what exactly did a wood turner or turner do?

[JenB]

I have never heard of a bodger. 

http://www.bodgers.org.uk/index.php
Lots of interesting photos in the Gallery.

[greenvalley]

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

[TropiConsul]

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.

[Hackstaple]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodging

[TropiConsul]

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!

[Hackstaple]

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.

[TropiConsul]

 

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.

[GrahamSimons]

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.

[Hackstaple]

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.