I think that the occupation described on a census return and the strict legal definition of the occupation could be quite different. It’s a bit like a description today of “accountant” – many such described are not CPA’s, so census info needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
The early days of gunmaking were in medieval times, when women were chattels and “owned” by their husbands. My guess is that there were no female apprentices because until relatively recently women had no standing in a legal sense – they could not sign contracts (which were signed by their male next of kin). Women were subjugate to the rule of their husbands/fathers or brothers, were bound by male-friendly marriage laws so all those would prove barriers to the rule of a guild and raise all sorts of legal problems. Members of guilds also had specific duties to the town/city in which they lived e.g. to be part of the militia, which would rule out women.
It is logical – even during the Victorian era - for the wife and children of the head of the family to help him in his work. Thus a daughter of a gunmaker would help her father, possibly befriend an apprentice and later marry him; alternatively a guild member could arrange a marriage for his son/daughter with the daughter/son of another member. A sort of freemasonry of gunsmiths – after all, the masons were the “ultimate” guild. The records of UK gunmakers are full of such matches.
One of the benefits of guild membership was an early form of social security – on the death of a member, the guild contributed to the maintenance / upkeep of the deceased member’s family. The wife of the deceased guild member would have been well-known to other members and it would have been to the advantage of the guild to allow her to continue his work rather than become a drain on the resources of the guild.
From
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/medieval-london-guilds.htmWomen and Medieval Guilds
There were women in Medieval Guilds. A law called 'femme sole' allowed women to trade in their own right in the case of a widow continuing her husband's craft. The whole family were involved in the Craft Guilds helping the craft guild member who was the head of the family. A wife, daughter or son would work accordingly in the trade of the family. Women were therefore able to take over the trade upon the death of a husband.My guess is that women would be eligible for apprenticeship only after guild laws/rules were repealed. That was not in the 1800's, and probably only after women had the right to vote, which, in the UK, was in 1928 ( when the property restriction was dropped.) And that date was past the heyday of British gunmaking.
My take, FWIW,
Rs,
K.
