Edward Le Quesne: The Bad Old Years

Edward Le Quesne (1882-1957) was elected a Deputy for St Helier No 2 district in 1925 and held the seat until he stood successfully for the new office of Senator in 1948. This is an extract from a journal he wrote entitled “50 Years of Memories”, written sometime around 1949. This part of his memoir looks at late Victorian Jersey.

Chapter 2: The Bad Old Days
By Edward Le Quesne

Although more could be bought with twenty shillings in those days than can be obtained with three times that amount to-day, wages were terribly inadequate. A good mechanic, plasterer, mason, carpenter or plumber was lucky if he earned 18 shillings or 20 shillings- for a week of 59 hours, and a labourer was rarely paid more than 12 shillings or 14 shillings for the same week. Work began at 7 am and finished at 6 p.m, excepting on Saturday when knock-off time was 5 pm.

Apprentices started work at one shilling a week, and the lucky ones gradually increased that to four shillings a week during their fourth year.

The majority of working-class families lived in one or two rooms without indoor sanitation and with a pump outside the house from which water was obtained for washing and cooking, etc. Some families, and I emphasise some, had a weekly bath-night, when water was heated in the washhouse copper, and then poured into the washtub. One filling had to do for at least two grown-ups or three or four children. The modern porcelain bath with piped water was almost unknown, excepting in the houses of very wealthy people.

Rent and food were remarkably cheap, if measured by 1954 standards. Bread was 5 ½ d. for a four-pound loaf, eggs were 6d., 7d. and 9d. per dozen, butter 1s 6d and 1s 8d per lb. and potatoes six pounds for 2 ½ d. A pig’s head for making into brawn could be bought for 2 1/2d per lb.'and conger for 1d. per lb.

But even at those prices the lot of a working man with a family was a hard one; and many went in dread of even a few days’ illness or a week or so of unemployment, for on their small wages little or nothing could be saved for the proverbial “ rainy day ”.

The great ambition of many families was to have a special suit or dress for Sundays, and great care was taken of these. Children wore them to attend Sunday School, had to change them immediately on return home, and change into them again if taken out by their parents on a Sunday afternoon or to Church or Chapel on Sunday evening. The majority of people were Church or Chapel members ; and large congregations attended both morning and evening Sunday services, plus a prayer-meeting on Fridays.

One of many inducements to attend Sunday School was the Annual Sunday School Treat, when the children, accompanied by their teachers and some of the parents, were taken into the country in charabancs and vans. Sports were then held, prizes distributed to the winners of the various events, and a bumper tea provided. The drive home in the darkness was often the beginning of a romance that years afterwards meant a courtship and marriage for those who had first met at a Sunday School treat. I have known of many such.

Another great day was the Sunday School Anniversary. Great preparations were made for this event at which hymns were sung by specially-trained children’s choirs, the lessons read by one or two of the senior scholars, and a sermon preached by the minister especially for children.

On the following Monday or Tuesday came the prize-giving day. Every boy and girl who had made a regular attendance at Sunday School received a prize. These prizes principally consisted of Bibles or the Pilgrim’s Progress, with now and again something of a less religious type, but never of the type boys and girls read to-day.

Some of the Sunday services in those days lasted for from two to two-and-a-half hours, with the sermon taking half the time. The story of Adam and Eve and the condemnation of the wicked to everlasting Hell-fire were consistently preached and accepted literally, and illustrated books depicting the wicked being prodded with pitchforks into raging furnaces were considered quite the thing to show to children in order to induce them to be good little boys and girls.