Page 24 - WW1 - 1916

Redditch Local History Society Remembering Redditch Residents & WW1

th
The Bromsgrove, Droitwich and Redditch Messenger – Saturday 19 February
1916

Redditch District Education Committee – Boy Labour on Farms – At a meeting of
the Redditch District Education Committee, on Friday afternoon in last week – AldermanG.
W. Hobson presiding – a discussion took place with reference to the employment upon farms
of boys under the age of twelve years. Several application were received for exemption from
attendance at school of boys who were only eleven years of age, and who, it was stated,
were required to assist in ploughing. The wages offered were stated to be 4s. and 5s. a
week, the hours being from 8.0 a.m. until 5.0 or 6.0 p.m. – Mr H. Wright and Mr W. B.
Edwards supported the applications on the ground that labour was urgently needed upon
the land. It was further pointed out that the Worcestershire Education Committee would
shortly consider a proposal by Mr Willis Bund to lower the present age of permissible
exemption from attendance at school from twelve to eleven years of age for boys who would
work on the land during the war. – Several members objected to the employment of boys at
so young an age. It was pointed out that they would be taken away from school just at a
time when they would best profit by the education being given them. Moreover, the
proposed wages were low, one member observing this warranted securing cheap labour
than of meeting an urgent industrial necessity. – It was decided to refuse the application.

Page: 24 © RLHS 2014