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Well new for me anyway, I've just come across two 'Teazle Men' in my husbands tree. They are father and son and I found them in the 1851 Census, it must have been a fairly lucrative occupation as in the 1861 census the son is a farmer of 45 acres employing 2 labourers.
Perhaps he grew his own teazles and when the market folded he turned his land over to agriculture.
Made a nice change from all the miners, shoe makers and ag. labs. that our trees are littered with.
Margaret
I definitely don't have any teazle men on my tree! *sulks*
I enjoyed discovering my 4xg-grandparents were mantua makers in the mid 18thC. can't remember any other interesting ones at the moment.
Were they in a wool-producing area, Margaret? The following explains how teasels were used to 'tease' wool fibres to create a smooth nap.
http://themeaningsofthings.org/wordpress/?p=125
Ooh, Merry, Mantua makers sound interesting, my husband has lace makers and a couple of hair dressers way back in the East End, but the lace makers all seemed to end up being box makers, didn't sound half as exciting.
Shona, this is Somerton in Somerset, I don't think that it was a big wool area though there was a collar factory in Somerton and sail making in Crewkerne and Chard, I don't know if they would use teazles for that, maybe they had to get them all up to Yorkshire or somewhere, looking at that clip they must have needed ever such a lot. There are/were quite a lot of teazles still growing down on The Levels, I imagine that picking them today would be frowned on though from memory they were wild and not on private land.
Margaret
I've just Googled for Teazle growing in Somerset and found a site for Keinton Mandeville and apparently Teazles were grown commercially for the cloth trade in Shepton Mallet, I knew that they made Babycham and shoes in Shepton but not cloth.
Olde Crone
05-07-14, 10:29
Mantua making is something which has always fascinated me. The idea of making a life time garment from one piece of cloth, no cutting, all shaping done by sewing, appeals to my mean nature! Of course, it developed from that idea and Victorian mantua makers would have cut away excess cloth to get the shape but they still would have needed extreme skill to shape a garment.
I have a reed maker in my tree and for ages I fondly imagined he made reeds for clarinets asnd oboes, lol. The truth was more mundane - reeds are part of weaving looms. Stood him in good stead though, as he went from seemingly humble origins to lavish wealth in the 1800s.
OC
Probably not interesting for the person involved but I like the sound of the bell polisher on the royal ship (I have Britannia in my head but I don't know if there was one back then or if I mentally substituted the name)
Teazle sounded very mysterious though, well until I read Shona's post.
I found a "hair dresser and bird stuffer" recently.
The most exciting I came across was a whorehouse man. Turned out to be an Ancestry glitch - he was actually a warehouse man. Boo!
Olde Crone
10-07-14, 09:28
Oh, Shona's post has reminded me of one which made my eyebrows rise a bit:
A 13 year old MASSAGE boy. He turned out to be a message boy.
OC
One of my Irish immigrant families was full of musical string makers and I loved the idea of them bringing this trade over from the Emerald Isle until I learnt that there was a reason they lived around the Smithfields cattle market. Fool.
Langley Vale Sue
11-07-14, 07:53
My 3x Great Grandfather's occupation on the 1851 census is 'scribler'. I had all sorts of grand ideas about what this might mean, and then found out it was in the cloth trade. I still don't know what that entailed though. In 1841 he was a 'shearman' and in 1861 he was a 'foreman at cloth factory' in Trowbridge in Wiltshire.
Scribler: A person who tends a wool/cotton-combing machine called a Scribler - the first process in carding the yarn.
Langley Vale Sue
11-07-14, 11:36
Thanks Shona.
The nearest I could get when Googling was a French description - " dégrossir la laine avant de la carder" which translated as "(polishing) the front side of the card wool".
I think my favourite occupation on our tree (not to have, you understand!) is "urinal cleaner for the parish". As OH's relative lived in over populated St Pancras he must have been kept pretty busy!
One of my Irish immigrant families was full of musical string makers and I loved the idea of them bringing this trade over from the Emerald Isle until I learnt that there was a reason they lived around the Smithfields cattle market. Fool.
Not the only fool in town, Asa. It was only when violin string maker (so near, yet so far from Stradivarius!) was combined with sausage skin maker that the penny dropped.
Mary from Italy
11-07-14, 21:36
I have a man who was a butcher and rustic summerhouse builder, apparently simultaneously. I've always wondered how he came to combine two such different occupations.
My 2xg-grandfather said he was a master butcher when he married. His wife said the same when she registered his death almost 20 years later. I have the following occupations recorded for him from other sources, but never a butcher:
China man, groom, waiter, male servant, gardener, driver, painter, flyman and cab master.
I found a "hair dresser and bird stuffer" recently.
Nice one Phoenix - wouldn't have thought they belonged together, but......
I've also got a mantua maker, plus half a dozen seamstresses & milliners.
Ironic, considering I was ejected from the school sewing class, declared a
hopeless case,& put into technical drawing with the boys.
OH sews the buttons on & I do tricky assembling etc.
Olde Crone
12-07-14, 14:44
Oh, but hairdresser and bird stuffer DO go together! Birds would be stuffed with horsehair and the dressing of horse hair was done by hair dressers.
Modern hair dressing for humans is a relatively new thing and is not generally mentioned on census, other than barber for men. Women did their own hair or their maid did it for them.
OC
Oh, but hairdresser and bird stuffer DO go together! Birds would be stuffed with horsehair and the dressing of horse hair was done by hair dressers.
Modern hair dressing for humans is a relatively new thing and is not generally mentioned on census, other than barber for men. Women did their own hair or their maid did it for them.
OC
Shows how little I know! Thanks OC.
I think my favourite occupation on our tree (not to have, you understand!) is "urinal cleaner for the parish". As OH's relative lived in over populated St Pancras he must have been kept pretty busy!
Remember that series " The Worst Jobs In History?" Well .......
Olde Crone
12-07-14, 15:22
Got me thinking......our parish urinal - long gone now - was but a walled open topped enclosure over the river, lol and I doubt if it had ever been cleaned by anything other than rainwater for centuries!
OC
Oh, but hairdresser and bird stuffer DO go together! Birds would be stuffed with horsehair and the dressing of horse hair was done by hair dressers.
OC
The 'Hairdressers' (all male) in my husbands family appear in the 1871 census for Bow, Middlesex, does that mean that they had links with taxidermy? I had always assumed that they maybe dressed wigs after they had been made.
Margaret.
Olde Crone
12-07-14, 16:23
Margaret
I don't think it necessarily means they were taxidermists, I think all you can surmise is that they were sorters and cleaners of hair. Whether the hair was human or animal is not clear, nor what it was intended for - horse hair was used to stuff upholstery as well as many other things.
Wig makers would "dress" the wig themselves I THINK, because wigmaking was a very skilled occupation.
OC
Margaret
I don't think it necessarily means they were taxidermists, I think all you can surmise is that they were sorters and cleaners of hair. Whether the hair was human or animal is not clear, nor what it was intended for - horse hair was used to stuff upholstery as well as many other things.
Wig makers would "dress" the wig themselves I THINK, because wigmaking was a very skilled occupation.
OC
Thanks OC, another illusion shattered :)
Olde Crone
12-07-14, 19:27
Well, my illusions were shattered too, after months of trying to find a man who was a hair dresser on his MC. I kept returning to one who "helps father" on a previous census. Father was a horse hair collector! Took ages and quite a bit of googling for the penny to drop.
OC
Chris in Sussex
13-07-14, 10:08
Funeral Carriage Master and Butcher:eek:
A worrying combination for one of mine until I saw a copy of his will that helped explained all:D
Chris
Lol, Chris!
Hunting down the brother of an elusive hair-dresser (I have now to take the hand off the hip, & flash of scissors from his hand) I find a general/road/council labourer. Quite happy with the occupation until I discover he is fined because because his night soil cart is creating a nuisance ;(
I am so glad we don't have to smell our ancestors :d
Did anyone see "Tales From The Royal Wardrobe" on TV last week? Actually seeing the
layers go on to form an Elizabethan lady's costume gave me a prolonged hot flush.
Apparently, QE1 employed a man solely to tend her muffs. Make of that what you will.
I have a peruke maker - fancy name for a wig maker in the 18th century.
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