty had been paid to district collectors and which were afterwards sent up by them in batches to be stamped; Ledger of Duties Paid on Indentures, 1799 to 1802. Volumes 74 to 79 are indexes of masters in volumes 22 to 31, 36 and 38.

Some incomplete indexes for masters from November 1773 to June 1802 are in IR 1/76-79.

Records within this series are available to download as digital microfilm.

The dates listed do not refer to the date of the apprenticeship but to the date when the tax was paid, which may be some years after the apprenticeship.

Public Record(s)

English

79 volume(s)

Available in digital format and microform only

Topics

Labour

It is important to note that masters did not have to pay stamp duty on the indentures of apprentices taken on at the common or public charge of any township or parish or by or out of any public charity. This means that very many apprentices' articles were never subject to the duty and are therefore not recorded in these registers. In such cases, local or charity records, if they survive, are likely to be the only source of information.