myroots
Occupations to explore
posted Sunday, 10 April 2005
Most of the people in my family tree - or those I've found so far - have fairly ordinary occupations (with many bricklayers and bricklayer's labourers, and many more agricultural labourers). My great-grandfather James Stocking was described as a 'laper langer' in a transcript of the 1901 census but after a bit of head-scratching, I realised this should have been paper hanger (he was variously a decorator and a bricklayer's labourer/bricklayer).
There are some interesting occupations that I'd like to know more about:
Several generations of Gibsons have been looking glass frame carvers or overmantel makers. There is a Guild of Looking glass frame makers, although I doubt whether my Gibsons were much more than itinerant carvers, or maybe worked for a local manufacturer. The wonderful Charles Booth archive shows others with the same occupation clustered around the same parts of London, although this branch of Gibsons moved from North Shields to London, but learnt their trade in the North.
Aaron Wales and his father were saddlers, harness-makers and blacksmiths, originally from the Burnhams in Norfolk.
I was quite surprised to find Charles Safferey Wakefield described on his daughter Phoebe Virginia's birth certificate as a 'Hair Dresser' and started imagining what a 19th century hair dresser might have looked like, and the kind of premises he might have occupied. But further investigation into the family found his son (with the name of Henry Love Wakefield) as a horse hair dresser in the 1890s. I'm still not sure what a horse hair dresser might do (although horse hair seems to have been used for violin bows). More to find out here.
There are some interesting occupations that I'd like to know more about:
Several generations of Gibsons have been looking glass frame carvers or overmantel makers. There is a Guild of Looking glass frame makers, although I doubt whether my Gibsons were much more than itinerant carvers, or maybe worked for a local manufacturer. The wonderful Charles Booth archive shows others with the same occupation clustered around the same parts of London, although this branch of Gibsons moved from North Shields to London, but learnt their trade in the North.
Aaron Wales and his father were saddlers, harness-makers and blacksmiths, originally from the Burnhams in Norfolk.
I was quite surprised to find Charles Safferey Wakefield described on his daughter Phoebe Virginia's birth certificate as a 'Hair Dresser' and started imagining what a 19th century hair dresser might have looked like, and the kind of premises he might have occupied. But further investigation into the family found his son (with the name of Henry Love Wakefield) as a horse hair dresser in the 1890s. I'm still not sure what a horse hair dresser might do (although horse hair seems to have been used for violin bows). More to find out here.
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