Norton Board School – Salary scales for Assistant Teachers which were adopted by the board, July 7 1898.
Image and details courtesy of Norman Hill.
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A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Norton Board School – Salary scales for Assistant Teachers which were adopted by the board, July 7 1898.
Image and details courtesy of Norman Hill.
These 1890 teacher’s salaries would have been just about good enough to put people into the lower middle classes. It is almost impossible, however, to assess how they would compare with today’s levels.
In theory £75 then would be equivalent to about £9000-10000 now. However, there was little income tax, most people would walk to work, food process were low, etc. A big out going would be accommodation. Most people rented, or lived with a landlady, and every effort would be made to push rents up..
The salary for an engineering graduate in 1966 would have been in the £850-1100 range, and it looked like starting salaries were increasing by about £75-100 per annum. A pint of beer on Teesside would have still been under 10p. More like 12p in London. Mild inflation in 1966-7 was just becoming noticeable. Men doing construction work on Teesside, with overtime, would be getting about £1500-2000 a year at that time.
As a student apprentice, at Dorman Long I was on about £6.50 a week. I was able to give my mother £3.50 and with quite a bit of scraping was able to buy a Ford 105E van at £185.
My impression is that starting salaries for engineering graduates are now around the £25000 mark, but unlike the sixties, graduates leave university with huge debts.
In 1964 as a qualified teacher my starting salary was just short of £500 p.a. nearly 7 times that in 1898. By 2013 that salary had grown to £21804 more than 40 times more than in 1964 yet over only 49 years! How inflation has taken its toll!
These salary scales seem very low, for instance the Female Certificated Teacher at commencement receives £65p/a, which on an index of wages I found (based upon 2012) works out at just £5,600 per year, a Male teacher receiving apprx £6,100! Presumably there was no income-tax at this time, or National Insurance contributions?
Chris Bailey – sorry to be so late replying but I’ve just noticed your comments. I agree 100% about the female getting less for the same job, but even today in 2021 it’s true that some jobs they STILL get less for doing the same job! As to the National Insurance, I’m not sure, you’d have to contact appropriate services. But before VAT, Purchase Tax was added to items you er – purchased… but not for services done in your house such as plumbing etc… if I’m wrong, I’m willing to stand corrected… I worked for a company in the 90’s where a lady was doing the same job as the men (in the office) but she got paid much less. Considering she worked as hard if not harder than the men, this certainly was NOT fair. As a typist, I was considered almost a pleb!