RootsChat.Com
Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: greenvalley on Saturday 05 January 13 13:49 GMT (UK)
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One of my ancestors was a turner or wood turner.
Now I understand woodturning, hubbie used to have a lathe years ago, and he turned wooden heads for golfclubs. But I cannot figure out what exactly the profession of woodturner implies.
He isn't a joiner or carpenter - so what does he turn, who uses his products and what are they?
May sound silly but my mind is just drawing a blank here.
Greenvalley
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If it is round then it is likely to have been turned on a lathe. A turner is a person who uses/operates a lathe whatever the material. Chair and table legs are turned, although some of the early or rustic chair legs where made by a bodger who is a person who used a primitive form of lathe. Don't forget that a lot of things that are now made of plastic were at one time most likely made of wood, such has tool and knife handles.
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Furniture (chair legs already mentioned), staircase spindles, kitchenware (bowls, platters), candlesticks...
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Wood turners also made wooden bobbins vital to the spinning and weaving industries.
Regards
Malky
Photograph from English Heritage.
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I thought you might like to see this 1921 illustration of a wood lathe. A wood turner was a craftsman who probably had many different tools in his toolbox which he used over his lifetime. It depends which industry he supplied - was it shipbuilding? furniture? cotton or woollen mills? Or was it all of the above. For all we know he could have been manufacturing musical instruments, for example flutes. How intriguing, the next time you see the "Antique Roadshow" you might be looking at your ancestor's work.
http://www.wkfinetools.com/mLibrary/Fairham/1921-Wood-turning/1921-Wood-turning.asp
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Thanks for that, I think it is becoming somewhat clearer.
I guess what confused me is that Alexander was born in Scotland, married in Kendal, England in 1840, went back to Perth in 1841, moved to Auchterarder, then to Newburgh, Fife, and finally to Dundee and later he was in Glasgow for a while.
So would it be reasonable to infer that he probably made bobbins for the spinning and weaving industries? What do you guys reckon?
Is there an agricultural product he could have made as well?
Greenvalley
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Difficult to say really. Lots of scope for agricultural items. It may even be that he turned his hand to whatever work was available (if you'll pardon the pun) ;D
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Chair and table legs are turned, although some of the early or rustic chair legs where made by a bodger who is a person who used a primitive form of lathe.
I have never heard of a bodger. The word does not even appear in my Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of 1854 pages. It's amazing what you can learn on RootsChat.
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Interesting the bobbin thing, here they were called pirns, usually made of birch, hence the place name Pirnmill, this work provided employment in remote forest areas using water power.
My own g'gramps made the drones etc' for bagpipes and also bowls. Family mythology has him going to West Africa with his employer on a trip to buy blackwood.
Skoosh.
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I have never heard of a bodger.
http://www.bodgers.org.uk/index.php
Lots of interesting photos in the Gallery.
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Thanks for all the links and replies everyone.
I am beginning to get a better picture now. I always try to visualize what ancestors did and this has helped a great deal.
Greenvalley
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Well, I did eventually find a definition of "bodge" verb transitive in a British dictionary provided on my wife's Kindle. It says that bodge means to construct a clumsy mechanical repair. I would have been outraged (if I had understood the word) to be described as such when I was earning money for college as a journeyman machinist operating lathes, mills, broaches, drills, taps, and dies in the construction of valve gate assemblies to be used in the Alaska pipeline.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodging
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Thanks, Hackstaple. The link explains that the term bodger as it applies to a skilled worker in unseasoned wood is of recent date, limited geographical distribution, and unexplained etymology. We have badgers, but no known bodgers, here in the US!
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Thanks, Hackstaple. The link explains that the term bodger as it applies to a skilled worker in unseasoned wood is of recent date, limited geographical distribution, and unexplained etymology. We have badgers, but no known bodgers, here in the US!
But you do have beavers who are definitely skilled workers in unseasoned wood.
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Excellent point! I recall that some years back a tribe of beavers took up residence in the Tidal Basin in Washington DC where they employed their skills in harvesting the ornamental cherry trees in order to construct a lodge. The government arrested and deported the entire guild for illegal activity injurious to the state. Perhaps they were Canadian subversives.
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Chair and table legs are turned, although some of the early or rustic chair legs where made by a bodger who is a person who used a primitive form of lathe.
I have never heard of a bodger. The word does not even appear in my Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of 1854 pages. It's amazing what you can learn on RootsChat.
OED says it's dialect. Definition given is In full chair bodger. A local name in Buckinghamshire for a chair-leg turner. Hence (chair-)bodgering , the action or process of chair-leg turning. Interestingly the earliest reference to the word is as recent as 1911.
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Excellent point! I recall that some years back a tribe of beavers took up residence in the Tidal Basin in Washington DC where they employed their skills in harvesting the ornamental cherry trees in order to construct a lodge. The government arrested and deported the entire guild for illegal activity injurious to the state. Perhaps they were Canadian subversives.
So George Washington is vindicated at last - it really wasn't him.
There are efforts now to reintroduce the beaver to the UK, commencing in Scotland. I applaud.
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I have never heard of a bodger. The word does not even appear in my Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of 1854 pages.
Webster's is an American dictionary. It isn't likely to be authoritative on terms not used in American English.
The Oxford English Dictionary says, "Bodger ... In full chair bodger. A local name in Buckinghamshire for a chair-leg turner. Hence (chair-)bodgering , the action or process of chair-leg turning."
Edit: Sorry, hadn't realised that there was a second page of posts with the same answer, but I'll let is stand.
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A couple of versions of bodgers at work; http://youtu.be/nP5_OJxNccY
and; http://youtu.be/_ZiRlXWUdF0
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Green Valley, I think he might also have been making bagpipes, my own g't gramps learned his trade in the Heilans before he came to Glasgow. Dundee would have had bagpipe makers, the others might have had pipemakers also.
Regards the beaver re-introduction, this has been a runaway success with the beavers running a long way from the reservations proscribed. Evidence of beavers felling aspen (favourite tree) on an island two miles off-shore in Argyle shows that salt water is no barrier, can they smell the trees? Ireland here they come?
It has been a Lairds v Beavers struggle with some landowners vociferously trying to keep the beavers out, but unlike the good old days when the lairds had some clout in the House of Lords and would have had the programme killed off, they don't have any friends in the Scottish Parliament and the beavers apparently do.
Skoosh.
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I have to say that I really like the idea that he may have been making bagpipes - not sure if he did, it was never mentioned, but it seems such a nice thing to make.
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Up the beaver! Doun the laird! There is a similar conflict resulting from the reintroduction of the gray wolf into Yellowstone National Park which is vehemently opposed by ranchers. Maybe it is time to bring the wolf back to Britain. That would help to encourage the perpetuation of the Irish Wolfhound, that elegant breed, which once faced extinction. " Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!"
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One of my branches worked in the cotton trade and that's a possibility but I did wonder what on earth he would be doing in Kendal, Westmorland.
There's no hint on the Genuki site for what the area is famous for (except for Kendal mint cakes) but I found a list of occupations of the population of Westmorland in 1841 and see that there were six turners & four apprentices who supplied the requirements of the trades in the whole area - e.g.turners would be needed by cabinet makers; chairmakers; Millwrights; Wheelwrights; sicklemakers(!); etc. Whilst on this web page I noticed there was a lot of "army brass" listed so I wonder if he was stationed in the area, met a girl and went back for her.
See here (http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser2?ResourceType=Census&ResourceType=Legislation&ResourceType=Essays&ResourceType=Registrar%20General&ResourceType=TNA&SearchTerms=westmorland&simple=yes&path=Results&active=yes&treestate=expandnew&titlepos=0&mno=22&tocstate=expandnew&display=sections&display=tables&display=pagetitles&pageseq=280&zoom=4)
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Thanks Rena,
the girl he met in Kendal came from Haddington, Scotland! I have no idea why he went to Kendal, married a Scottish girl there in 1840, had a baby a year later and went back to Scotland when the baby was just born. They are on the Census in Perth in 1841.
Maybe he did make things for the cotton trade, but decided it would be better to go back home.
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In the 1840's Kendal was the site of the UK's pencil manufacturing.
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Plenty of bobbin mills in the general area... e.g.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stott-park-bobbin-mill/
http://www.lakeland-hideaways.co.uk/property.asp?id=552
http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/html/lgaz/lk15845.htm
Stott Park is an interesting visit.
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Just seen a bodger at work on this evenings episode of The Great British Railways. BBC2. I'm sure it will be on iplayer tomorrow if anyone wants to see one at work...
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I was surprised to learn from my mother when I eventually met her, that one of my uncles was a bodger making spindles for chairs…
Anyone looking at the Cutty Sark or HMS Victory or anyone of the numerous old square rigger ships can’t help to notice the vast number of ropes and pulleys, called blocks.
The Royal Navy used large numbers of blocks, which were all hand-made by contractors. Their quality was not consistent, the supply problematic and they were expensive. A typical ship of the line needed about 1000 blocks of different sizes, and in the course of the year the Navy required over 100,000.
One of the first steps in the industrial revolution was the building of the Portsmouth Block Mills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth_Block_Mills this could also account for the decline of the wood turner and or bodger.