ABSTRACT
The years between 1851 and 1891 showed a dramatic drop in the proportion of working girls under the age of majority. In 1851, there was no compulsion to go to school, and free education for girls in Colyton was obtainable only from the Sunday schools established by the various religious denominations, leaving children who attended these with the option of working for wages during the week. A craft which had employed over 200 people of all ages in 1851 supported only a quarter of this number forty years later, and the proportion of girls under the age of majority working with lace had fallen even further, to a mere sixth of the number employed in 1851. The evidence given in 1863 to the Commissioners on Children’s Employment by Colyton’s vicar, the Reverend Mamerto Gueritz, and by other witnesses from nearby towns and villages gives some idea of the conditions under which the girls worked.
