[142] _Sheffield Iris_, December 17, 1816. The men’s clubs often existed under the cloak of friendly societies. In the overseers’ return of sick clubs, made to Parliament in 1815, the following trade friendly societies are included, many of these, at any rate, being essentially Trade Unions: Tailors, with 360 members, and £740 Braziers, with 664 members, and 1768 Masons, with 693 members, and 1852 Scissorsmiths, with 550 members, and 1309 Filesmiths, with 260 members, and 600 United Silversmiths, with 240 members, and 299 Cutlers, with 65 members, and 450 Grinders, with 283 members _Sheffield Iris_, 1851. [143] _A Few Remarks, etc._, p. 86. [144] Committee on Artisans and Machinery, 1824, p. 395. [145] See the _Gorgon_ for January and February 1819. [146] Second Report of Committee on Artisans and Machinery, 1824, p. 62. For other cases, see _The Town Labourer_, by J. L. and B. Hammond, 1917, pp. 130-33. [147] Throughout the century it seems to have been customary in most handicrafts for the artisan to be allowed the privilege of apprenticing one son, usually, the eldest, free of charge. For other boys, especially for the sons of parents not belonging to the trade, a fee of £5 to £20 was exacted by the employer. The secretary of the Old Amicable Society of Woolstaplers thirty years ago informed us that, as his brother had already entered the trade, his father had to pay £100 for his indentures. [148] To take, for instance, the cabinetmakers and millwrights. When Lovett came to London in 1819 he found that he could not get employment without joining the Union (_Life of William Lovett_, by himself). The millwrights at the beginning of the century were so strongly organised--this probably led to the engineering employers’ petition in 1799 out of which the Combination Acts sprang--that when Fairbairn (after being actually engaged at Rennie’s works) was refused admission into their society, he was driven to tramp out of London in search of work in a non-union district (_Life of Sir William Fairbairn_, by himself, 1877, pp. 89, 92). For the last three-quarters of the century a considerable proportion of the cabinetmakers and engineers employed in London have been outside the Trade Union ranks. [149] _Articles of the Society of Journeymen Brushmakers, held at the sign of the Craven Head, Drury Lane_, 1806; Minutes, April 27, 1831.