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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: clarksparks on Thursday 10 February 22 14:20 GMT (UK)
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Any ideas please to read the occupation of my great grandfather Robert Taylor in 1901 in Southampton? He was previously a tram car driver in Bristol and later a tram car driver in Southampton. The word 'Tram' has been added across all 3 entries.
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That's tricky...best guess, Mining Coal...Collier? The second word could be collector?
Carol
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The top one is electric motor man which is another name for a tram driver, perhaps the second one is conductor.
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Looking at the full page I don’t think the occupational annotation ‘tram’ has been added to all three.
The third one (coachman) has been annotated as ‘groom’ and I think the letters CC have but added to the one in question.
Looking at the handwriting elsewhere on the page I think the last letter of the word is ‘k’
The reference is RG13/1072/105/17
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FindMyPast has it transcribed as Comcl Clerk = commercial clerk. An entry for someone else further down the page says "Tramway Conductor" written in full.
The line begins with an oblique stroke, as do all the lines in the column on the page, then a word which seems to be scored through. It seems to end in -ing.
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I was thinking that the second word might be clerk.
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The Hampshire Advertiser of 24-11-1900 reports on a court case where Robert Taylor "who was driving the tram car referred to" was a witness to a collision between two other vehicles.
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I can't decipher the word that has been crossed through (strangely, it does not look like a capital letter at the beginning), but to me the other 2 bits look like Cond and a badly written abbreviation of electric.
Would conductor electric make sense, seeing as other chappies around him were on the trams?
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Thanks everyone for trying. I guess we'll never know exactly what it says. Robert went on to work as a tram car driver in Southampton for many years, having been an 'ostler' in Devon when he was much younger. Unfortunately employee records for Southampton Tram Co. were destroyed in the blitz.
Thank you, Jeff.
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Hall Would conductor electric make sense, seeing as other chappies around him were on the trams?
Being pedantic (sorry :) )the next occupation after Robert’s) is coachman, overwritten ‘groom’ so he’s working with horses
Added the word ‘electric’ appears on the first line and I don’t think it’s much like the second word in question. What looks like the cross bar of a ‘t’ in the word is actually part of the overwritten ‘CC’.
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To me it looks like the enumerator started to write "Living on own means" (a common entry in this census), but then crossed out "Living", and in the reduced space available wrote Comal or Comcl Clerk. Subsequently, someone has overwritten/annotated it with "CC", presumably standing for commercial clerk.
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The slightly-sloping upright mark at the extreme left is an annotation which appears on virtually all entries, including next to "Coachman" on the line below. Without this mark, I'd say it's hard to discern an "M".
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The slightly-sloping upright mark at the extreme left is an annotation which appears on virtually all entries, including next to "Coachman" on the line below. Without this mark, I'd say it's hard to discern an "M".
I agree. The oblique has cut across a flourish at the start of the crossed out word which makes look like an ‘M’.