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Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: Brian & Berni on Wednesday 22 November 06 23:48 GMT (UK)
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What is the worst occupation you have found whilst doing your own family tree
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I guess the occupation isn't the worst, but my grandmother had a brother who worked for the electric company and died of an accidental electruction. That doesn't sound too fun to me.
Being a coalminer, a bleacher, or a bobbin turner doesn't sound like much of a party either.
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Overnight Tank emptier ..... :-[
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Overnight Tank emptier ..... :-[
That will be a soil tank emptier then I presume yuk!! Not for a gold clock!! :o
I have only 2 'schoolmasters' that went from those heady heights in the late 1800's to being an insurance salesman and a poultryman (could be pantryman the writing is so bad on the census! ;D )
But nothing horrendous to date (no Ag labs either which is amazing)
Cal 8)
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A gt grandfather was a master butcher - would not be able to live that one down at the Vegetarian Society!
Sallysmum
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When tracking down my ancestors I found that my ggggm had given birth the year before her marriage to my ggggf. Alongside the birth entry was her name and 'Town Prostitute' - she lived to the age of 81.
Ian
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hi, i have a relative that was a cousin of my grandads and he was a lunatic asylum attendant. i don't think it something that i would like to do
misyyfirebirdxx
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hi chatters,
well apart from finding one great aunt in prison for being a bit of a girl ;)(know what i mean), the worst occupation i came across was my grt grt grandad, hes down as a scavenger????????
the mind boggles :-\
krissy
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krissy wrote: the worst occupation i came across was my grt grt grandad, hes down as a scavenger????????
the mind boggles :-\
When we were kids in the 70s, we used to collect Victorian bottles, and I remember reading about the Victorian scavengers, who were a bit like rag-and-bone men. They would work at the rubbish dumps, especially around big cities, and look for anything useful that had been thrown away (rather like the Wombles ::)) They sorted rags, bottles, metal and so on and sold them back for recycling. If the old scavengers had been at work, you would find very few interesting bottles left behind today. I think whole families were involved in the sorting process. I'll see if I can find the account of it as it was quite interesting concerning the uses rubbish was put to.
Fred
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Hi Fred,
Daft as it seems in them days I doubt there would have been many worse jobs then the humble ag/lab, I had never given it a thought before until I read an article in a family history magazine a while back, When you think how much land one of these modern tractors can turn over in a day,
Pete, :) :)
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I think some jobs are still tough like Veggie picking, no-one here wants to do it so they have to recruit overseas workers.
General farm work though is a doddle compared to even fairly recent times- in the 70s, Dad took on 10 or 15 part-timers all summer to get the hay in, whereas now it's a one man job with a big baler. It does lead to isolation and emotional problems though in remoter areas.
If you read what Cobbett saw when he was riding round the South in the early 19th century, the conditions for the ag-labs were appalling- filthy mud cottages with families sleeping in straw on the floor. They were all at the mercy of the farmers who could halve their wages if it suited them.
Fred
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When tracking down my ancestors I found that my ggggm had given birth the year before her marriage to my ggggf. Alongside the birth entry was her name and 'Town Prostitute' - she lived to the age of 81.
Ian
Not just an ordinary prostitute - she had a title !
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She did indeed have a title.
He was a bit different that vicar. At the start of his entries he wrote a long spiel about how he had wrangled to get control of the register from the Parish Clerk and ended it with the phrase 'So let the recording for posterity begin'
It's as if he knew that many years later we'd be poring over his words.
Ian
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My gggm's occupation was recorded as 'pauper' when she was 4 months old, with a start like that she was never going to become a professor...
Erin
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Hi Krissy,
I have a scavenger too, but it means 1) Street cleaner 2) Scavenger - also a child employed in a spinning mill to collect loose cotton lying about the floor under machinery.
http://genealogy.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Frmhh.co.uk%2Foccup.html
I also thought it was a bit of a sad occupation when I first read it.
Hope this helps.
Nina
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My gg grandfather, just before he left England, worked as an attendant at an insane asylum in Staffordshire. I think how awful that must have been.
Kath
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Ninatoo wrote:
Scavenger - also a child employed in a spinning mill to collect loose cotton lying about the floor under machinery.
They showed this job on the Tony Robinson programme the other day and it was incredibly dangerous. The factories were worked non-stop so the children had to get under the machines amongst the unguarded belts and gears to retrieve a few pennies worth of cotton while everything was still running.
Fred
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My gggm's occupation was recorded as 'pauper' when she was 4 months old, with a start like that she was never going to become a professor...
Erin
And the rich made sure it stayed that way!
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Bless the Vicar for his foresight...What a wonderful fellow to be so thoughtful....
My neighbours went to have their wee newborn baptised 50 years ago...born out of wedlock...the priest told them he wouldn't christen "the little Bastard"...ah, what???
Now there's a modern approach!
He was a bit different that vicar. At the start of his entries he wrote a long spiel about how he had wrangled to get control of the register from the Parish Clerk and ended it with the phrase 'So let the recording for posterity begin'
It's as if he knew that many years later we'd be poring over his words.
Ian
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hi nina,
sorry i missed your reply, but yes that helps a bit , i just had visions of my grt grandfather rumaging thro bins etc, pushing an old pram :o your explanation tho sad for children puts in a better light!
krissy
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oops silly me :-[
i forgot to thankyou too fred, shame i missed that programme
thanks for the msg tho
krissy
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It's not in my family history, but I was watching that film Brassed Off, about the miners and the colliery band, fighting to keep their pit open. I couldn't help feeling that although I really felt for them, going down the pit would quite possibly be the last job in the world I'd want for anyone dear to me. I tried to imagine if I'd married into a mining family and how stuck up they'd all have thought me for trying to get my man to retrain and do something different, and having flaming rows with my husband for refusing point blank to let my little lad go down t'pit!
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Well. I've a whole family of ag & gen labourers, general servants, "Paving Labourer" and Market Workers (That's about as good as it gets). When I went further back things got better- even had a few servants ourselves. How times change!
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I wonder if anyone has ever found an occupation entry on a census return for a young boy - 'goes up chimneys'?!
After all, if you believe Charles Kingsley, Charles Dickens etc, (and I've no reason to disbelieve them) it was supposedly rife in the 19th century.
Just curious!!
Jill
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It's alarming some of the mistakes census enumerators make. I once found a 15 year old girl apparently working as a gas fitter, in 1851! I expect the gas fitter was probably an elder brother and the clerk entered the occupation in the wrong box.
The worst name probably has to go to the Crapper family from Dungworth. I didn't record what they did for their living!
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Joseph Cartwright - age 9 in 1851 census - Coal miner - no mistake.
Address Dick Edge, hepworth, West Yorkshire.
He can't have been impressed - made a career change to labourer in Ironworks before 1961 Census.
I should add this was fairly unusual and there are many 'scholars' listed in the area older than that. I think the area was quite well off for schools from quite an early stage
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I was watching that film Brassed Off, about the miners and the colliery band, fighting to keep their pit open. I couldn't help feeling that although I really felt for them, going down the pit would quite possibly be the last job in the world I'd want for anyone dear to me. I tried to imagine if I'd married into a mining family and how stuck up they'd all have thought me for trying to get my man to retrain and do something different, and having flaming rows with my husband for refusing point blank to let my little lad go down t'pit!
I did come from a mining background and while everyone in the industry was proud to to be working in the coal mines (and I still think it a privilege to have worked there - even though it was many years ago)many of the men and all the women wanted better for their offspring even though for many there was little choice. However even in the 50s-60s there were a few who held the opinion that if it's good enough for me then it's good enough for my lads. And yes these blokes did have flaming rows with the wives over that - so you are no different
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I have several cotton and woollen millworkers from the age of 9 upwards in my family, but I think the worst of their jobs was to be a woolsorter, grading the raw wool as it arrived at the mill. There was a possibility that you could catch the deadly woolsorter's disease, which was connected with anthrax.
Woolsorter's pneumonia - a form of anthrax infection acquired by inhalation of dust containing Bacillus anthracis; initial symptoms (chill and cough and dyspnea and rapid pulse) are followed by extreme cardiovascular collapse.
Luckily for both my gt-grandfather and his father, neither of them was infected.
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I did come from a mining background and while everyone in the industry was proud to to be working in the coal mines (and I still think it a privilege to have worked there - even though it was many years ago)many of the men and all the women wanted better for their offspring even though for many there was little choice. However even in the 50s-60s there were a few who held the opinion that if it's good enough for me then it's good enough for my lads. And yes these blokes did have flaming rows with the wives over that - so you are no different
All I want is for my family (and obviously everyone else's) to be safe. This is why I'd be against my husband or sons going down the pit, and it's why I was relieved that my brothers were turned down when they applied to join the Metropolitan Police (because as fraternal twins they have a minor colour blindness problem). I'd read about life in the Met and would hate to see my brothers exposed to beatings etc. God help me if I'd ever married a police officer on any force. The worry would have killed me! ;D