Violence and Labour Discipline in Early Modern Britain

Project Information

VIOLLAB

Grant agreement ID: 101105212

DOI

10.3030/101105212

Project closed

EC signature date 3 May 2023

Start date 1 October 2023

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 172 750,08

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VIOLLAB (Violence and Labour Discipline in Early Modern Britain)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

VIOLLAB investigates the causes and consequences of disciplinary violence—physical punishment used by employers, masters, and overseers to correct workers and enforce discipline—in Britain from c. 1550 to 1800. Although workplace violence is recognized today as a major social and economic problem, the project suggests that it has a deep and largely unexplored history. VIOLLAB examines how disciplinary violence operated across sectors of the early modern British economy as it transitioned toward agrarian and industrial capitalism and became increasingly dependent on bound (indentured and enslaved) labour in colonial contexts. By reconstructing both how and why disciplinary violence was used, and how workers and legal institutions responded to it, the project aims to enhance scholarly understanding of work, labour discipline, and law before modern labour protections and workers’ organizations existed. VIOLLAB provides the first systematic historical analysis of workplace disciplinary violence in early modern Britain. It reveals the ideologies and practical logics that justified violent labour discipline; highlights workers’ varied responses, from solidarity to acceptance of “justified” correction; and clarifies the ambiguous and contested legal status of disciplinary violence, showing how law could both empower and constrain workers. Ultimately, the project offers new insight into the lived experiences of workers and the evolution of labour discipline during a period of major economic transformation.It explores connections between British labour practices and bound (indentured and enslaved) labour in the Caribbean, offering fresh insight into how ideas about violence and discipline circulated within the British Empire and the interconnectedness of metropolitan and colonial labour regimes. Furthermore, by linking past and present forms of workplace coercion, the project offers historical context to contemporary concerns about work-related violence. Modern policymakers, unions, and occupational safety experts gain new historical insight into how violence has been justified, normalized, resisted, and legally regulated, helping to deepen current debates on safe working environments.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work performed involved archival research in different UK archives; dissemination of project findings at international conferences, including the European Labor History Network conference and European Social Science History Conference; and the preparation of academic writings for submission and publication. Achievements thus far include the publication of an open access article that offers the first systematic exploration of the gendered dynamics of violence in early modern English apprenticeship (‘The Gendered Dynamics of Violence in English Apprenticeship: Apprentices’ Petitions to the Westminster and Middlesex Sessions, c. 1690-1830,’ published in Continuity and Change, 2025). Additional project-related publications (two journal articles, a monograph) are in preparation for future submission to internationally leading journals and university presses.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

VIOLLAB advances current scholarship in five major, state-of-the-art ways. First, it re-centres violence within British labour history. It challenges the dominant focus on impersonal or incentive-based disciplinary methods by demonstrating that personalised, hierarchical, and often violent forms of authority persisted well into the 18th century. This reframes understandings of pre-industrial labour relations and exposes a major blind spot in existing historiography. Second, it integrates metropole and colonial labour regimes into a unified analytical framework. By systematically comparing violence in Britain with violence used against bound and enslaved labour in the colonies, VIOLLAB explores how colonial labour violence evolved from long-standing metropolitan practices, rather than constituting a stark rupture. Third, it adds disciplinary violence to the study of occupational risk. While scholarship has explored accidental workplace injuries, VIOLLAB explores disciplinary violence as an occupational hazard, exploring how early modern work is understood in terms of risk, danger, and bodily vulnerability. Fourth, it advances studies of apprenticeship and adolescent labour. It explores disciplinary violence as a key mechanism through which young workers were trained, justified as part of teaching skills or habits. This offers a novel perspective on education, skill formation, and youth labour. Finally, it provides historical depth to interdisciplinary studies of modern workplace violence.

Edvard Munch, Street Workers in Snow, from Wikimedia Commons