Beyond the nineteenth century / United Kingdom / Earnings recorded in 1906
Before the food
reached the table.
Follow the meal back to paid work.
Four manufacturing groups from J. J. Mallon’s chapter in B. L. Hutchins’s Women in Modern Industry (1915), Table C, p. 225. These are reported earnings for women aged eighteen and over working full time in 1906. Most selected groups refer to the last pay-week of September; preserved food, jam, pickle and sauce refer to an ordinary week in the season.
A separate early twentieth-century comparison. These figures cannot establish the wages of nineteenth-century cooks or West Hull Guild members.
Read the earnings ↓One table, two ways to read it
What does an
average hide?
Switch views to compare the reported mean with the distribution of earnings. Each industry has its own denominator; bar widths do not represent workforce sizes.
The table below preserves all four rows and both measures.
| Industry | Under 10s (%) | 10s to under 15s (%) | 15s and over (%) | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cocoa, chocolate and sugar confectionery | 40.5 | 37.2 | 22.3 | 11s 9d |
| Preserved food, jam, pickle, sauce, etc. | 44.4 | 43.0 | 12.6 | 10s 11d |
| Biscuit making | 33.6 | 53.5 | 12.9 | 10s 10d |
| Aerated water, etc., manufacture and general bottling | 54.8 | 42.7 | 2.5 | 9s 7d |
Historical currency: s = shillings; d = pence. 12d = 1s; 20s = £1. No modern-money conversion is applied.
Download the four rows (CSV) · Data and provenance · Read printed page 225
Reading the evidence
The survey has
edges.
Mallon describes voluntary employer returns (p. 213). Participation was incomplete, so the figures are not a complete population census. The age and full-time definitions are on p. 215. The specified pages and four rows were checked against the scan. The four averages were cross-checked in the official 1913 statistical abstract; the underlying employer returns remain uninspected.
This is a snapshot of earnings, not annual income, household spending or the price of a finished product. A worker’s individual pay cannot be substituted for a household’s combined resources.
How this chapter connects to the exhibition
This chapter examines food through its industrial producers as well as its consumers. The figures open that inquiry; they do not establish a direct link between any recipe, factory, named worker or Guild branch.
Read the household ledger alongside this chapter as a comparison of methods. Its York minimum budget concerns 1901 and a different unit of analysis. The 1901 household model and 1906 individual industry averages do not form a supported household-deficit calculation.
The West Hull archival case remains open. This chapter proceeds independently of the archive enquiry.
Source trail
Check the page.
Question the measure.
J. J. Mallon, “Women’s Wages in the Wage Census of 1906,” chapter VI in B. L. Hutchins, Women in Modern Industry (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1915), pp. 213, 215, 225. Consulted scan: Internet Archive, University of California Libraries, womeninmodernind00hutcrich; scanned leaves n236, n238, n248 respectively. Selected pages checked 2 November 2026.
Survey method, p. 213 · Population, p. 215 · Searchable transcription, Gutenberg #41703
Labels retain the source’s industry groupings; punctuation is simplified. The charts represent the transcribed values. The scan is linked rather than bundled in this website.
Source correction / official statistical abstract / 1913
The average agrees.
The date needs a footnote.
The Board of Trade’s official abstract reproduces the four full-time women’s averages: cocoa and confectionery 11s 9d, preserved food 10s 11d, biscuits 10s 10d, and aerated water/bottling 9s 7d.
Its p.114 footnote matters: preserved-food figures concern an ordinary week in the 1906 season. The chart’s former blanket September description has been corrected in the page and downloadable data.
Great Britain, Board of Trade, Sixteenth Abstract of Labour Statistics of the United Kingdom (1913), p.113 / PDF139 and p.114 / PDF140. Both page images visually inspected; Southampton Library digitisation.
Interpretation & evidence limits
Interpretation: Agreement between the later analytical table and the official abstract strengthens transcription of the averages; the exception reveals why footnotes belong with charts.
Limit: Both publications depend on the historical inquiry. This is not independent verification of employer reports, nor a cross-check of the earnings-band percentages.