Tailors' earnings?

[Ruskie]

I remember once seeing a programme on rope making and found it very fascinating - so Ruskie if you have a chance to see rope making in action I would recommend it
sallysmum

Yes, I have seen ropemaking - in a cave in Castleton in Derbyshire. (touristy but interesting) And a piece of said rope is hanging in my house. 

[Plummiegirl]

With regard to tailors wages & social standing, it would generally depend on the type of work that person was doing.

If making clothes as an independant for middle to lower upper class clients I would say that they would have been very much within their own social class.

But if in a workshop or working for a large store then they would have been considered working or lower middle class.

Of course the girls who did this job, worked long hard hours for a pittance, in bad conditions.

My g/grandfather was tailor in the early to mid 20c.  His speciality was buttonholes & he worked in Saville Row, his family lived in quite a nice part of Fulham & then moved to Clapham, so not too bad.

[annieoburns]

There is a grading of trades in that those who progressed to 'master' status were able to employ apprentices and profit from the work that their trainees.  The apprentices were seen as form of old age pension.  A lesser form of tailor was a 'journeyman' tailor.  I suppose their income depended on who their customers were. 

My gr grandfather was a journeyman tailor in London.  He  specialised in breeches and uniformed soldiers would have been his clients.  In fact his apprenticeship was in 'breechmaking' and he served  his time in Harrods in the 1890's.  On another line I have a 'master bootmaker' based in Newmarket.  The horse industry there no doubt made it a reasonable  living and one of his son's inherited the business.

[CV-S]

I agree that it depends on many accounts.

My ancestor from Staffordshire were also tailors in the mid 19th century. They seemed comfortable enough, his children and grandchildren became accountants, authors, Indian army soldiers, engineers, civil servants as well as some keeping the trade of tailoring alive.

Hope this helps a bit.

[GR2]

This is a bit earlier (Statistical Account of Scotland 1790s), but perhaps gives the relative cost of hiring workers by the day.

Grange: best ploughman £6 per annum; mason 10d* per day; wright 8d* per day; tailor 6d* per day.

Knockando: labourer 6d* per day in summer, 4d* per day in winter; mason 10d* per day; wright 8d* per day; tailor 4d* per day.

Aberdour: mason 1/-* per day; wright 7d* per day; tailor 6d* per day.

* in addition they were given their meals and, if necessary, accommodation. Where meals were not given, the wages were from 4d to 8d more per day.


Graham.

[CV-S]

That's interesting, I would have thought a tailor would have earned more than a mason or a labourer.

[Jonosue]

Very interesting to read about ancestors who were tailors. I have often wondered whether they were apprenticed, or learnt the trade within the family. My gt grandfather was a military tailor, as was his father before him, but apparently officers were notorious for not paying their tailors. Eventually he gave up and opened a gentlemen's outfitters in London.

[Nick29]

That's interesting, I would have thought a tailor would have earned more than a mason or a labourer.

Self-employed ones did.  My g.g. grandfather (who was a tailor) lived in some grand houses that would have cost more than 3/- a week