Catalogue description Board of Stamps: Apprenticeship Books

Search within or browse this series to find specific records of interest.

Date range

Details of IR 1
Reference: IR 1
Title: Board of Stamps: Apprenticeship Books
Description:

Registers kept by the Board of Stamps of the moneys received in payment of the duty on apprentices' indentures under the statute of Anne c5 and subsequent acts.

In addition to the sums received the registers record the names, addresses and trades of the masters, the names of the apprentices and the dates of the articles. Until the year 1752 the names of the apprentices' parents are given, but after that year very rarely.

The volumes consist of: City or Town Registers, 0ctober 1711 to January 1811, with daily entries of the indentures upon which duty was paid in London; Country Registers, May 1710 to September 1808 with entries, made in London, of the indentures upon which duty had been paid to district collectors and which were afterwards sent up by them in batches to be stamped; Ledger of Duties Paid on Indentures, 1799 to 1802. Volumes 74 to 79 are indexes of masters in volumes 22 to 31, 36 and 38.

Some incomplete indexes for masters from November 1773 to June 1802 are in IR 1/76-79.

Records within this series are available to download as digital microfilm.

Date: 1710-1811
Arrangement:

The dates listed do not refer to the date of the apprenticeship but to the date when the tax was paid, which may be some years after the apprenticeship.

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Board of Stamps, 1694-1834

Physical description: 79 volume(s)
Access conditions: Available in digital format and microform only
Publication note:

For further information about apprenticeship records, see: Second Report of the Royal Commission on Public Records, II. 127 Apprenticeship Records as Sources for Genealogy, (Public Record Office, Domestic Records Information Leaflet 80).

Unpublished finding aids:

The indexed, formerly available as IR 17, have been replaced and extended by a microfiche copy of indexes compiled by the Society of Genealogists. These indexes cover both apprentices and masters for the period 1710-1774.

Administrative / biographical background:

It is important to note that masters did not have to pay stamp duty on the indentures of apprentices taken on at the common or public charge of any township or parish or by or out of any public charity. This means that very many apprentices' articles were never subject to the duty and are therefore not recorded in these registers. In such cases, local or charity records, if they survive, are likely to be the only source of information.

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?