Dictionary of Old Occupations
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Definitions of jobs Monger - Mustarder
Monger: generic term for a Pedlar or merchant.
Monthly Nurse: alternate term for a Confinement Nurse, looked after new mothers during the first month following childbirth.
Moocher: a vagrant or petty thief scavenging food or other items, some for personal use and the rest for sale.
Mordant Maker: made mordant, a substance used to treat leather or fabric prior to dyeing.
Moss Reeve: an official who oversaw contracts to cut peat for use as fuel.
Mould Runner: usually a job for young boys in the pottery industry, who were paid to run newly made pottery items to adjacent buildings and arrange them near hot stoves for hardening.
Moulder: earliest use was as a person who carved stone, a skilled occupation. The occupational term evolved to include casting iron. Is also a pottery industry term for a Presser.
Mountebank: a confidence artist. The meaning of the term derives from the practice of a man who mounted a bench in a public place such as a market in order to boast about fake medicine or similar goods for sale.
Mudlark: slang term for a person who salvaged items such as driftwood or used bottles from riverbanks, or a person who cleaned sewers.
Muffin Carrier: a pedlar selling muffins. Dates back to the 19th century. Also referred to as a Muffin Man in a nursery rhyme.
Muffin Maker: made small items such as plates and bowls in the pottery industry.
Muger: alternate spelling of Mugger, a Potter.
Mugger: a Potter or person who peddled pots.
Muggler: defined on numerous online lists as a Pig Man. Have yet to verify this occupational definition.
Mugman: hawked pots.
Mule Scavenger: a child, maybe as young as 8, crawling under weaving machines in a mill, collecting up fallen cotton.
Mule Spinner: operated a spinning mule, a machine invented in the 18th century to spin fibres to make yarn.
Copyright: Jane Hewitt. This dictionary is authorised for use on www.familyresearcher.co.uk only.
Muleskinner: alternate term for a Muleteer, who drove Mules.
Muleteer: transported goods by driving mules.
Multurer: ground grain for a fee. The fee was called a multure.
Mumper: a professional beggar.
Musicker: played a musical instrument for a living.
Mustard Man: alternate term for a Mustarder, who traded in mustard.
Mustarder: a dealer trading in mustard. The use of mustard to flavour food is thought to date back to the Romans.
This dictionary is my own work, and copyright Jane Hewitt. I sometimes find unauthorised (i.e. stolen) copies of my website content appearing on other people's websites. If you should read a group of identical glossary definitions elsewhere on the web, consider whether such sites are reputable or not.
The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders
Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous – transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama and opera – even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts.
In this meticulously researched and compelling book, Judith Flanders – author of ‘The Victorian House’ – retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder – both famous and obscure. From the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper, to the tragedies of the murdered Marr family in London’s East End, Burke and Hare and their bodysnatching business in Edinburgh, and Greenacre who transported his dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus.
With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know, ‘The Invention of Murder’ is both a gripping tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.
