Introduction

Under the 1563 Statute of Apprentices no-one could enter a trade without having served an apprenticeship, and this Statute (with some modifications) remained on the books until 1814. Apprenticeship served the purpose not only of teaching a trade but of helping to ensure a supply of labour and keeping adolescents under control. The apprenticeship indenture was a legal document which bound a boy (and more rarely a girl) to a master, with a premium paid to the master by apprentice's parents, or, in the case of paupers, by the overseer of the poor). In addition to the training, this arrangement included the master providing the apprentice with board and lodging. Depending on the trade, and presumably the apprentice's progress, the term of an apprenticeship was seven years or more and during this time the apprentice was forbidden to marry to marry or to set up business on their own.

In practice, however, large numbers of apprentices either failed to complete their training or did not become masters at the end of their term.

(Source : David Hey, The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History).

The following is a listing, which RTF obtained from the Society of Genealogists in 1930, of  various Fretwell boys who where apprenticed between the years 1714-1762. Where noted, the young lads are recognised as members of the Fretwell families that I am researching. For the others I have no further information, but the INL reference is given in case anyone else wishes to claim them. Furthermore, I do not know if they were model students, or if they completed their apprenticeships and went on to make a success of their chosen trade.