A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

positions in time. The remaining sons: the farmers, the shopkeepers, the
brokers and agents account for 49 per cent, but more than three-quarters of
them were clerks and we have discussed their prospects already. So it
would seem that those fathers in the professions and the higher status
occupations did put a proportion of their sons into similar status
employment as themselves. But all the fathers were also able to put some of
their daughters into the respectable occupation of an apothecaries‘
assistant. It seems then that cost was not the only consideration and others
such as the non-availability of an appropriate education, the need to
maintain respectability and a reluctance to lose status by allowing a
daughter to take employment were having an effect.
Where there was more than one son in the family, a comparison of
their occupations shows that, by no means did the eldest son always achieve
the highest status occupation. An examination of table 2 in appendix 4,
indicates that in only just over half the families did this occur. Even though
some subjective judgement is required in interpreting job titles to arrive at
this result, the near equal size of the two groups points to there being more
factors involved than the availability of money for education. This situation
is exemplified by the case of Beatrice Cole, whose eldest brother was a Tea
Inspector and a younger brother was a Chartered Accountant. Bertha
Cory‘s eldest brother was a Fire Insurance Clerk and a younger one was a
Medical Practitioner. The eldest brother of Sarah Gregar was a house
builder and the others were a House Agent and Decorator, and a Surgeon.
Doubtless, on occasions, the eldest son was following his father into the
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