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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Timbottawa on Sunday 07 September 08 02:37 BST (UK)
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Dear All, I'd appreciate confirmation or re-interpretation of my reading of this profession from the 1841 census. The middle profession, between the 2 mechanics, is "Turner", right? The apparent dot just after the middle of the word makes me wonder - it seems too bold to be a mere speckle - even bolder than the two definite dots in the "Mechanic" words. But the initial letter is definitely a T - see the adjacent Tailor and Shoe M from elsewhere on the same page.
Thanks for your thoughts
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It sure looks like turner and that was an occupation.
Turner : a person who turns wood on a lathe into spindles
Do you have the reference for the census....a bit of a look around might give a clue as to what kind of industry was happening in the neighbourhood.
mab
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Thanks mab ... the reference is HO107; Piece 1347; Book: 8; Civil Parish: Leeds Town; County: Yorkshire; Enumeration District: 40; Folio: 27; Page: 17
Being in the middle of Leeds, there are lots of flax spinners, cloth dyers, etc., but also many mechanics and so forth. Ten years later my fellow was a "mechanic" himself, which seems a bit of a jump from a turner - this also made me wonder if I was mis-reading the word.
Cheers
Tim
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Yes certainly lots of cloth dyers and mechanics and people in the flax industry. Did a google about flax and it was a very complicated business. That would explain why true linen was so expensive.
Maybe he was a turner in the sense that he was making parts for the machines that wove the flax and after 10 years had served an apprenticeship and was then a mechanic looking after the machinery.
I'm sure there is someone on this site that can tell you and me all about it ;D
mab
p.s. My family had a textile store and a customer asked for some Irish linen. So I went to Toronto to this very little office that represented the Irish Linen trade thingy expecting to see bolts of linen. They brought out a sample book that was about 4 inches by 4 inches :o I was expected to make my purchase from that ???...and that was in 1965 :P It was expensive stuff :-X
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Well, my fellow, William Noble, ended up being a manager of a flax mill, though not in Leeds. In the meantime he spent some time in Norway, where he was recorded as being a rope-maker! He seems to have been a bit of a jack-of-all-trades! He died in 1912, aged 97, so he had a long and varied life!
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Flax....rope....it's all fibers. The fact that he went to Norway is cool. I wonder why he did that...maybe they had a new way of processing hemp ??? He was obviously an upwardly mobile kind of person...saw his opportunity and took it ;D What is his relationship to you?
mab
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He's my gt-gt-grandfather. Yes, it is interesting that he went to Norway ... the fact that he became a mill manager when he came back made me wonder if he was sent over there to learn some new techniques, or something, but the profession of "rope maker" on his son's overseas birth certificate from Norway doesn't seem to support that hypothesis! Or perhaps I'm interpreting "rope maker" too narrowly, and it doesn't mean that he himself twisted the fibre into rope, but was in the rope-making trade!
Tim
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I have a rope maker or two in my OH's family and it was an established profession. A skilled labourer. Very important in the day because of the shipping trade etc.
mab
p.s. How the heck did you find that he went to Norway ??? Maybe that's where my lost lot went :P
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The 1871 census includes son Robert, aged 9, birthplace Norway. It turns out that daughter Mary Jane, who was born in Leeds in 1857, also has an overseas birth certificate, issued in Christiania (now Oslo) in 1860. So I hypothesize that the family set sail for Norway with a new-born daughter for whom they had not had time (or bothered) to register the birth. Then, perhaps when it came to return home, they realized that they needed to register the birth.
Interestingly, this Mary Jane and her older sister, Sarah, eventualy married a pair of brothers, one of whom was my great-grandfather!
Tim
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It's a good thing we have census records ;D Though it is a puzzle why he would go to Norway ??? You will probably never know but it is a very interesting bit of your family history.
mab....off to bed as it's late here ;D
p.s. just a thought...the language barrier...that must have been huge.
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Sleep well!
Just playing around on Google, I found the following text (my emphasis):
"Voien Spinnery was established [near Oslo] in 1845 by Knud Graah, a Dane, who in the 1830's had come to Oslo ... and his brother-in-law N.O. Young, who was active in a range of manufacturing and processing enterprises such as ... rope making ... He [Graah] visited England on a number of occasions and used English managers ..."
No way of telling (at the moment) if this has anything to do with my gt-gt-grandfather, but it is intriguing!
Cheers
Tim
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Yes...very ;D
mab
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Just come across this rather old thread which took my interest because I have relatives connected with the flax industry in Leeds, Hunslet and Selby, Yorks. You have probably solved the mystery long ago but if not, for what it's worth, I believe your problem occupation is twiner, ie one who deals with the making of twine. Twine and rope were both made from hemp, a vegetable material closely related to flax and a process related to flax spinning. Did you find out any more about the connection with Norway?
Howard
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Well...I agree it is Twiner and now it makes more sense:)
mab
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Thanks Howard,
I'm not sure that I've exactly "solved" it, but I have learnt quite a lot more about my gt-gt-grandfather through a newspaper obituary. It turns out that he was trained as a mechanic, worked in Leeds on the design and production of flax spinning machines, spent some time installing said machines in various mills, and before heading off to Norway, spent some time in Belgium, which led to him receiving a medal from the King of the Belgians! So while "Twiner" does make good sense, I still lean towards "Turner", as in machine maker.
My new mystery concerns his time as mill manager when he returned from Norway. It turns out that the owners of the mill were 2nd cousins of his son-in-law, my gt-grandfather. I'm interested in trying to work out whether the job was procured through family connections, or whether this was just a huge coincidence. The mill owners in question were the big rope-making Boyle family, who were mainly based in Leeds. Any connection to your flax ancestors? If so, I can direct you to an interesting account of the family and their company.
Cheers
Tim
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Thanks for the info, Tim.
I don't think my ancestor had any connection with the Boyle company, though it is possible, as there was a Boyle, Gill & Co, flax spinners, in Meadow Lane, Holbeck, very close to where he lived in the 1840 - 50s. James Milsom was a distant cousin, born Wakefield 1794. He worked as a cropper (shearman) in the woollen trade and moved to Hunslet, Leeds around 1830. In 1841 he gave his occupation as cloth dresser, and probably worked at the Potterdale mill on Dewsbury Road. In 1851 he gave his occupation as labourer in a flax mill - this may have been the same mill, as the Potterdale switched from woollens to flax spinning around this time. He and his whole family (wife and four children) then disappear from the census entirely, with the exception of son Charles, who on the 1841/51 censuses was described as a flax dresser / flax trimmer.
Charles moved to Selby, about 20 miles from Leeds, and in 1861 was recorded as a foreman in a flax mill there. He later spent some time in America but returned to Selby and ended his days there as manager of the Portholme Flax Mill, owned by the Foster family. They were spinners, and also made twine and rope.
I had wondered if James had gone abroad to work in Europe in the flax industry there, but it is highly unlikely that any company would bring in labourers from overseas, and I have no evidence to suggest that James ever rose above that level in the industry. And he was certainly not an engineer.
It is, nevertheless, interesting to learn that companies in Norway and Belgium were drawing upon English expertise in their flax businesses. Much of the early machinery for the industry was developed in Hunslet by John Marshall and Matthew Murray.
I would be interested in the link you have to Boyles' flax mills if you could let me have it. I work on the premise that any information might turn out to be useful!.
Regards
Howard
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It looks like turner to me. A turner is a person who uses a lathe, for wood or metal.[although wood and metal turning lathes are different, they are essentially the same] An almost essential piece of machinery in engineering. A lot of apprenticeships were " fitter & turner". If he was trained has a mechanic then he may well have been working on a lathe at the time of the census and therefore was noted as a turner.
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Hi Howard,
Yes, the Boyle, Gill & Co. were an early incarnation of the company that would end up as Boyle & Sons. The information on that family and company was published in the Journal of the Thoresby Society some 30 years ago. I have a copy and the exact reference, but as I am travelling on business at the moment, I'll only be able to send it to you when I get home. If you live in or near Leeds, there is a copy of the journal in the Central Library.
Regards your James - have you discounted emigration to America? Charles, you say, went over there for a while before returning - could he have been thinking of joining his family, before concluding that he was happier back home?
And thanks, youngtug, for support on the "Turner" interpretation. My gt-gt-grandfather's indenture papers for his apprenticeship state that the purpose is for him "to be taught, learned, and instructed in the art, mystery, or occupation of a mechanic", which I think sounds rather lovely!
All the best
Tim
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[quote author=Timbottawa link=topic=326101.msg4036155#msg4036155 date=13137387
And thanks, youngtug, for support on the "Turner" interpretation. My gt-gt-grandfather's indenture papers for his apprenticeship state that the purpose is for him "to be taught, learned, and instructed in the art, mystery, or occupation of a mechanic", which I think sounds rather lovely!
All the best
Tim
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[/quote] Much better than " this is to certify that **** ***** has served an apprenticeship" that is on my indentures.
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'Regards your James - have you discounted emigration to America? Charles, you say, went over there for a while before returning - could he have been thinking of joining his family, before concluding that he was happier back home?'
Yes, I had thought of that as a possibility, but no luck with available passenger lists or US Federal censuses. But of course he could have gone there and died between ten-yearly censuses.
Howard
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Hi Howard,
Back home now. The article I mentioned is in "Publications of the THoresby Society", Vol. 61, Part 1, pages 1-26 (1978), and is entitled :"Fair Befall the Flax Field": Aspects of the Histroy of the Boyle Family and their Flax Business" by M.B. Boyle.
A brief precis ... Boyle Carr & Co. operated 1836-40 in Jack Lane Mill and Hunslet Lane (Gill was another of the partners). It then became Boyle Gill & Co., 1840-1853, based at Trafalgar Mill, Meadow Lane. The mill employed around 200 people by 1850, with salaries ranging from 4s. 3d. for doffers for a 60-hour week up to 20 - 30s. for supervisors.
Boyle Gill & Co. went bankrupt in 1853 - at the same time as numerous other mills, it seems, during a lengthy recession in the flax trade, but Boyle & Son was established the same year, based at Trafalgar Row, then later Mill Hill, and finally (up to 1964) at West Park Ring Road.
This company prospered, buying other properties, including, in 1878, Fell Beck Mill in Pateley Bridge, where my gt-gt-grandfather, William Noble was manager.
Even if there are no links to your family, the article provides some interesting social information about the flax industry in Leeds in the mid-19th century.
All the best
Tim
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Thanks Tim for the reference. It sounds like an interesting article. I'll see if my local library can get hold of a copy.
Regards
Howard
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My own Great Great Grandfather lived in Hunslet and was an Iron Turner making valves for the railway industry. He would have used a lathe to make the parts. On some of the censuses he was described as a "Mechanic Iron Turner" and some just as an "Iron Turner".
So it's sounds to me as if your ancestor would have been making parts either for the railway or for machines to be used in the local mills.