England Occupational Dictionaries, Guides, Classifications - International Institute

Country Folk and Townspeople
At the end of the 17th century very few people lived in urban environments. London had only 10% of the population, 2% lived in other towns having more than 10,000 people namely Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and York, 8% in smaller towns and fully 80% in the countryside (Camp 1999-3). It thus follows that for the vast majority life was dominated by agriculture. In towns there were few large firms, and factories did not appear until the second half of the 18th century so most people worked out of their homes and the (extended) family was the productive unit.

Sources particularly useful for country occupations are Arnold’s The Shell Book of Country Crafts (1968), Filbee’s Cottage Industries (1982), Fussell and Fussell’s ''The English Countrywoman. Her Life in Farmhouse and Field from Tudor Times to the Victorian Age (1953, 1955) Hennell’s British Craftsmen (1943), Manners’ Country Crafts Today (1974), and Wymer’s English Country Crafts. A Survey of Their Development from Early Times to Present Day'' (1946). Town occupations are dealt with especially well by Burke (The English Townsman As He Was and As He Is, 1946), and Wymer (English Town Crafts. A Survey of Their Development from Early Times to the Present Day, 1949). Another useful type of publication, particularly to the traveller, is that showing the various occupational museums and workplaces open to the public (Hudson 1980, Lansbury). The local occupations are frequently featured in collections of photographs at the local archives, or in publications such as the Batsford series of Victorian and Edwardian [county or town] in Old Photographs.

Bibliographies of Occupations
These are lists of books and articles written about particular occupations. Some sources give details about the work itself, some have names and other particulars about people in these occupations, whilst others are indexes of those in certain trades.

You may want to be familiar with and have access to:


 *  Stuart Raymond’s two 1999 volumes on British Genealogical Microfiche/ Books in Print and his Occupational Sources for Genealogists: A Bibliography; his general article (2001), his series of county bibliographies, and Londoners Occupations.


 *  Jerry Gibson and Elizabeth Hampson’s Specialist Indexes for Family Historians, a good source for relevant occupational indexes.


 *  Perkins Current Publications by Member Societies (Books) and Current Publications on Microfiche by Member Societies.


 *  PERSI (Periodical Source Index) compiled by Allen County Public Library which is on fiche to 1990, CD-ROM, and online.


 *  The Index of Indexers in six parts by Brian Jones.

Andrew Jewell’s ''Crafts, Trades and Industries. A Book List for Local Historians is an older book which is still valuable, and Camp’s My Ancestors Moved in England or Wales'' has a number of excellent and sometimes unusual sources. Trades and Skilled Occupations is a bibliographic index run by George Nicolle where for a small fee he will send you a list of appropriate references.

Dictionaries of Occupations
Explanations of the names given to occupations can be found in three popular books for family historians by A. and S. Twining (Dictionary of Old Trades and Occupations, 1993) (over 1,000), Culling (An Introduction to Occupations. A Preliminary List. Federation of Family History Societies, 1999) (about 1,500) and Waters (A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations, 1999) (nearly 4,000). There are thousands more terms and recourse can be made in any library to a larger Oxford English Dictionary.

Local dialect words are more problematic, and students can either search Wright’s six-volumed English Dialect Dictionary or email the appropriate county or local archives who should have a dictionary of local terminology. There are a number of mailing lists aimed at discussing specific occupations, particularly on RootsWeb.

How Occupations Have Been Classified
The evolution of occupations in English society can be seen in a series of classifications of jobs over time, and I present six such charts here, ranging from mediaeval to pre-computer 20th century. Most of the classifications also include a catch-all class of inadequately described occupations, unemployed persons etc. which have been ignored here.

CHART: Mediaeval Occupations (from DOLAN)

CHART: Occupational Classification for 1851 Census

CHART: Occupational Classification for 1841-1881 Censuses (from BOOTH)

CHART: Occupational Classification for 1881-1911 Censuses (from ROUTH)

CHART: Occupational Classification for 1911-1951 Censuses (from ROUTH)

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online courses English: Occupation Records-Professions and Trades and English: Occupations-Military and Services offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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