ABSTRACT
In the year 1619 the bakers of London applied to the authorities for an increase in the price of bread. They sent in support of their claim a complete description of a bakery and an account of its weekly costs.1 There were thirteen or fourteen people in such an undertaking: the baker and his wife, four paid employees who were called journeymen, two apprentices, two maidservants and the three or four children of the master baker himself. Six pounds ten shillings (£6.50) a week was reckoned to be the outgoings of this establishment, of which only eleven shillings and eightpence (58p) went for wages: half a crown (25p) a week for each of the journeymen and tenpence (4.5p) for each of the maids. Far and away the greatest expense was for food: two pounds nine shillings (£2.45) out of the six pounds ten shillings, at five shillings (25p) a head for the baker and his wife, four shillings (20p) a head for their helpers and two shillings (10p) for their children. It cost much more in food to keep a journeyman than it cost in money; four times as much to keep a maid. Clothing was charged up too, not only for the man, wife and children, but for the apprentices as well. Even school fees were claimed as a justifiable charge on the price of bread for sale, and sixpence (2.5p) a week was paid for the teaching and clothing of a baker’s child.
