Occupation -can anyone read this?

[piedstilt]

I'm with Tony. It looks like printer binder to me (which makes sense).

Ros

[Kennington]

Hi

thanks for all suggestions, in 1861 census he was a coach wheeler,
so I think i'll go for timber bender. seems to fit best.

Sylvia, - yes I had that entry. Harriet is one of my better misspells!

Mary

[JAP]

I'm with Tony. It looks like printer binder to me (which makes sense).
Ros

Ros, I'm puzzled!

What sense?  Why?

The words pretty clearly read as 'timber bender' rather than 'printer binder'(!) - if nothing else, look at the 'P' in Parish vis-a-vis the 'T' in Timber (not to mention the 'P' in St Pancras - though hard to decipher, it also is nothing like the 'T' in Timber).

More importantly, the chap's occupations in other censuses were (according to 'Kennington') a 'coach maker' and a 'coach wheeler'.  Definitely a greater connexion to coaches and wheels than to books ; )

And 'Gardener' quoted an 1846 directory entry for an occupation of 'coach timber bender'.

A Google for 'timber bender' gets quite a few hits (including the one quoted by 'Gardener').

Yes, 'Kennington', I'm sure you are right to stick with the 'timber bender' ; )

JAP

 

[Jackienock]

This looks very much to me like

TINKER MENDER

In other words someone who went round mending saucepans and buckets. That was in the days before the throw away society.

[JAP]

This looks very much to me like
TINKER MENDER.
<snip>

Apart from everything mentioned previously on this thread (and apart from other comparisons of letters) just compare the 'M' in Mary with the 'B' in Bender.  And then compare the 'B' in Bender with the 'B' in Bachelor!

JAP

[alllegs]

I'm with you on this one JAP,

It definately says TIMBER BENDER

Legs
xxxx

[Jackienock]

OK JAP, fair comment, I obviously didn't study the other letters closely enough. Pitty there isn't a lower case 'b' somewhere to compare where I was suggesting a 'k'

[TonyV]

I give in...timber bender it is, now that I've seen the image blown up

[Magrat]

Hi,

For what it's worth I saw a programme on the telly where they were building a coach wheel in the original way and the took lengths of timbers and heated them with steam for some hours and then bent them into a circle to make the wheel over which an iron tread was fitted.  So perhaps a timber bender was the person who did this??

Magrat