Bridport History Society: Tales from the Outworkers' Ledger

Professor Karen Hunt presents this fascinating talk
“Tales from the Outworkers’ Ledger – Trying to make a living in the Bridport Netting Industry in the 20th Century”Members £1
Visitors Welcome: £5

Meeting Opens at 2.15pm

www.bridporthistorysociety.org.uk

Prof. Hunt says: A large ledger can be found in a corner of Bridport Museum. Page after page of handwritten figures may not look that exciting but each page is a window into one Bridport net worker’s working life; their household and neighbourhood; as well as the town and the industry that dominated it. Most of the outworkers — those who were paid by local net manufacturers to make nets of all shapes and sizes in their own homes — were women. Reading against the grain of these apparently unpromising documents I will conjure up individual life stories that tell us about making a living in the challenging times that the ledger covers — 

1916–25.

For a view of the Bridport ledger see below: