• About

Tower Project Blog

Tower Project Blog

Category Archives: Cambridge

Cambridge, 1912

12 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by Tower Project in Cambridge

≈ Comments Off on Cambridge, 1912

I was interested to find this slim volume of essays on social conditions in seven “provincial towns”, Portsmouth,  Worcester,  Liverpool,  Edinburgh, Oxford, Leeds and Cambridge.  I’m not sure how Liverpool and Leeds, with populations of over 500,000 can be described as towns, and natives of Edinburgh would hardly describe themselves as provincial – nevertheless it is a fascinating record.

 

Naturally I turned to the chapter on Cambridge. The author, Clara Dorothea Rackham (1875-1966) was quite a character.  Although from a comfortable middle-class background, she was well aware of the problems facing the town.  At the time of the report she was active in left wing politics, a member of executive committee of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and a poor-law guardian for Cambridge. She was married to Cambridge classics don, Harris Rackham, brother of the book illustrator Arthur Rackham, who has already featured in this blog.

 In 1912 the population of Cambridge was around 57,000, roughly half the current population.  According to Social Conditions the main sources of employment were the building trade, railway work, employment in the colleges, printing, and some small scale industry including cement works, brick-making, and brewing.  Surprisingly there is no mention of shop work, domestic service, or the 300 hotels, pubs and restaurants, which must also have employed hundreds.

St. Andrew's Street, 1906

 Wages were low compared with other parts of the country – the wages of an unskilled labourer being about 18s (90p) a week. The report focuses on the seasonal and casual nature of work in Cambridge. According to Rackham, the presence of 4000 students for half the year gave rise to lots of casual work for boys and young men, including running for gentlemen’s cabs at the beginning and end of term, minding bicycles, picking up balls, selling plants and carrying bags. 

Quayside from Magdalene Bridge, 1910

 There was also  a “considerable amount” of work for women, around 500 were employed by the Colleges as bedmakers and helps, and many others were employed in laundry work and in university lodging houses. Again Rackham emphasises the temporary nature of the work, and that many were forced to find other work, such as fruit picking, during the long vacation.

 Other factors contributing to a low standard of life in Cambridge included poor housing and sanitation and the large number of public houses.  The average rent of a three roomed house was 2s 11d (14p) a week, rising to 4s 7d (23p) for six rooms. These figures (at 15-25% of the average labourer’s wage) don’t seem too bad– I’m sure that rents are proportionally much higher today. 

Kettle’s Yard, 1904. At the time of the 1911 Census, 19 families lived here

I seem to remember reading that at one point in the nineteenth century there were 365 pubs in Cambridge – in 1912 there were still well over 200. Most were outside the historic centre, and catered for townies rather than students and visitors.  The report mentions a street with 21 pubs in just over half a mile – this was Newmarket Road, and if you add in the ones in surrounding streets,  drinkers living in the area were truly spoilt for choice, with over 50 pubs within a 10 minute walk.  Only 12 of these survive today and many historic pubs have closed in recent years.

 So much of  the literature on Cambridge focuses on the University, and paints a very rosy picture – so it is really refreshing to find something on the parts of the town that the visitors rarely see.

Categories

  • 1914
  • Advertisements
  • Art work
  • Cambridge
  • Children's books
  • Christmas
  • Codes
  • Crime
  • Cycling
  • Drawing
  • Entertainment
  • Ephemera
  • Fiction
  • First World War
  • Football
  • Fortune-telling
  • Friday feature
  • Guest books
  • Holidays
  • Illustrations
  • Invention and discovery
  • Law
  • Motor cycles
  • Murder mystery
  • Mystery objects
  • Oddities
  • Pigs
  • Popular novels
  • Sport
  • Telephones
  • Transport
  • Uncategorized
  • War

Tag Cloud

Architecture art nouveau Babes in the Wood beauty body building bookbindings celebrities Chapbooks Charles Dickens Charlie Chaplin Charms Children's books Christmas cards Christmas greetings Cinema Cinemas Cock Robin Colour Illustrations Crime destruction Edwardian era Edward Watkin English Channel Eugen Sandow Fiction film stars First World War forgeries France games Geography Germany Grapefruit Great Western Railway Greetings cards Halloween Jokes Joseph William Palmer Little Dorrit Mabel Dearmer magic magicians mind reading Moustache Optical toys philately physiognomy Railway bridges railway memorabilia romance Saint Catharine's Day School stories Science fiction Screen writing Sensationalist literature Space Sports stamp dealers Strange fiction Talwin Morris The signalman treatments Valentines Vampires victorian beauty Victorian engineering Victorian era W.W. Jacobs war Wembley Park Tower Wicked uncles Women World war 1 Zancigs Zoetropes

Archives

  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010

Recent Posts

  • New home
  • Change of scene
  • Women
  • Improve yourself
  • Law for the million

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 44 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Tower Project Blog
    • Join 44 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Tower Project Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.