Lifters and Leaners

As the economy is now in a recession the focus is clearly on ensuring jobs are available and secure. With programs like JobSeeker, JobKeeper and JobMaker, we have fortunately moved away from the rhetoric of historical terms like ‘lifters and leaners’.

Of course, ‘lifters and leaners’ was merely a ‘re-branding’ of the earlier terms: ‘industry and idleness’ which were depicted in a series of engravings by the English artist, William Hogarth, in 1747.  And, Hogarth was not the first person to dramatically charactise these types of workers. The Jacobean drama, ‘Eastward Hoe!’, written in 1605 by George Chapman, Ben Jonson and John Marston, had satirised the lives of the two different styles of apprentice.

‘Industry and Idleness’ is the title of a series of 12 engravings in which Hogarth contrasts the results of diligence and hard work with disinterest and laziness through the lives of two apprentices – Francis Goodchild and Thomas Idle. As we watch their respective ‘journeys’ the apprenctices’ physical appearance and demeanour matches the trajectory of their lives. This is enhanced with each engraving having a Biblical quotation relevant to the scene depicted. The entire series is in the NGV collection.

We meet both apprentices in the first engraving where they are employed as weavers and are effectively on equal terms with their master. In the background, Francis is busy with his loom and shuttle and has an open copy of ‘The Prentice’s Guide’ at his feet – clearly the desired hard worker. Tom, however, is asleep on the job (possibly as a result of the tankard on his loom) while a cat plays unobserved with his shuttle. Their master in the background, with his stick raised, is obviously aware that supervision is required.

As we move through the following engravings, we see images of Francis’ industrious behaviour alternating with pictures of Tom’s descent into immorality and crime. In plate 2, Francis attends a church service at St Martin-in-the-Fields with his master’s daughter; while in plate 3, Tom is shown outside in the churchyard gambling (and cheating) with a bunch of unscrupulous individuals on a tombstone.

As Francis’ piety pays off in plate 4, he has moved away from the loom and is looking after his master’s business interests. In the background is a thriving enterprise and the interdigitated gloves on Francis’ desk indicate trust, harmony and friendship, while his bulging pouch of money is the reward for this. By plate 5, Tom is no longing working in the factory – has he left of his own accord or has he been (more likely) dismissed?  He is now going off to seek his fortune on the seas. In a boat with some dubious characters and his tearful, exhausted mother we see him heading towards the windmills of the Netherlands.

Life keeps getting better and better for Francis. He has married his master’s daughter, finished his apprenticeship and become a partner in the weaving business – now named ‘West and Goodchild’ – enabling acts of charity to the poor (plate 6). Whereas Tom’s life has unravelled. Plate 7 finds him back from his time on thes sea, living in squalor with a common prostitute. While his girlfriend checks the spoils he has achieved from his ‘job’ as a thief and examines an earring in the ominous shape of the gallows, Tom is startled by sounds coming from outside the door which is wedged shut.

As their lives diverge further, Francis is living an opulent lifestyle and, at a banquet,  he is acknowledged as the Sheriff of London in plate 8. Meanwhile, Tom has gone from theft to murder. In plate 9, he divides ill-gotten gains with accomplices while one of them pushes their dead victim into a chest. Unbeknown to Tom, at the same time his girlfriend is receiving money for dobbing him in to the officials.

Having led separate lives, in plate 10 the two apprentices meet again. Now Francis is an Alderman of London and Tom is brought before him to answer for his crimes. While Tom’s accomplices provide evidence against him and his mother sobs, Tom pleads in vain for his life as Francis turns away.

Our last image of Tom is clutching a Bible during his ride in a tumbrel with a preacher and coffin on the way to his hanging at Tyburn. A large crowd has gathered, much of which is disorderly with a range of petty crimes taking place. In the background on the right, a man is releasing a bird which will bring the message of Tom’s death back to Newgate prison. Suspended skeletons on each side of the picture frame show Tom’s ultimate fate.

Meanwhile, a different and more orderly crowd has assembled in plate 12 as Francis, holding the sword of state and wearing an oversized top hat, is paraded through the streets of London in the Lord Mayor’s carriage. A young lad in the bottom right corner holds a page from the Newgate Calendar reading; ‘A full and true Account of ye Ghoft of Tho Idle’ – completing the story of the lives in parallel.

Hogarth (who had once been an apprentice) created these works following his earlier successful series ‘A Harlot’s Progress’ (1731), ‘The Rake’s Progress’ (1734) and ‘Marriage à-la-mode’ (1743).  Instead of painting pictures and then producing engravings as he had done with his earlier series, these works were created solely as a set of engravings at the cost of 1 shilling for the entire set.  This low cost was important as it made them affordable to a wider and less affluent market in which it could provide a didactic function.

Hogarth clearly felt a need to disseminate his moralistic message widely. I imagine he would have been very happy for ‘industry and idleness’ to be updated to ‘lifters and leaners’ and perhaps acquiesced to the new ‘JobHelper’ terms. However, while I was looking at these extraordinarily detailed works, I kept being reminded of the homeless people who have suffered from structural disadvantage, live on the streets, and sell ‘The Big Issue’ – and wondered where they would have figured in Hogarth’s world.