RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: andrewalston on Sunday 20 November 22 12:59 GMT (UK)
-
I've been filling in details for my One Name Study from the 1921 census.
Several people seem to have been involved in the motor trade.
Besides a couple of people working in garages, I have people mentioning working for various car manufacturers - Crossley, Belsize, Vulcan and Bean (all now defunct).
All say "Out of work". Nobody seemed to buy new cars when the economy slumped. Bean, for example, had stopped production in October 1920; it would restart in 1922.
What other occupations have people noticed their relatives moving into?
It makes a change from "Ag Lab". ;D
-
I have one moving from owning a company of carters to a haulage firm with lorries.
-
Mine left the farm to enter the religion business.
-
Mine left mining after accident to be a dealer of spirits
Another combined 3 jobs farmer butcher and innkeeper..
Another went from drapers assistant to travelling salesman ( including false teeth and indelicate postcards ) to munition manufacturing in WW1
-
There was a massive slump in the UK, the USA and elsewhere, between the two world wars.
My father was one of five brothers who worked in heavy engineering and as the older ones came out of their apprenticeships, they weren't offered jobs.
It's doubtful if there would have been any apprenticeships to be had at all if the parents hadn't paid for them.
-
My great-great-great uncle John Gamble Patterson was the steward at St. Andrews Golf Club until 1885, when he resigned and became a wholesale wine and spirit merchant.
He obviously preferred the 19th hole ;D
Bev
-
Mine left mining after accident to be a dealer of spirits
Another combined 3 jobs farmer butcher and innkeeper..
Another went from drapers assistant to travelling salesman ( including false teeth and indelicate postcards ) to munition manufacturing
Postcards of an indelicate nature—- they would give him something to get his teeth into!
Sorry ::)
Viktoria.
-
I have only checked my grandfather and great uncle. Grandfather was a village carpenter and wheelwright (employed) before the War; he was still a carpenter in 1921, but at one of the Kent coalmines - out of work! They were already on strike. Great uncle was a postman in 1911 and presumably until he joined up. In 1921 he was listed as "civil service pensioner", but I suspect he was already moving into the motor business as I have press cuttings from the early 20s where he is offering motorbikes and cars for sale.
The villagers I have looked at here all seem to have gone back to farm work.
-
My great-grandfather b 1843 and all of his children were millworkers throughout most of their working lives, but surprisingly by the time my grandmother (his daughter) married in 1896 he had become a farmer, aided on the farm by his oldest son (1891 & 1901 census). I don't know how that happened, as there are no others farmers on that side of the family.
-
One of my fave finds was my great aunt travelling to USA as a 14 year old umbrella maker ☂️
-
A 3xGt uncle emigrated to Australia in the 1870s; he was a stone mason. He went to the gold fields in Victoria and started up a carterage. 2 cousins and a sister followed him. On the back of their and other workers' labours, the 'entrepreneur' made a fortune as he managed to expand the carterage, set up a mail run, opened a general store (now a winery and still bears his name) and a hotel (we have a letter from the sister to one of her sisters-in-law in England stating that he never paid the husband and that he would 'pay him when he wanted to'). By the way, the sister had to take in washing, managed to buy a bigger tent and they took in 2 lodgers...in the tent...to make ends meet! Can't fault his work ethic but his treatment of his workers was sickening.
-
My great-aunt and her husband began their professional careers as servants (cook and chauffeur respectively) between the Wars and set up their own dairy on the Sussex coast, which eventually became a chain.