“The Boy’s Book of Trades” from 1865

This is a 1999 reproduction or reprinting of an 1865 book called “The Boy’s Book of Trades”. It is a catalogue of the different professions that an apprentice may want to choose from. In the craft system, there were three levels. You start as an apprentice, then graduate to be a journeyman, and then you can become a master after that. This book would be used by apprentices to look at all the different options and see what type of trade they would want to enter into such as plasterer and whitewasher. This is one section in the book. It explains the tools that would have been involved and different aspects of the job. This is a catalogue of the trades that would have been possible career opportunities for people in the second half of the nineteenth century here in Hamilton.