Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
wish to find a place for it in a modern building…it gives a thrill such as only the
true real craftsmen know.
Lindsay-Brayley, then Head of Junior Building School in Bournemouth
(Dorset), was less optimistic. Yet he acknowledged its worth in developing
future craftsmen (Lindsay-Brayley, 1945, 66):
Gauged Work. Heavy patterning and moulding are now obsolete, and also, in a
less degree, is gauged and rubbed brickwork; the only places where they are still
carried on are the workshops of technical schools.…
…There are still craftsmen who specialise in gauged work, which consists of bap-
tismal fonts, niches, vases, and other ornamental details, this work being beyond
the scope of the general craftsman.
Study of the City and Guilds syllabus 'Brickwork 82, 1966-67' for a five-year
apprenticeship, reveals that gauged brickwork was introduced through theory,
geometry, and drawing in the second year and at a practical level in the third
year of the 'Intermediate Craft' stage. During the fourth and fifth years, for the
more capable apprentices in the 'Advanced Craft' course, the content covered
gauged plinth and string courses; mullioned, transomed and traceried win-
dows; niches; and a variety of arches for construction in the college workshop.
The majority of building firms trading in the 1960s used a directly employed
workforce. Most had yards in which they stored materials and plant, and
workshops assigned to the particular crafts. Under such conditions, where a
firm obtained the quality of work, the skills required for setting out, cutting,
and setting gauged work could be employed and taught, and support of the
trad-itional apprenticeship system given. Building booms of the late 1960s and
1970s attracted many bricklayers from old established building firms to sub-
contracting, concentrating solely on their craft needs and departing as quickly
as possible to maximise earnings. These were, and remain, mainly an inward-
looking, itinerant, workforce with no eye, or indeed interest, for either the past
or the future; a view upheld by older and wiser craftsmen who predicted its dis-
astrous effects on the crafts, but were powerless to restrain it.
In 1964, under the Industry Training Act, the Industry Training Boards (ITBs)
(government, employers and unions) were set up with the statutory power to
receive a training levy from employers to be given as grants to those offering
approved training. The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) being
the body responsible for the building crafts. The end of the1960s reduced the
indentured apprenticeship leading to certification by City and Guilds to four
years, three years to achieve a basic Craft Certificate and a fourth year for the
Advanced Craft Certificate. This was quickly reduced to three years - two years
for Basic Craft and one year for Advanced Craft - and consolidated by the
City
and Guilds 588 - Brickwork and Masonry
syllabus (City and Guilds, 1976).
