A day in the life of a trouser-finisher

A hot sunny Midsummer’s Day in 1888. The time is one o’clock in the afternoon and the place a crowded alley in the east end of London. Two young girls, trouser finishers in a tailoring workshop, jostle their way through the crowds of workers all intent on making the most of their hour-long dinner break. Their names are Beatrice and Ada, and dressed as they are in uniform attire of button-less boots, black bonnets, shawls and unadorned dresses, they look much the same as anyone else. A more perceptive onlooker however might notice that the elder of the two in particular carries herself with a superior bearing betraying a refinement of birth unusual amongst the working classes. Beatrice is in fact destined to make a name for herself as a social researcher and writer. The daughter of a fairly successful businessman, she has no need to earn her living at all. Ada, her younger companion, is a distant cousin on her mother’s side, whose branch of the family have been less successful in life and are wage-earning operatives more by necessity than choice. Ada, encouraged by her cousin, also has ambitions to better herself but for the present they must share the narrow world of the tailor’s workshop.

The two girls began work at eight o’clock that morning and this is the first break of the day. After five hours of breathing the claustrophobic, sweat-laden atmosphere of the workshop, they scarcely notice the putrid smell pervading the alleyways. They walk up and down for a while absorbing the sunshine then find time for a bun and a cup of tea in a cheap café before returning to their labours.

Their workplace is no worse and no better than the other tailoring shops of the neighbourhood whose windows display a similar selection of show garments - coats and vests priced around seventeen shillings and trousers from four shillings and sixpence to eleven shillings and sixpence. The workroom behind the retail shop is long, low and irregular in shape. It is lit by a lofty skylight at the far end and the walls are lined with match-boarding. Near the door are too high tables for the pressers and a gas stove for heating the irons. A low plank table with forms either side runs lengthways for the trouser finishers. There is also a high table for the basters, two more tables and another skylight for the vest hands and machinists. At the far end of the room an open door leads to the Master’s private kitchen and beyond this is a small backyard containing an outhouse and tap and sink for the use of everyone. Hanging on the wall, prominently displayed, is a framed copy of the Factory and Workshop Regulations.

In twos and threes, the thirty or so workers trickle through the door and settle to their work again. Ada opens her old tobacco tin containing her tools of trade - cottons, twist, gimp ( a special type of yarn), needles, thimble and scissors. She picks up a bundle of work, making a mental note to buy some more trimmings tomorrow before she has to be prompted by the mistress. These have to be paid for out of her own wages. The two pressers, the only men employed, are the last to return. They begin preparing the irons, all the while exchanging loud ribald remarks. And so begins the second session of work.

Throughout the long afternoon, elbow to elbow, the workers toil and chat and laugh and occasionally sing snatches of current music hall favourites, to the accompaniment of the tuneless whirr of the sewing machines. At the head of the main table, Mrs Moses, the mistress, a large-bosomed lady with enigmatic expression and waves of grey hair falling on either side of a centre parting, presides over the proceedings like a courtroom judge. She spends her time examining finished articles, doling out fresh work, chiding or encouraging as the need arises and generally calling to order when the babble of voices occasionally rises to a crescendo.

At five o’clock, a brief pause for tea and perhaps a sandwich left over from dinnertime, then on again into evening. By a quarter to eight Ada has only finished her second pair of trousers. Mrs Moses squints disapprovingly through gold-rimmed spectacles but only remonstrates gently, for although Beatrice and Ada are not necessarily her most efficient finishers, they are respectable and refined, which qualities she considers to be all too rare in the present times. Her attitude is probably understandable since she is often addressed by the more brazen of her workers in language that is less than choice and sometimes downright abusive. At eight o’clock everyone looks up expectantly for the order to stop work. It is given. Unlike some of her kind, Mrs Moses believes in adhering more often than not to the Factory Rules, so it is usually only during high season that she sends the girls upstairs away from the prying eyes of the inspectors, for a few more hours work. For a twelve-hour stint today Beatrice has probably earned one shilling and threepence for three garments and Ada eleven pence for two. With numbed fingers they put on their bonnets and shawls, but at the door Ada remembers her tin of materials which she takes home nightly for safekeeping and runs back to fetch it.

Outside the cold rush of evening air is like balm and their weariness evaporates in the delight of free movement. Another working day over.

1928. At the bottom of a trunk full of forgotten relics that have accumulated over the years, Ada Johnson, former nurse and wife of a moderately successful London doctor, discovers an old tobacco tin, her name just decipherable on the lid. It is not until the next day when she is sorting out the mending that she remembers what the tin was used for.