London Clerical Workers, 1880-1914

Despite more than ten per cent of male Londoners being clerical workers at a time when London was the largest city in the world, no study has ever been carried out on this important historical demographic. This monograph is a comprehensive study of metropolitan clerks, examining aspects such as the changing dynamic of the clerical profession, the emergence of large scale organizations, the feminization and rationalization of the office, recruitment, remuneration, the rising importance of technical education and formal qualifications and the attitudes of clerks towards their work. Based on a wide range of sources including archives, contemporary literature, government and professional sources, diaries and interviews, newspapers and novels, Heller puts forward a new interpretation of clerical work, arguing that the growth, modernization and structural transformation of offices and the development of the clerical labour market was benign overall and had important long term implications for the history of work in London.