Regional aspects of English hiring fairs 1780-1860

英语招聘会是一种独特的就业安置机制，在全国范围内运作了500多年。大约有500人参加，每年有50万人参加。1780年至1850年是英国社会和经济深刻变革的时期。然而，令人惊讶的是，尽管招聘会是一个如此重要的经济机构，但迄今为止，招聘会在这些变化中的作用还没有得到系统的评估。我的项目的目标是解决这一文学上的主要差距。我的研究将从三个史学角度来处理这一任务。首先，将招聘会视为一种传统的劳动力交换形式。这使它们被归入前现代英国机构的一个广泛类别，而涉及后者的主要事件是工业革命。与此同时，对于传统机构在社会经济变革中的作用没有达成一致意见。为了进一步了解这一点，人们需要对招聘会的规模有一个更好的了解。因此，我的第一个研究问题是：从绝对值和相对于农业劳动力市场的角度来看，雇佣了多少佣人？第二种方法是将招聘会视为一般展销会的特例。集市是为了贸易而建立的，但到了18世纪末，许多集市最初的商业功能变得不那么重要，而是它们提供的娱乐机会。也有一种共识认为，博览会受制于更加优雅的公共礼仪的大趋势。我想探讨这是否适用于招聘会，我的研究问题是：招聘过程是如何构建的，招聘会上还进行了哪些其他活动？第三种方法的出发点是，招聘会服务于一个不同的市场。大多数仆人是“多产的”，是农场工人，而大多数主人是农民。因此，招聘会与农业服务机构密切相关。有人提出，招聘会通过将佣人转移到更远的距离来提高经济效率。在这方面，研究问题是：在博览会上雇佣的佣人在连续的工作之间移动了多远，这些距离与不那么正式的招聘方法产生的距离相比如何？最重要的数据来源将是佣人在招聘会上的雇佣登记。这种情况很少见，因为大多数展会(有时被称为“会议”)都是在没有登记的情况下举行的，而且在那些产生的展会中，幸存下来的并不多。然而，由于我的初步研究，在我的博士学位开始时，我已经参考了威尔特郡和斯温登历史中心以及林肯郡档案馆的记录，这些记录的可用性得到了这些机构的确认。记录包括威尔郡的两场招聘招聘会，分别在伍顿巴西特和切本纳姆举行，以及林肯郡的会议，在埃洛伊、柯顿和下布斯比格拉福的wapentake招聘仆人。对这些记录的分析将显示是否需要进一步搜索。

English hiring fairs were a distinct work placement mechanism, which operated throughout the country for over five hundred years. There were about five hundred of them, attended by half a million people annually. The period from 1780 to 1850 was one of profound social and economic transformation in Britain. Surprisingly, however, despite the fact that they were such a major economic institution, the role of the hiring fairs in these changes has not hitherto been systematically assessed. The objective of my project is to address this major gap in the literature.My study will approach this task from three historiographical perspectives. The first is to see hiring fairs as a traditional form of labour exchange. This puts them in a broad category of pre-modern British institutions, and the main event involving the latter was the industrial revolution. At the same time, there is no agreement on the role of the traditional institutions in socio-economic changes. To move further within this perspective, one needs to develop a better idea of the scale of the hiring fairs. Therefore, my first research question is: how many servants were hired, in absolute terms and in relation to the agricultural labour market? The second approach is to consider hiring fairs a special case of fairs in general. Fairs were founded for trade, but by the late eighteenth century, the original commercial function of many fairs became less important than the recreational opportunities they provided. There is a consensus view also that fairs were subject to the general trend towards more refined public manners. I want to explore if this holds true for hiring fairs, and my research question is: how was the hiring process structured, and what other activities were going on at hiring fairs? The starting point for the third approach is that hiring fairs served a distinct market. Most servants were 'productive', farmworkers, and most masters were farmers. Hiring fairs, therefore, were closely linked to the institution of farm service. It has been suggested that hiring fairs contributed to economic efficiency by moving servants over greater distances. In this respect, the research question is: how far did servants, hired at the fairs, move between successive jobs, and how these distances compare with those resulting from less formal recruitment methods? The most important source of data will be registers of the engagements of servants at hiring fairs. These are rare, as most fairs (sometimes called 'sessions') were run without registers, and of those produced not many have survived. However, due to my preliminary research, by the start of my PhD I have references to records at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre and Lincolnshire Archives, and their availability was confirmed by these institutions. The records cover two hiring fairs in Wilshire, held at Wootton Bassett and Chippenham, and 'sessions' in Lincolnshire, run for hiring servants in wapentakes of Elloe, Kirton and Lower Boothby Graffo. Analysis of these records will show if a further search is required.