Bygone Occupations That No Longer Exist

[centurion]

The process to get to spinning in converting flax to linen cloth is different

[trajan]

A trifle meant an amusing toy, a diversion or treat - trifles that we eat took their name from this as originally they were very light, frothy and insubstantial.

You never ate (hic!) my ma's trifle....

[trajan]

Back to those old Lancs. cotton trades... My grandad was a scutcher tenter when he volunteered in 1916, his wife being a roving frame tenter... It did take me a while to find out what those were! Family story is that when Grandad came out of the Tank Corps in 1919 he had no job as 'them lassies' had taken over, and so he joined an infamous para-military unit active in Ireland, but I have never been able to confirm that...By the early 1930's he was simply a 'Millhand', which I assume was nowt specialised.

[Don]

Ever heard of the Slop Man.

Well in Dublin in the 60s we had a chap who called to your door once a week and collect the left over peels and wasted food.

He kept pigs in his used coal shed was the rumour, mind you,you would smell him before you would see him.

G

[Phil996]

Several of my ancestors were carmen. A carman was a delivery man in the days of horse-drawn carts. Railway companies used carmen to collect and deliver goods from and to their depots, though the term was apparently used more generally. I guess the modern equivalent is white van man. A Google search for 'old occupations' produces lots of indexes to former occupations.

Phil

[Curlew1919]

One of my research interests is a Jarrow lad called Frank Docherty who played for Everton before the Great War. Prior to becoming a professional footballer he and his four brothers were shipyard labourers in the 1911 census. The two youngest were 16 and 14 and are described as Rivet Heater and Rivet Catcher respectively; I've struggled to picture the process but I'm hoping that the 14 year old wouldn't be catching heated rivets. The details are here and I am indebted to HarryBrook and Curlew for their help in finding so much information.

In a rivetting squad you had at least five men

Heater (unskilled) normally an old rivettor - as he knew when the rivet was ready

Hoyer (unskilled) throws the rivet

Catcher (unskilled) who caught the Rivet

Holder-Up (skilled) held the rivet on inside of the shell

Rivettor (skilled) done the rivetting on the outside

Rivets had a formed head one end

Predrilled holes (Drillers job) through two plates to be joined

Heater heats rivets white to golden hot (red hots too cold) in a coke brazier that is bellows fed

Hoyer takes a rivet out with tongs and hoys (throws) it to a catcher who catches it with a bucket, and pick it out with tongs (sometimes it could be hoy and catch a few times with a number of blokes to get it quickly down into the bowels of the ship)

Sometimes they would use a chute (concave metal sections bolted together)

Final catcher puts the rivet in the hole

A holder-Up holds the rivet in place with a rivet gun.

Catcher does two raps on the shell with the hammer, and the rivettor on the outside shell pans the red hot rivet with his gun.

Now the Holder-up had to be able to shore it it up

Sometimes the holder-up had to devise different iron or steel gadgets to shore the rivet in place (i.e Warwicks - screwed rod devises etc .. ) solid against some solid structure inside the ship.

Every other rivet hole had temporary bolts which held the plates together tight (after initial rivetting took place they were removed and replaced with rivets)

Speed of hoying and catching was of the essence especially when they used iron rivets (before the steel rivets) if they had cooled and where not panned properly or they split, they had to be drilled out (and the rivettor had to pay the driller)

The rivettor was the gaffer who got paid at the end of the week and he split the money between the squad (normally in the pub saturday afternoon) many a time the young and inexperienced like the hoyers and catchers never got paid unless they fought it out with the rivettor in the pub yard

Most rivettors had biceps that could down a galloping horse in its tracks

So if you were not tough enough you got no pay

Before the advent of pneumatic rivet guns the rivet was formed by hammer

Hoy the hammer owwer hinny .....................

[Curlew1919]

Several of my ancestors were carmen. A carman was a delivery man in the days of horse-drawn carts. Railway companies used carmen to collect and deliver goods from and to their depots, though the term was apparently used more generally. I guess the modern equivalent is white van man. A Google search for 'old occupations' produces lots of indexes to former occupations.

Phil

Phil do you not mean Cartmen

Before water closets came along you had dry closets (ash closets) to defecate in

Most working class terrace houses had a netty in the back yard (netty got the name as in dry closets you got a lot of flies - sometimes four families had to use 1 netty - average family 7 persons - so a fine net the type they used on windows was used over the closet hole - hence the netty) ash off the fire was also put in to dry the contents of the closet

Then along came the Corporation Cartmen and shovelled the contents out through the hatch of the closet in the back lane and propel it by shovel onto the back of a horse drawn cart

That was your Cartman .............................

ps if you walk down post industrial towns backlanes today (there is still plenty around) you will see bricked up squares (ground level) which was the dry closet) and bricked up (mid height) which was the coal hatch (mind I have seen some of the original wooden hatches for both that are still there today)

[Curlew1919]

Riveted ship construction was already outdated when it did for the Titanic but it took a long time for British shipbuilders (and British Ship building unions) to catch on which is why both are also endangered species. Welded construction has long since replaced it.

How was a rivetted ship outdated?

How did it take the British a long time to catch on to welded ships?

RMS Titanic built between 1909 - 1911 at Harland and Wolff at Belfast

The Fullager built at Cammell Laird Birkenhead in 1920 was the first all-welded ship in the world. (in the wirled)

[seaforths]

Several of my ancestors were carmen. A carman was a delivery man in the days of horse-drawn carts. Railway companies used carmen to collect and deliver goods from and to their depots, though the term was apparently used more generally. I guess the modern equivalent is white van man. A Google search for 'old occupations' produces lots of indexes to former occupations.

Phil

Phil do you not mean Cartmen

Before water closets came along you had dry closets (ash closets) to defecate in

Most working class terrace houses had a netty in the back yard (netty got the name as in dry closets you got a lot of flies - sometimes four families had to use 1 netty - average family 7 persons - so a fine net the type they used on windows was used over the closet hole - hence the netty) ash off the fire was also put in to dry the contents of the closet

Then along came the Corporation Cartmen and shovelled the contents out through the hatch of the closet in the back lane and propel it by shovel onto the back of a horse drawn cart

That was your Cartman .............................

ps if you walk down post industrial towns backlanes today (there is still plenty around) you will see bricked up squares (ground level) which was the dry closet) and bricked up (mid height) which was the coal hatch (mind I have seen some of the original wooden hatches for both that are still there today)

I read the book 'Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War' by Peter Barham. There was a cartman working in London and he was in a collision with a motorised vehicle - I bus - I think. He had worked with horses at the front and because the horses in the accident came off so badly, it triggered some sort of flashback linked to an incident at the front involving his horses. The poor man had to be committed to an asylum.

[Fattyowls]

In a rivetting squad you had at least five men

Curlew; this is brilliant. I'm intending to write up Frank Docherty's life for possible use in Everton's commemoration of the Great War and something about working lives is really helpful in relation to getting an idea of the wider background. Given what you found out about the Docherty family for me before Frank and his brothers will be excellent examples. I am in you debt. I wonder if the detail about the working life of a rivet catcher would be useful if the football club's youth team members start moaning about training in the rain or that their new Ferrari isn't quite the right shade of scarlet.

Pete.

[Phil996]

Hi Curlew

I think 'carman' is a term that's used in its own right, to mean a deliveryman. It may be that it's another version of 'cartman', though collecting people's poop seems to be a rather specialised branch of delivery/collection work! Perhaps carman is from the use of 'car' as a general term for a vehicle.

Another lost occupation that's occurred to me is that of punch card operator. In the 1950s and 1960s data and programmes could be stored by punching holes in cards with a machine like a typewriter, which punched the holes rather than printing letters. The cards were then read by an input device on or attached to the computer. All very primitive by today's standards and it must have been very tedious work.

Phil

[centurion]

There were a number of light single horse drawn vehicles that were called "something" cars eg jaunting cars. Often used to deliver luggage from railway stations to hotels http://www.kellscraft.com/IsleoftheShamrock/P1218241.JPG and for light deliveries as well as for passenger work.

[kenf48]

Hi Curlew

I think 'carman' is a term that's used in its own right, to mean a deliveryman. It may be that it's another version of 'cartman', though collecting people's poop seems to be a rather specialised branch of delivery/collection work! Perhaps carman is from the use of 'car' as a general term for a vehicle.

Phil

I believe you're quite right.

One of my wife's relatives is listed in the records as 'a fishmonger's carman'. Although he enlisted in an infantry regiment the only photo we have shows him on a horse, no idea why but no doubt his previous job entailed a knowledge of and looking after horses so he was probably singled out for that duty. I've seen 'carman' on many other records and it was a valued skill many of the soldiers going to horsed transport in the ASC and gaining enhanced pay.

(Incidentally outside the supermarkets there are also very few fishmonger's about these days, those we have down here we treasure).

As for cart men night soil collectors was discussed at post 104 of this thread.

Ken

[seaforths]

Hi Curlew

I think 'carman' is a term that's used in its own right, to mean a deliveryman. It may be that it's another version of 'cartman', though collecting people's poop seems to be a rather specialised branch of delivery/collection work! Perhaps carman is from the use of 'car' as a general term for a vehicle.

Another lost occupation that's occurred to me is that of punch card operator. In the 1950s and 1960s data and programmes could be stored by punching holes in cards with a machine like a typewriter, which punched the holes rather than printing letters. The cards were then read by an input device on or attached to the computer. All very primitive by today's standards and it must have been very tedious work.

Phil

Murray code?

[centurion]

Hollerith code. Punch card machines pre-date the electronic computer and were in use before WW1 (for example by the US census department) Charles Babbage's design for a programmable computer used punched cards and Lord Byron's daughter Lady Ada Lovelace wrote programs for their use. About WW1 time they were known as unit record machines and NCR used to make them. IBM started making them in the 1930s. The original punch cards were devised for the automatic Jacquard Looms. The last machines using the original Jacquard punch cards were used by Templeton's Carpets in Glasgow in the early 1970s, the original designs recorded on the cards having been made by Prince Albert. As a very young freelance systems analyst I was involved in transferring the processes onto punch tape read by an early De La Rue Bull computer

[Curlew1919]

Curlew; this is brilliant. I'm intending to write up Frank Docherty's life for possible use in Everton's commemoration of the Great War and something about working lives is really helpful in relation to getting an idea of the wider background. Given what you found out about the Docherty family for me before Frank and his brothers will be excellent examples. I am in you debt. I wonder if the detail about the working life of a rivet catcher would be useful if the football club's youth team members start moaning about training in the rain or that their new Ferrari isn't quite the right shade of scarlet.

Pete.

Follow this link:

http://www.newmp.org.uk/detail.php?contentId=9293#listlink

You will see Frank and his brother were commemorated on a memorial at Our Lady and St. Aidans at one time (which means they were Catholics)

Click on the images on that page and it takes you to the pics of the memorial that is now in Holy Cross Cemetery in Wallsend

If you don't get that click on this link:

http://www.newmp.org.uk/memorial_image.php?contentId=9293

[Fattyowls]

You will see Frank and his brother were commemorated on a memorial at Our Lady and St. Aidans at one time (which means they were Catholics)

Curlew, that is excellent, thanks again.

[Curlew1919]

Curlew, that is excellent, thanks again.

Walking on cobbled stones

Little bits of skin and bone

Jumping on a tram car for a ride

I can remember then

'Cause I was a just a boy of ten

Hanging around the old Quayside

Now all the capstans and the cargo boats

And Stevedores are gone

To where all the old ships go

But memories, just like the sea live on

'Cause that was when coal was King

The river was a living thing

And I was just a boy but it was mine

The coaly Tyne

For this was a big river

I want you all to know

That I was proud

This was a big river

But that was long ago

That's not now

That's not now

My father was a working man

He earned our living with his hands

He had to cross the river every day

He picked up a Union card

Out of the Neptune yard

Mouths to feed and bills to pay

There came a time for him to sail

Across the sea and far away

And finally when that war was won

You brought him home and home he stayed

And when his days were done

Under a golden sun

You took him back to where he longed to be

Back to the sea

For this was a big river

I want you all to know

That I was proud

This was a big river

But that was long ago

That's not now

That's not now

That's not now

The Neptune was the last to go

I heard it on my radio

And then they played

The latest number one

But what do they do all day

And what are they supposed to say

What does a father tell his son?

If you believe that there's a bond

Between our future and our past

Try to hold on to what we have

We build them strong, we built to last

'Cause this is a mighty town

Build upon a solid ground

And everything they've tried so hard to kill

We will rebuild

For this is a big river

I want you all to know

I'm so very proud

This is a big river

But that was long ago

That's not now

And this is a big, big river

And in my heart I know

It will rise again

The river will rise again

Songwriter

Jimmy Nail

[Curlew1919]

Rivets

http://www.sciencebuzz.org/sites/default/files/images/Rivet01.jpg

Hoyers grabbing rivets

http://henryrobb.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/the-black-squad001.jpg

Catcher with the Holder up

http://www.mainemaritimemuseum.org/media/orlop/22rivet.JPG

Rivettor on other side

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j333/tankerfotos/Diversen/EssoZurich-building-5.jpg

http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/e/e031/e000760088.jpg

Modern day example Holder up on left rivettor on right

http://www.shf.org.au/explore-the-fleet/john-oxley-1927-steam-ship/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Onzie-and-Joe-father-and-son-riveting-team-riveting-last-hull-plate-201221.jpg

Modern day example Rivettor

http://www.shf.org.au/explore-the-fleet/john-oxley-1927-steam-ship/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/JO-Driving-keel-rivets1.jpg

Prior to the pnuematic rivet gun rivettors and holder ups with hammers

http://www.escapecrate.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/cammell_laird_riveters.jpg

[aradgick]

<I think 'carman' is a term that's used in its own right, to mean a deliveryman.>

I've come across several men whose occupation was 'carman' during the course of my research. All were making deliveries with a horse and cart. One had a successful business transporting goods between Sandhurst and Reading station, employing two of his sons as well.

Andrewr

[IanA]

The trade of carman is very old indeed and William Byrd wrote variations on a popular (and very rude) song before 1591.

[W.J.Caughey]

Back to Riveting, in 1918 a Mr John Lowry broke the world record by driving 7,841 rivets in 9 hrs. In recognition of his feat he was awarded £25 by Mr Charles Payne J.P. managing director Messrs Harland & Wolff Ltd.

Don't think this was a proper job, but during the war and beyond, my Great Grandmother was a knocker up, she went around a few streets knocking doors, making sure men got up early for there shift work at the factory, this was a very important task in them days so my 82 yr old Aunt tells me.

Walter

[Fattyowls]

Back to Riveting, in 1918 a Mr John Lowry broke the world record by driving 7,841 rivets in 9 hrs. In recognition of his feat he was awarded £25 by Mr Charles Payne J.P. managing director Messrs Harland & Wolff Ltd.

Don't think this was a proper job, but during the war and beyond, my Great Grandmother was a knocker up, she went around a few streets knocking doors, making sure men got up early for there shift work at the factory, this was a very important task in them days so my 82 yr old Aunt tells me.

Walter

Walter, I've tried to come up with a witty aside based on riveting but it's not happening. Thanks for the information, I find it absolutely remarkable. I would take issue with you about knocker up not being a proper job. I can remember my father talking about them in the days when clocks were expensive and prized family ornaments.

Pete.

[centurion]

Back to Riveting, in 1918 a Mr John Lowry broke the world record by driving 7,841 rivets in 9 hrs. In recognition of his feat he was awarded £25 by Mr Charles Payne J.P. managing director Messrs Harland & Wolff Ltd.

Don't think this was a proper job, but during the war and beyond, my Great Grandmother was a knocker up, she went around a few streets knocking doors, making sure men got up early for there shift work at the factory, this was a very important task in them days so my 82 yr old Aunt tells me.

Walter

Knocker ups were indeed proper occupations but there was also a knocker up's knocker up who made sure that the knocker uppers were awake in time. They usually didn't bother going to bed until they'd waked the knocker uppers.

[W.J.Caughey]

Pete/Centurion.

"Don't think this was a proper job"

I should have added to end of quoted sentence, (for my great grandmother), in the sense i thought she just did it for friends/neighbours for maybe a few penny's or gifts, not for a industrial mill or whatever, but not sure now, will have to quiz my aunt more the next time we phone.

Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.

Walter