RootsChat.Com
Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: shan42 on Tuesday 22 December 09 21:01 GMT (UK)
-
Anyone have an idea what sort of earnings a tailor would have made in the early-mid 1800s (Staffs). or if they woud have been comfortably off or pretty poor, please?
-
I dont think it was a very well paid job
-
Hi Shan42,
I think there is a possibility that it would depend on how good they were and whether they had a list of clients or whether they worked for someone else.
I have a James Hutcheon and at the age of 19 he stated he was a tailor. 10 yrs later and he was working on the railways, so obviously he found it difficult to make ends meet and found a better position.
Is there no link that we can use to find out. According to someone I have been corresponding told me that if you wished to grade jobs it would possibly start: pauper, shoemaker, coalminer, fisherman,(food always being further up the list, maybe Tailor, butcher,grocer and top would possibly be Solicitor etc. Reverend (although they could be quite poor depending upon the generosity of the congregation. What do you think? marcie.
-
Thanks both... well he must have been good my ancestor because that's the only job I have for him - at least one of my lot weren't on the bread line, lol!!
I'm quite surprised about shoemakers though, I'd have thought they'd be a bit further up the scale.
-
I'm quite surprised about shoemakers though, I'd have thought they'd be a bit further up the scale.
Me too ... :-\ Further investigation required I suspect. ;)
I would have thought that any skilled job with an apprenticeship would be higher up the scale - including shoemakers, blacksmiths etc. Marcie is probably correct when she says that it depends on their standing and success within their industry.
There were many jobs associated with coalmining - some more skilled than others so it would be difficult to lump these kinds of jobs together.
And what about Farmers - ag labs etc? Ag labs would be fairly low paid. Depending on the acreage and crop, wether or not they were tennant farmers etc etc, I imagine that some farmers may be reasonably well off financially? :-\
Interesting question shan42. :)
-
I think this might help with your query:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/07q8/
(lots of interesting stuff on that site - click on 'home')
-
What an instersting site :).. thanks Ruskie, I have bookmarked that. :)
I see that Tailors was not a particularly well paid job.
I based my previous assumption on the fact that there were a lot of Jewish Tailors in the Bethnal Green East End of London and that was a very poor area.
I am not surprised about the Shoe makers,initially my gt. grandfather was one and his father a Cordwainer and they were very poor
-
Thanks for the link :)
So is 'cordwainer' pronounced 'cordiner' then?
-
I think it was pronounced as it was spelt :-\
-
Is that someone who makes ropes?
My uncle briefly worked for somewhere in Edinburgh, one of the last remaining old fashioned rope makers. They had a machine that the rope was attached to in a long gallery which I remember seeing on TV a few years ago; and depending upon the weight it was expected to pull /hold meant that strands were added initially and gradually the lenght became longer as kthe width grew when it was at the right tork the end on the machine was bound and latterly had a steel brace/clip on it whilst the remaining amount carried on being stretched etc to the correct length.
Not sure what it was made of maybe horsehair or hessian.
marcie
-
Cordwainer is a shoemaker marcie.
It's an anglicization of the French word cordonnier, which means shoemaker. :)
-
A Cordwainer is someone who makes various things from leather not just shoes. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer
http://www.chdt.org.uk/Ropery/About_the_Ropery/explore_ropery.html
I live not far from here and I have never visited I am afraid to say
-
One of my g. grandfathers on my father's side was a tailor, and he seemed to live in slightly more upmarket areas than the average.
-
If you look at the spellings here http://web.ukonline.co.uk/thursday.handleigh/demography/occupations-wages-money/old-occupations/oldocc-c.htm you'll see the reason I asked about pronounciation.... not sure where the 'wain' bit would come from as wain means wagon or cart, so I was assuming the wain bit would be just for the spelling, for whatever reason, lol!
-
"Wain" was probably used in the context that a Cordwainer would have made things for wagons, straps etc , maybe harnesses and reigns, athough they may have been made by a Saddler which I think was a different occupation entirely :-\
-
Ah, good point Patrish.... so not necessarily a shoemaker but maybe more a general leather worker, but maybe they did more shoemaking though to be described as such.
-
Fascinating and enlightening! I have a master tailor in my family and had always assumed that he was quite wealthy - thanks for putting me straight!
I remember once seeing a programme on rope making and found it very fascinating - so Ruskie if you have a chance to see rope making in action I would recommend it
sallysmum
-
My Irish grandfather living in Royston Road Glasgow was a master tailor & according to my 1st cousin who remembers says he wasn't well off. Living was hard & food was scarce. People who remember Grandad Murphy say he was an excellent Tailor. Looking back on my Grandparents pictures wearing the clothes he made they were very smart.He was a cripple with TB in one leg. He would sit on the floor or table to do his work. Mum told me that he would make her a dress & matching coat out of second hand material also her brothers clothes out of hand me downs. Scraps of material were precious. :)
I seem to have followed him in that I also sew my own clothing & grandchildren. He passed it down in his genes. God Bless Grandad. :-*
Cheers, Phyllis :)
-
I remember once seeing a programme on rope making and found it very fascinating - so Ruskie if you have a chance to see rope making in action I would recommend it
sallysmum
Yes, I have seen ropemaking - in a cave in Castleton in Derbyshire. (touristy but interesting) And a piece of said rope is hanging in my house. :)
-
With regard to tailors wages & social standing, it would generally depend on the type of work that person was doing.
If making clothes as an independant for middle to lower upper class clients I would say that they would have been very much within their own social class.
But if in a workshop or working for a large store then they would have been considered working or lower middle class.
Of course the girls who did this job, worked long hard hours for a pittance, in bad conditions.
My g/grandfather was tailor in the early to mid 20c. His speciality was buttonholes & he worked in Saville Row, his family lived in quite a nice part of Fulham & then moved to Clapham, so not too bad.
-
There is a grading of trades in that those who progressed to 'master' status were able to employ apprentices and profit from the work that their trainees. The apprentices were seen as form of old age pension. A lesser form of tailor was a 'journeyman' tailor. I suppose their income depended on who their customers were.
My gr grandfather was a journeyman tailor in London. He specialised in breeches and uniformed soldiers would have been his clients. In fact his apprenticeship was in 'breechmaking' and he served his time in Harrods in the 1890's. On another line I have a 'master bootmaker' based in Newmarket. The horse industry there no doubt made it a reasonable living and one of his son's inherited the business.
-
I agree that it depends on many accounts.
My ancestor from Staffordshire were also tailors in the mid 19th century. They seemed comfortable enough, his children and grandchildren became accountants, authors, Indian army soldiers, engineers, civil servants as well as some keeping the trade of tailoring alive.
Hope this helps a bit.
-
This is a bit earlier (Statistical Account of Scotland 1790s), but perhaps gives the relative cost of hiring workers by the day.
Grange: best ploughman £6 per annum; mason 10d* per day; wright 8d* per day; tailor 6d* per day.
Knockando: labourer 6d* per day in summer, 4d* per day in winter; mason 10d* per day; wright 8d* per day; tailor 4d* per day.
Aberdour: mason 1/-* per day; wright 7d* per day; tailor 6d* per day.
* in addition they were given their meals and, if necessary, accommodation. Where meals were not given, the wages were from 4d to 8d more per day.
Graham.
-
That's interesting, I would have thought a tailor would have earned more than a mason or a labourer.
-
Very interesting to read about ancestors who were tailors. I have often wondered whether they were apprenticed, or learnt the trade within the family. My gt grandfather was a military tailor, as was his father before him, but apparently officers were notorious for not paying their tailors. Eventually he gave up and opened a gentlemen's outfitters in London.
-
That's interesting, I would have thought a tailor would have earned more than a mason or a labourer.
Self-employed ones did. My g.g. grandfather (who was a tailor) lived in some grand houses that would have cost more than 3/- a week :)