Month: June 2024

In the 1979 book The Admiralty N.A.M. Rodger wrote (pp. 138-139):

Before the [1914-1918] war their Lordships had strenuously resisted a Treasury proposal to employ women typists instead of highly-paid boy clerks, concluding their case, with the ringing declaration that ‘their Lordships cannot conceal their decided preference for the boys’.

This all sounds too good to be true. Then one reads Rodger’s chapter endnote: ‘ADM 116/1297, which does not, alas, support the traditional wording.’ I have looked in ADM 116/1297, and, indeed, it does not support this ‘traditional wording’. So why in the name of God did he see fit to propagate a myth in such a bizarre manner?

In fact, the source material referenced by Rodger refers specifically to Hired Extra Clerks and not Boy Clerks. Hired Extra Clerks were relatively high-paid compared to women: if they were employed solely as typists then they could earn from 25 shillings a week to 40s. a week. Female typists, on the other hand, in other Government departments started at 20s. a week, rising to a maximum of 26s. This is all spelled out in the relevant correspondence.

By comparison, Boy Clerks were not highly-paid at all. Entered at 15 or 16, they earned 15s. to 16s. a week (substantially less than a contemporary Female Typist), and at the age of 18 their employment was terminated, unless they happened to pass for and obtain higher positions in the Civil Service (many did not). They were a form of cheap clerical labour, essentially serving an apprenticeship, but with no guarantee of a career. That Rodger could have confused Boy Clerks for something else for the sake of a laugh at the Admiralty’s expense, which he knew to be false, is unfortunate.