RootsChat.Com
Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: MJP on Sunday 01 April 07 21:16 BST (UK)
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Any ideas on the nature of the occupation "bath chairman"? The enumerator has also later written what looks like "Whell" in front of Bath.
It is from the 1891 census: George Smith at 10 St. James Street, Buxton RG12/2778/73/37
Many thanks for any suggestions!
MJP
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Probably Chairman of the Buxton Bath Charity.
Totally wrong >:(
Stan
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I was thinking more like a man who made bathchairs. It could be a badly written "wheel" and bathchair could possibly be read as all one word. Well not a capital C on the chairman anyway
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A bath chair was a kind of wheelchair. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_chair
which mentions their use in spa resorts like Buxton. I imagine that a bath chairman would operate such a conveyance for hire.
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It may be he used a wheel bath chair, as people with infirmities were often noted, e.g. imbicile, lunatic, congenital idiot.
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Yes, it is Wheel Bath Chair man >:(. The Wheel has been added by the census clerk, not the enumerator, when he has been extracting occupations. Buxton was a spa town, with the Devonshire Hospital, operated by the Devonshire Hospital & Buxton Bath Charity. There would have been many invalids who would have needed to be wheeled about in bath chairs.
Stan
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Just out of interest there are 191 Bath Chairmen in the 1881 census.
Stan
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Stan
Is there some way of counting all the bath chairmen, or any other occupation, you couldn't possibly have counted them all yourself. Also having found out that there are 191 is it possible to view all their names?
Liz
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You can use the Ancestry.co.uk 1881 census and put what you are looking for in the Occupation box and hope for the best.
When the list comes up you just get the usual index - Name, Parent or Spouse, Birth Year, Birthplace, Relation, Civil Parish, County, but from this list if you found one you are interested in, it would be easy to check it on the familysearch.com site to get the full family details.
Stan may have used Bath Chairman, I entered bathchair and only came up with 48 entries. However if I put in bath chair it produced 273 entries and wondering what the difference was going to be I looked at the first one - Thomas Aldington of London and he was a Bath Chair Proprietor.
So it's not an exact science but it's possible.
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Thanks for the replies everyone! What a unique occupation (well, there were several hundred around, but it's a first for me!) ;D
MJP
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In the "Dictionary of Occupational Terms" produced by the UK Ministry of Labour, are listed Bath chair attendant, bath chair drawer, bath chair man, bath chair wheeler, chair drawer, chair wheeler; who pushed or drew an invalid chair or carriage. He could either own the chair ( Bath Chair Proprietor), hire one from a proprietor for a daily payment, or be employed by a proprietor at a weekly wage. They usually stood on a recognised rank with the chair for hire. There were also donkey bath chair drivers, who led a donkey drawing a bath, or invalid chair, and plied for hire chiefly in the streets of health resorts.
As MaryA has pointed out, you can use the 1881 Census on Ancestry to enter any search term you want in any one of the boxes.
Stan
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Thank you MaryA and Stan, I really ought to look more carefully at Ancestry, then I might just find the missing link.
Liz
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My Great Grandfather Richard Chapman, Born in Hastings was a Bath Chair Man.
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I've done occupation searches of census on The Genealogist. As Mary said, you need to try a few variations. I tried shoemaker, cordwainer and shoe maker to locate my shoemaker ancestor's mates.