Unusual Occupation?.....

[delmarco]

My Great Grandfather was a lamplighter in Cambuslang, I thought this was a riot, most of the men in my family have frequented two pubs in new york each called "the Lamplighter" Typical 20th century gal am I, it never occurred to me that someone actually used to light the street lights by hand.....
Karen

[fmackay]

I have one listed as a scavenger...I thought "What the...???" I later found out that it was a term used for dustmen or street sweepers

Nina

I too found a rellie listed as a scavenger and thought "how sad being reduced to that" so I'm glad to hear it's not as bad as it appears!
Fiona

[davran]

My husband also has a scavenger (in Hastings, Sussex). Mine are mostly more mundane - ag labs, blacksmiths, etc.

However, I do have straw plaiters in Essex, where there was a thriving cottage industry in straw hat making until cheap Indian imports put paid to the trade - nothing changes!

On the same subject, I came across a 'leghorn presser' whilst doing a lookup for someone. Leghorn hats were made from a special type of straw from Italy and could be dusted and pressed. There is a wonderful website that tells you how to clean all types of hats - info from the 1920s I think.

Some of my rellies were gunpowder workers in the powder mills in Kent and Middlesex - quite a dangerous occupation as there were often explosions which killed and maimed the workers.

[hudggy]

Found one realative in England late 1800s a Knocker upper just sounds strange.
Another fought at Waterloo and along the Spanish Penisular also at the Battle of New Orleans and against the French in Canada,

"Knocker upper"? -- I'd heard of this, but I didn't realise it was a full-time occupation....As for the warrior -- he sounds like the inspiration for George McDonald Fraser's "Flashman" novels...

Forgot to put that he was in his 70s when doing this job so it might have just for a bit of cash no pensions then.
As for Flashman I thought of Sharpe as he was in the Innskillings so therefore Irish after all Wellington says they were his greatest assit.

[fmackay]

I also have a gentleman who was a "cultivator of silkworms"!!
Fiona

[nelmit]

I quite like my recently found 'lotter'.

Annette M

[Alison Plenderleith]

nelmit said

I quite like my recently found 'lotter'

What is a lotter, Annette?

Kind regards,

Alison

[seakev]

It seems that all of the Rose's from New Pitsligo were "Crofters". I presume a crofter was more or less a farmer. When William Rose came over to Massachusetts in 1883, he kept the farming tradition going.

[fortunata]

My gtgt grandmother was a french polisher, and her husband a brass finisher.
On their marriage certificate, my gtgt grandfathers father had listed his occupation as ship owner, well at least that is what it was put down as on the copy i have!!!
Have found no evidence whatsoever to support this, maybe it should have said sheep owner?

[fmackay]

Have just found a relative who's occupation on his wife's death certificate was noted as "waterproof cover stitcher(railway)!