Family Historian User Group

Can anybody help me in decyphring these occupations from the 1901 census (taken in London)

Regards

Rodit


ID:2872

Not easy - are there other entries on the page that are more obvious that help you figure out the handwriting?

All I get is Tramway on the first and the odd 'Bottle Labourer' on the third!

have you the sheet reference to allow us to look up the whole page?

I can see 'Lime Works' as the first words on the second line, and 'General' as the first word on the fourth line.

The 1st, 3rd and 4th lines all seem to have the same last word starting with 'Ca' but nothing comes to mind at the moment.

Might the Ca word be 'carman'?

I looked long and hard and was also sort of on the 'car.....something' line - first line looks like Tramway Co. and whatever the other bit is, it presumably has to be also applicable to a Lime Works and to a General tag? Is the feint long sloping slash relevant to the actual lettering - it seems to be in approx same place and similar shape in all three cases? The possible 'm' in carman looks equally abyssmal in Lime so it could well be. Is carman a term of the time for driver? The third example looks possible for 'man' though previous two looks like more than that?

Sorry - nothing else springs to mind for now.

Yes, I understand a carman was a driver, originally at least of horse drawn vehicles.  That fits well with 'tramway' and OK with 'general'  Not so sure about 'lime works' but there was likely to have been a need to transport things.

Robert

Just to muddy the waters, if you look how he finishes the 'er' in 'worker' on line 4, it is almost exactly the same as the end of the 'Ca' word to the left of it ... so the word could end in 'er'.

I think its carman.....

I agree. Carman is a common term for a goods driver at the time.

Tramway Co. Carman
Lime Works Carman
Bottle Labourer
...
General Carman

Thanks to all for the comments. I will go with 'carman' which had never come to mind.

regards

rodit