A Newfoundland Printer on the Tramp

LONG BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL revolution in England, skilled artisans left their homes at intervals, travelling from town to town and taking work if it was available or simply receiving a tramp allowance ? supper, lodging, and perhaps some beer ? from their brethren in the same trade. According to E.J. Hobsbawm, the custom developed as a method of unemployment relief and may have originated among woollen workers in the West Country of England.1 Tramping did not grow out of the exigencies of industrial capitalism, but rather was based on ancient artisanal custom. It may have reflected a wide-spread belief that no man knows his ability or what he is worth until he has worked in more towns than one. After the industrial revolution, periodic but massive unemployment overburdened this older artisan way of coping with localized gluts on the labour market. Larger labour markets, increasing specialization within crafts, and the rise of urban transport facilities led more unemployed artisans to seek jobs within range of their homes and families. tram replaced the tramp, Hobsbawm observed. But not entirely. In the later stages of tramping, artisans used the old custom as a way to make their own grand tours during an era when the wealthier classes popularized such travel. This seems to have been the case for Timothy J. Ryan, a young printer from St. John's, Newfoundland, who embarked upon a sojourn across Canada and parts of the United States in spring 1913. The young Ryan had been boarding at 11 William Street, St. John's, in a house probably owned by his parents or possibly a relative.2

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