Good day Margaret. Just a few words on Thomas Smith at the time that I first started there. Thomas Smith Apprentice Pay-1953 To give an insight into wages paid. At the start of my employment my pay was £1.25 shillings per week equal to $2.73 Australian dollars in today's money rising to approximately £5 at the time I was 20 years of age. When I had completed my apprenticeship at 21 years of age in June of 1959 my wage had risen to about £11.0 per week which was approximately 75% of a skilled mans rate. It was generally accepted that from when an apprentice had completed his training it would take a further 3 years to be fully skilled. even though some young men acquired skills more readily, and that is why many qualified apprentices left the company that they worked for to acquire more skills and obviously to get better pay. The apprentice indentures that a young man would sign, was witnessed by the father/guardian and also the mill manager. I can remember clearly a part of the document which said "that the apprentice would obey his masters at all times". Obey his masters, (imagine that today.) Whenever someone arrived late for work they would often try to sneak in to avoid the foreman, alas, almost all times the word would go around that "Tommy Somebody" was late and someone would be on the lookout for him. When he arrived everyone would take a hammer or a lump of metal and bang it loudly onto a metal surface for a few minutes, that would bring the foreman to look around to see who it was. It would bring a slight grin to the face of the foreman as he looked at his watch as he saw the man get to his place of work. The foreman almost always took it all with a smile, though not if the person was late a second time in that same week. On the day when an apprentice had completed his training at 21 years of age it was custom and practice for him to buy everyone in the Dieshop a bottle of beer and a pork pie and as the beer and pork pies were being taken around everyone banged away with their hammers or whatever was at hand and made a terrible din. The following day someone would go around to all those that had received the beer and pork pies and they chipped in a few shillings to a collection for the newly qualified young man. Almost every time he received a few £ pounds more than he had paid out. The young man was then expected to use that money to purchase drawing and measuring tools. The skilled men that worked as benchands(Diesinkers) made many of their own special hand tools to do specific work on the dies-Various shaped High Speed Chisels, Scrapers, Riffler files-(fine files of different shapes and sizes) and tracers. The Diesinkers also had to make all form gauges and templates from drawings which were used by the Die millers to create the shapes and forms in the dies and then the Diesinkers would fine finish the impression(s) It was quite hard work for the Diesinkers because they had to use chisels, scrapers,etc. it required physical effort using their hands all day. After a couple of years of doing this type of work, their fingers, wrists and forearms had built up considerable strength and they had, as it is said, a grip of steel.(Plus plenty of calluses). Hope this added information may be of use to you Margaret, as it does relate to Thomas Smith & Sons custom and practices. Best wished, JLC. Thomas Smith & Sons