A Yeoman Sojourning?
In transcribing Parish Registers and
the like, we often see references to occupations. Some of these mean very
little to us in this day and age. A number of terms have caught our eyes, and
we decided to find our more about them.
The occupation YEOMAN appears
quite often, but what is or was a YEOMAN? You have probably heard of
‘The Yeoman of the Guard’, by Gilbert and Sullivan. The Yeoman of the Guard is
the proper title for the ‘Beef-eaters’ at the Tower of London. In the
context of 18th century agricultural England, however, a Yeoman was
what we might call today a ‘Small-holder’ i.e. someone who holds and cultivates
a small area of land. This would normally qualify the person to sit on juries,
and to vote.
How about SOJOURNING or SOJOURNER?
This is not an occupation, but it appears under ‘Abode’ quite often. To take a
Sojourn is to make a temporary stay in a place or with someone. So a Sojourner
is someone staying temporarily, and although people didn’t take holidays or
vacations in the 18th century quite like we do today, it is the
nearest equivalent in modern context. It was not applied to travelling people;
they were clearly noted as Travellers. And people being moved from parish to
parish under the poor laws were, we understand, referred to as Vagrants.
In the Modbury Parish Registers, the
most common occupation is LABOURER. Without any other information we
think it is fair to assume that most people in the 17th and 18th
centuries with this as their occupation worked in agriculture. Even so, we have
come across ‘Road Labourer’, ‘Mill Labourer’ and ‘Labourer on the Railway’ so
it is not absolutely certain.
Here are some other occupations we
have seen that don’t get used today (or at least, not often)
CHAIR BOTTOMER- someone who produces the seat (or bottom) of a cane chair.
COOPER - a maker of
wooden barrels
CORDWAINER - a shoemaker. Different from a Cobbler, who only mends
shoes
CURRIER - a person who dresses and colours tanned
leather
FELLMONGER- a
dealer in hides and skins, or one who prepares skins for leather making
FOGGER - ‘Fog’ was a
particular variety of grass used for fodder, so A ‘fogger’ is someone
who fed cattle, presumably with this grass
HIGGLER - Said to be derived from the word 'Haggle', a Higgler was a bit of a wheeler- dealer. He would travel around the area from farm to farm, buying whatever spare produce they had, and then take it to the next village or town to sell at a profit. Not a particularly well-respected occupation.
HIND -
farm
servant, or skilled farm-worker, usually having charge of two horses
HOBLER - a person who drags or hauls a barge
HUSBANDMAN- someone who looks after animals, a
farmer, or herds-man
MERCER - someone who deals in textiles
OCHRE MILLER- person who made the mixture of clay and ferric oxide used to
dye sails
OSTLER - someone who
looked after the stable at an Inn
Sherriff Family History, the Parish Registers of Modbury, Devon
and other items of Interest
© 2002-6 Paul and Christine Sherriff – Last Updated 05 Oct 2006 19:42
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