Millwright

[hardysearch]

My GGrandfather was a millwright. Born around 1855-60. Don't know where he was born but he lived in Stepney and West Ham area from 1887. My mother seems to think that he was employed at Meux brewery which later became Friary Meux.

I don't really know too much about the training for a Millwright but I suspect that my GGrandfather was too late for apprenticeship records to be of any use.

His death certificate records his occupation as being an engineers pattern maker.

Any information on the above occupations would be interesting.

[Hackstaple]

I quote from another source "As a matter of general information, words like "millwright", which end in "...wright" usually describes a trade involved in the maintenance, manufacture or repair of the object that
makes up the first part of the word - hence:

Wheelwright = maker/mender of wheels
Cartwright = -do- carts
Shipwright = -do- ships".

The nature of a millwright's work would largely be connected with gears as they are the all important parts of a mill of whatever kind.
A pattern maker would draw plans so that repetitive parts could be made. Sometimes he would make one part entire, test it and then draw it.
A brewery would be milling together barley, malt etc - the barley would come in grain form. Another important gear driven machine in a brewery would be a dry mixer where all the dry ingredients were mixed in bulk prior to the addition of water.