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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Bygone Occupations That No Longer Exist


seaforths

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Still are where paper records are still required (although the name may have changed}

This isn't a job description - more a grade. A Journeyman was someone who had completed an apprenticeship in a host of different trades but hadn't yet qualified as a master. I completed a graduate apprenticeship in aero engineering so I guess I'm still a journeyman Journey comes from the Norman French for a day so journeyman was once a sort of day labourer albeit often a very skilled one.

When i started my apprenticeship back in 1974 the older electricians still called themselves journeymanelectricians, i understand the fact that they would travel from job to job

I recall turning up quite smart in the office for a course and one of the older ex WW2 lads asked what i was doing dressed up as a pox doctors clerk.

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I like "whitesmith"

In the Potteries, there is firm evidence that some of the saggar-makers went to war. At present I am unable to confirm whether this also applies to any saggar-makers' bottom knockers but you certainly don't see many around these days.

surrounded by Potteries folk at my work years ago they always referred to saggar-makers bottom knockerouter

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That's one of the occupations I thought was self explanatory to a degree but I was wrong on both counts because you are proof that they are not extinct.

Although you are probably right on it being a grade, I have seen it given as a profession. It also answers a question over my great, great, great grandfather. He gave his occupation as shipwright journeyman. Here's me thinking all this time he had two jobs when in fact it was just one.

The old Apprentice, Journeyman, Master progression was well on the way out by 1914 (although it continued more in Germany right up until the end of WW2 despite all Albert Speer's efforts). However in Britain 1914 it was still not permitted to enlist a man still serving an apprenticeship to a master without that master's written authority (although I suspect a blind eye was sometime turned). A great many men became journeymen on the labour market after completing their apprenticeship. The trade union barons certainly preferred that.

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I have a book entitled "A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations" by Colin Waters first published in 1999 and reprinted 2005 by Countryside Books. Its definitions are very similar to that of the online dictionary. I find that using both covers most trades and occupations that I need deciphering.

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The old Apprentice, Journeyman, Master progression was well on the way out by 1914 (although it continued more in Germany right up until the end of WW2 despite all Albert Speer's efforts). However in Britain 1914 it was still not permitted to enlist a man still serving an apprenticeship to a master without that master's written authority (although I suspect a blind eye was sometime turned). A great many men became journeymen on the labour market after completing their apprenticeship. The trade union barons certainly preferred that.

I did work in recruiting for nearly four years and an indentured apprentice had to have permission to be released before he could enlist and they might have to pay a fee to be released early. That was the case when I left in 2004.

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My Grandfather was a Horse Keeper Underground (1911). I bet there aren't many of them in South Wales nowadays.

Phil

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As I recall the ponies only saw the light of day once a year when the pit shut for it's annual holiday and they had to fit something over their eyes till they became accustomed to the light - poor things!

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Thanks Mick,

I found knocker up and lamplighter

Unfortunately, the latters careers went down the pan once Sir Edward Grey had uttered his immortal words: "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time". ^_^

NigelS

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Is haberdasher a more modern term? But even they are thin on the ground these days.

Haberdashers only really equate to drapers in America. In Britain a draper was an outfitter while a haberdasher was more materials, sewing paraphanalia. Clothes shops today's are really drapers by another name. Haberdashery is generally confined to department stores but again still exists.

David

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I recall going to the cinema back in the 1960s and the old Path'e News would show items on either disappearing trades or the last apprentice to pass ,I remember on showing the last barrel maker in London completing his apprenticeship would have been late 1960s.

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Believe there's still a lamp lighter in a posh gas lit area of Nottingham. Not many firemen on railways nowadays - however it is a paid occupation on some heritage railways so still going!

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I recall reading a newspaper article whereby a chap made a case against his conscription as he was the only one left in the area that could fix and repair bakers' ovens. He said it was a specialised job and all the others had been sent off to war. If any of the bakers' ovens broke down in the towns and villages of the area the population would be short of bread. I recall that he was given a reprieve of some months and told to get someone else trained up in that time. He still kept arguing his case on the grounds that anyone he took on and trained would then soon become eligible for war service and he would be back to square one.

I don't know if repairing bakers' ovens is still a specialised job as I suppose they are manufactured differently nowadays.

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Believe there's still a lamp lighter in a posh gas lit area of Nottingham. Not many firemen on railways nowadays - however it is a paid occupation on some heritage railways so still going!

No Wheeltappers and Shunters on modern UK railways either but as the Heritage Railways still use some of the older BR Mk1 and pre Nationalisation rolling stock I wonder if theyhstill exist.

The cotton industry based in Lancashire had a number of workers who no longer exist, for example my wife was a Speed Frame Tenter which was nothing to do with ercecting large tents, but worked a number of machines that processed the yarn prior to spinning. Another job was Little Piecer, a young lad doing a sort of apprenticship to become a Mule Spinner, which was nothing to do wsith the offspring of donkeys and horses.

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My wife's family the Barkers (another lost trade of bark strippers) were swillers, makers of swill baskets from thin strips of oak, used extensively for manual coaling of ships and potato picking in Scotland. Based in the south Lakes and considered an essential industry.

Barkers 1 014

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My great great uncle is down as having been an Ostler on his enlistment records, an Ostler is apparently "a man employed to look after the horses of the people staying at an inn"

Can't be many of those around now, Don.

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Great great uncle was a milk boy on farm? Presume he spent his day milking cows ,or something along them lines.

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No Wheeltappers and Shunters on modern UK railways either but as the Heritage Railways still use some of the older BR Mk1 and pre Nationalisation rolling stock I wonder if theyhstill exist.

.

Shunters are still employed the world over and there are current job advertisements for shunters in the UK, Canada and New Zealand. In the USA they are called shifters by some rail roads. Still especially needed in dockyards, big industrial plants shifting product by rail freight etc Wheeltappers have been replaced in many countries by men using various electronic sensing devices but still employed by many Eastern European Railways and right across the developing world

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Shunters are still employed the world over and there are current job advertisements for shunters in the UK, Canada and New Zealand. In the USA they are called shifters by some rail roads. Still especially needed in dockyards, big industrial plants shifting product by rail freight etc Wheeltappers have been replaced in many countries by men using various electronic sensing devices but still employed by many Eastern European Railways and right across the developing world

The Shunters jobs advertised in the UK seem to be HGV drivers moving roadtrailers around transport yard/depot and not the men who worked & released rail wagons, with a "shunters pole" in railway sidings and goods yards.

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The Shunters jobs advertised in the UK seem to be HGV drivers moving roadtrailers around transport yard/depot and not the men who worked & released rail wagons, with a "shunters pole" in railway sidings and goods yards.

The Rail Safety and Standards Board still produces reports on railway shunting and shunters

See also this posting on a railway forum from a working shunter http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1116302&postcount=2

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I recall going to the cinema back in the 1960s and the old Path'e News would show items on either disappearing trades or the last apprentice to pass ,I remember on showing the last barrel maker in London completing his apprenticeship would have been late 1960s.

I believe that, with the conversion to digital, cinema 35 mil projectionists are no more

There are certainly still barrel makers around - they are called coopers - thanks to the real ale revival probably in increasing numbers.

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As boy living below the walls of Devonport Dockyard I can still remember the "Oggie Man". He used come round with a cart ringing his bell. The "Oggies" were delicious when my dear old Mum could afford to buy me one.

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I believe that, with the conversion to digital, cinema 35 mil projectionists are no more

There are certainly still barrel makers around - they are called coopers - thanks to the real ale revival probably in increasing numbers.

very true on 35mil ,also a few years back a heavy load was to be moved down M1, the haulage company was using a mothballed prime mover to drive the load ,the only driver to be found qualified to drive the vehicle was brought out of retirement .

On the cooper front did say London ,I assume plenty in Portugal or Spain? ,probly find most in UK imported from China .

And another dying trade certain crimes ,back in the day always reports of wages snatch ,or even bank robbers .

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Great great uncle was a milk boy on farm? Presume he spent his day milking cows ,or something along them lines.

We had 'cowboys' who fetched the cows for the dairymaids to milk and took them back to pasture. usually the younger boys up to the age of 13 or so. Several found in casualties families.

In my home town we had a mill operated by 'Fullers'. something to do with fullers earth for linen whitening?

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