bone yard??

[lozaras]

Does this really say 'Labourer in a Bone Yard' ?
216

If so, what's a 'bone yard' ? :p

It's for M F Parker and the 'Occupation' column says this:
'Wife of Thomas Parker
Labourer
in a
Bone Yard'

Is it her or him that the occupation is for?


I think he took whatever was going job-wise: variously a miller, gamekeeper, labourer & steward. Steward was the year before his wife died.
She had no occupation listed on census.

[JayG]

Looks like Bone Yard to me Sarah, it's his occ not hers.

[Olde Crone]

Bone yards were charming places in which animal bones were sorted and boiled, to make glue and other things.

It was a favourite occupation for workhouse inmates at one time, being just about the worst possible job you can imagine.

OC

[Jill]

Think of all those rag & bone men (still operating in living memory), they would have been selling the bones on to the yard owners.

[borobabs]

Oh I used to play in the bone yard shed when I was teenager lol yes old bones used to make glue etc as OC said ;;
Mind didnt think they employed people from workhouse where ours was but you never know

[Olde Crone]

Borobabs

I'm going back a bit before your time, lol!

Andover workhouse was such a terrible place that the inmates ATE the bones they were supposed to be sorting. This scandal led to the formation of the union of workhouses, so I'm talking pre 1836.

OC

[lozaras]

Thanks for your replies.

yuk!

It's not really any wonder that I'm having trouble with this lot then. The children seem to have been farmed out.

[borobabs]

Oh dear thats terrible god love em ,,,yuk least I played on sacks of them not the actual bones

[Nell]

A rotten job OC, but probably one step up from collecting dog faeces for leather curers or sloshing through the sewers looking for saleable items.