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Photograph of a blacksmith shoeing a horse, 1900 (Catalogue reference: COPY 1/447)

This is a brief guide to researching records of an apprentice or master. Official records of apprentices were kept in England and Wales between 1710 and 1811, when stamp duty was payable on indenturesindenture (of apprenticeship) - a legal document whereby a master agreed to instruct the apprentice in his trade for an agreed number of years. of apprenticeship. RegistersRegister - a volume of regularly and formally recorded information of the duty paid were kept by the Commissioners of Stamps.

  • What do I need to know before I start?

    • Try to find out:

      • the name and date of birth of the apprentice
      • in which area they were apprenticed and where the stamp duty would have been paid

  • What other resources will help me find information?

    • Websites

      Search London Apprenticeship Abstracts 1442-1850 on the Origins Network website (subscription required), which contains some records of London livery companies.

    • Journal articles

      Read 'The City Boys: records of London apprentices' by C Webb and E Churchill (Ancestors, 21, 2004).

  • The National Archives is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Related guides

Did you know?

Where the stamp duty was paid in London, entries are in the city (town) registers. Where it was paid elsewhere, entries are in the country registers.

The duty for Middlesex and the home counties may be entered in one of the London registers.

The apprenticeship books in IR 1 record the names, addresses and trades of the masters, the names of the apprentices and the dates of their indentures. These records can be viewed in Discovery, our catalogue.

Some apprenticeships between 1710 and 1811 were not recorded. In this case, local records might be the only source of information

You might need to search the records of several years' payments to find a particular entry, because duty was often paid some years after the apprenticeship.

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