W&B in Occupation

[JVH]

Occupations 1881, Classified Index
II Domestic Class, Other Services, Order 4 Sub-order 2, 62 Washing and Bathing Service.  http://www.rootschat.com/links/0t48/
Charwoman is 61

Stan

In the 1881 Census analysis document that Milly quoted, 061 is "cook, not domestic", Stan.

John

[millymcb]

I think whoever wrote that paper got their numbers out of sync

Milly

[stanmapstone]

The link I gave is to the official census report. In 1891 Ruth Webb is a laundress.

Stan

[JVH]

No idea what the word before woman is though

Could it be a poorly written Char ?

Or Hir ? (is in Hire woman - not that I have heard of such a thing)

Looking at other words it looks like it begins with N though

Milly

I think I have it!  If you ignore the stroke through, you can see the first letter is a capital "W", just like the one indicating "Widowed" to the left.  You can also see the last character is tall, as it blends with the "wash" annotation above.  The original entry was "Wash Woman", but the "Wash" was poorly written, so it has been re-entered above.

And here I just corrected Stan, and now I see you say his codes are more reliable!  I'll copy his reference too, and use both as a cross-reference.  If the codes differ I'll add them together and divide by 2!   

John

[JVH]

The link I gave is to the official census report. In 1891 Ruth Webb is a laundress.

Stan

It certainly looks like a period document... I'm bemused by the "Professional Swimmer" in the washing and laundry classification.  I wonder if it's easier or harder to swim in soapy water? 

John

[stanmapstone]

You can see the title page, dated 1885,  at  http://www.rootschat.com/links/0t49/

Stan

[millymcb]

Definitely go with Stan's doc as the original source info and ignore mine

It's interesting how the coders worked though...how could they know if work was indoors or outdoors...or if someone was a washer-woman at home or in a laundry or whatever.   Or indeed if they were a professional swimmer (do they mean working in the local bath house ) and not just a keen amateur

Milly

[JVH]

I have this mad image of the local bathhouse being used after regular hours as a giant washtub.  Throw in the clothes, throw in the soap, throw in a bunch of kids, who swim around and act as "agitators", and lo! the birth of professional swimming.  A better job than being a mudlark, 'cause at least you'd be clean and warm.

John

[stanmapstone]

Definitely go with Stan's doc as the original source info and ignore mine
Milly

If you look at the link http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~matthew/Papers/Woollard_1881Classifications_no%20illustration.pdf given by Milly, you will see that it has 037 030503 [Student] this is not in the original report see  http://www.rootschat.com/links/0t4a/  which is why all the subsequent numbers are one out.

Stan