Dictionary of Old Occupations

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Definitions of jobs Spooner - Steersman

Spooner: manufactured spoons. If you have the name Spooner in your family tree, it probably relates to the older occupation of manufacturing or selling curved wooden roof shingles (spons).

Sprig Maker: more formal name for a Sprigger, who embroidered lace.

Sprigger: embroidered lace. Also slang for a young person.

Spring Maker: produced metal springs, used in the manufacture of coaches.

Spuller: a textile industry worker, checking the quality of spun yarn.

Spurrer: alternate spelling of Spurrier; manufactured or sold metal spurs for horse riding.

Spurrier: manufactured or sold metal spurs for horse riding.

Squarewright: made fine furniture, e.g. wooden cabinets.

Squire: any man of higher gentry or status.

Stabler: looked after horses; a stableman or groom.

Stab-rag: slang term for a tailor.

Stainer: made stained (coloured) glass for windows and glass ornaments.

Copyright: Jane Hewitt. This dictionary is authorised for use on www.familyresearcher.co.uk only.

Stall Keeper: a market stall trader.

Stall Man: a market stall trader.

Stamp Man: a machine operator who crushed ore.

Stampmaster: an official who detected counterfeit goods being traded.

Stationary Engine Driver: operated a steam driven engine in a factory.

Stationary Engineer: maintained steam driven machinery in a factory.

Stationer: manufactured or sold paper, envelopes etc.

Statist: a statesman or politician.

Staymaker: made corsets. Prior to the mid 19th century, corsets were called 'stays'.

Steam Hammer Driver: operated a steam hammer, which was a machine with a hammer-like piston inside a cylinder. It can deliver variable strength blows in a controlled fashion, and was used to shape forged metals.

Steeplejack: a craftsman who repaired and maintained buildings, church steeples and chimneys.

Steersman: a helmsman, who steered a ship.

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.

Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson

Country houses were reliant on an intricate hierarchy of servants, each of whom provided an essential skill.

Up and Down Stairs brings to life this hierarchy and shows how large numbers of people lived together under strict segregation and how sometimes this segregation was broken, as with the famous marriage of a squire to his dairymaid at Uppark. Jeremy Musson captures the voices of the servants who ran these vast houses, and made them work. From unpublished memoirs to letters, wages, newspaper articles, he pieces together their daily lives from the Middle Ages through to the twentieth century.

The story of domestic servants is inseparable from the story of the country house as an icon of power, civilisation and luxury. This is particularly true with the great estates such as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Burghley and Wilton. Jeremy Musson looks at how these grand houses were, for centuries, admired and imitated around the world.