Figure 1.--Here a “nipper” is pulling a hand-held cart in Burley at the turn of the 19th Century.

Shop boys were used to mind pavement displays from being stolen or act as door-boys for high-class stores. Some even served the customers. Note the large aprons to protect their clothing from the produce. Errand boys made home deliveries of goods such as milk and bread when shops increased their services to compete with each other. Van boys or “nippers”, would accompany the driver to guard the van from theft, look after the horse or assist the driver in the delivery of parcels. “Nippers” “retired” at age 17 because businesses were incapable or paying for them as “adult workers”. It was only when they reached the age of 21 could they be considered as “carters” or “carmen”. Consequently there were two major concerns for those entering shop trades after leaving school: The first was the physical aspect of working long hours and carrying heavy loads. Full-time shop hours were 84 hours per week; this compared unfavourably with 60 hours per week in factories. Boys went into the shop early to set up and stayed late to clear up; many also worked the Saturday afternoon, which was a half-day holiday for adults. The 1888 Shops Act limited the hours of children working there to 74 hours per week. The second was the poor promotion prospects or possibility of moving into skilled employment. Boys only took up shop employment for the short period after leaving school before they were able to enter a trade, but it still did not lead onto a future career because there was no chance of acquiring knowledge about the products they were selling or distributing.

Shop Boys

Shop boys were used to mind pavement displays from being stolen or act as door-boys for high-class stores. Some even served the customers. Note the large aprons to protect their clothing from the produce. Errand boys made home deliveries of goods such as milk and bread when shops increased their services to compete with each other. Boys went into the shop early to set up and stayed late to clear up; many also worked the Saturday afternoon, which was a half-day holiday for adults.

Baker Boys

Baker boys were a little diffrent than shop boys and delivery boys in that they produced a product, bread and other baked goods. Learming how to bake was an important part of a boy's education. Especially in the 19h century, working class boys did not progress very far in school. In the early 19th century they might not attend school at all. Boys beginning to work at a bakery might be most;ly involved in deliveries. Many bakers had carts that made home deliveries. This was especially common in the 19th and early-20th centuries. Bakeries also had stores where boys may woirk rater like shop boys. I the 19h century there were no supmsarkets. Shopers had to go the the diufferent kinds of shops (green gricer, dry goods stores, bakeries, butcher, fishh monger ect.) Gradually many of the bsakers boys learned the trade of baking. We do not yet have a lot of specific information about baker boys.

Cart Boys

We notice many images of boys making deliveries with hand carts. These do not seem to be boys selling from hand carts, but rather msking deliveries for shops. Some of the carts were very basic. Other carts were more sophisticated and had advertising for the shops. Most of the images are not dated. They look to be from the period before World War I, but it is difficult to date them more specifically. Generally largr horse drawn carts and of course trucks were operated by adults, but we see boys with hand carts. Here some of the boys look like school boys, perhaps working after school. Others look like they are not in school.

Van Boys

Van boys or “nippers”, would accompany the driver to guard the van from theft, look after the horse or assist the driver in the delivery of parcels. “Nippers” “retired” at age 17 because businesses were incapable or paying for them as “adult workers”. It was only when they reached the age of 21 could they be considered as “carters” or “carmen”. Consequently there were two major concerns for those entering shop trades after leaving school: The first was the physical aspect of working long hours and carrying heavy loads. Full-time shop hours were 84 hours per week; this compared unfavourably with 60 hours per week in factories. The second was the poor promotion prospects or possibility of moving into skilled employment. Boys only took up shop employment for the short period after leaving school before they were able to enter a trade, but it still did not lead onto a future career because there was no chance of acquiring knowledge about the products they were selling or distributing

1888 Shops Act

The 1888 Shops Act limited the hours of children working there to 74 hours per week.

William Woodruff

William Woodruff's book The Road to Nab End has a chapter in it about his first job working as in a shop as a delivery boy. He tells about the clothes he wore and the daily work he did. He also fell in love with the daughter of one of the customers. The town is Blackburn, Lancashire.

The Corner Shop

A HBC reader tells us about the corner shops he remembers in the 1950s. "When I was a boy I lived in a very long street of terreced houses. There were shops at either end of the street. There were two green groucer shops. One belonged to a large concern called Thomas Bolton. The other was an independent trader. I often went into both shops and got to know the staff who worked there. In the Thomas Bolton shop the manager was very knowleable about the products which were sold. He would often tell me about where they had come from but I liked him best because he told really funny jokes. I also liked it when I was sent to Mr. Cowell's Greengrocer shop. He was a part-time special constable and a very knowledgable man. He was full of stories about the country of origin of the fruit I wanted to buy. He never told you about them unless you asked. How I came to find this out was when I bought a banana and asked him about the word on it. The word was Fiffes. They were banana importers. He told me about the company whose banana I was buying. A couple of days later he saw my mum and called her into his shop. He had contacted the company and got them to send a little booklet about bananas. This he gave my mum and she gave to me. I got to know this man and asked him about all kinds of questions after that about the foods he sold in his shop. I was a willing listener. When I left school in 1963 one of the companies I worked for encouraged boys to be trained properly there was a City and Guilds course in shop management. I do not know what this course was like because I did not want to go on the course. The other boy who was employed with me did. The manager got a ticking off by the director when he found out that he'sd persuaded the trainee to stay and help out in a busy period and not gpo on the day release course. HBC has a habit of rekindling fascnating memories of my boyhood!" [Fergusson]

Mid-20th Century

Delivery boys continued to be a coomon site on British streets into the 1960s. Boys were often employed by shops to take small orders to their customers. After World War II these deliveries were commonly made by bicycles. By the 1970s these home deliveries became less and less common. I'm not sure precisely why.

Sources

Ferguson, William. E-mail message, February 14, 2004

Created: February 14, 2004
Last updated: 3:58 AM 7/16/2009