Halifax's rise as a trading centre was reflected in growing bustle along the commercial waterfront. By the 1820s, several hundred schooners, brigs, barques and ships tied up annually at the numerous finger wharves which jutted into the harbour. The backbreaking tasks of discharging and loading cargo, which can be seen in this anonymous painting, were performed by local workers, aided on occasion by sailors. These men ranked as unskilled labour and earned a subsistence wage of about two shillings a day (approximately fifty cents). Skilled workers, such as coopers, masons and wheelwrights, earned half as much again or more and could look forward to becoming proprietors of their own small shops.
Women participated extensively in the Halifax work force. Most served as low paid domestic help but they could also be found running retail shops, acting as midwives and working in certain skilled trades, such as baking. In all but the wealthier families, children went to work at an early age. Eight and ten-year-olds were regarded as an important means of adding to the family income.
No formal unions existed for any of these workers but skilled craftsmen usually had a say in deciding their hours and wages. They also organized themselves into mutual benefit societies to guard against destitution caused by injury, disease or death. Common labourers, however, had little protection against distress other than the Poor House.
