Sunday, August 26, 2007

Platts in the 1861 English Census

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By 1861, we find Martha Platts heading a much smaller household. It is assumed that most of the children have married or moved out on their own. Still living in Lea (its unclear if its the same house) are:
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Name/Relation/Condition/Age & Sex/Occupation/Where Born
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Martha Platts, Head of Household, widowed, 58 female, Housekeeper, Derbyshire Criche
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Anne Platts, Daughter, Unmarried, 33 female, Hosiery Trimmer, Derbyshire Ashover
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Samuel Platts, Son, Unmarried, 27 male, Wool Sorter, Derbyshire Ashover
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John Platts, Son, Unmarried, 22 male, Apprentice to Fitter & Machinist, Derbyshire Ashover
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Some Notes:
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(1) Things have either improved for Martha if Housekeeper means she is staying home. With all her children working, money probably wasn't as tight and she may have been able to retire. However, she may also be working as a housekeeper as another wife on the page just has a blank as to occupation.
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(2) Samuel's occupation is listed as a Wool Sorter, a position which he appears to have held all his life. Wool came into factories with the uncleaned fleeces packaged into huge bundles. A Wool Sorter would rip open the bundles, divide and grade the wool before sending it to the next department to be cleaned and processed into fabric, thread or yarn. Different sheep produce different types of wool, and sometimes one animal can produce many differnt types also. Coarser wool makes a rougher fabric and is ideally used in outer garments. Finer wool, either produced by the sheep as a whole or just its undercoat, would be used in garments worn closer to the skin. If you've ever been in contact with an old wool blanket, you've felt how scratchy and itchy it is. That's because it was made from coarser wool. Also, some sheep are cleaner (or kept cleaner by the farmer) than others. Many will stain their coats, and this stained wool would be graded lower than a similar type that was unstained. Given that the Wool Sorter had to open many bundles and quickly sort & grade the fleeces, this was a specialized job with much training.
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(3) Other occupations on this page include: Joiner Builder (& Farmer), Servant, Joiners Apprentice, Scholars and School Girl, Lead Smelter, Chapel Cleaner, Stone Mason, Industrial Mistress, Infants Mistress, Industrial Assistant, Industrial pupil. The last four are the most interesting. First, to keep factories up-to-date and expanding, you need to have lots of workers and those workers need to be educated. The Infants Mistress would be the 1861 equivalent of a Day Care Worker, and indicates that there may have been enough of a concentration of female workers inside a factory (not at home) to need a Day Care. In addition the Industrial Mistress, Assistant and Pupil indicate an Industrial School was established nearby. About this time, American Textile Mills were also establishing schools to train their workers to do more detailed work as the industry had progressed beyond simple chores.

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