Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

various denominations, book-keeper, land-surveyor, road-surveyor, relieving officer,
sheriff’s officer, insurance agent, poor-rate collector, justice of the peace, registrar,
exciseman, parish-clerk, pound-keeper and other parish officers, and various commercial
clerks or clerks for various public bodies. Many of these roles were combined with
others. Redditch’s medical doctor, Dr Taylor also ran the post-office with his daughter,
while William Henry Boulton, grocer and mercer, was also agent for the Birmingham
Fire Office and the Stourbridge and Kidderminster Bank. 408
Outriders or commercial travellers appear more frequently now. 409
Soldiers and
seamen occasionally receive mention in local records and, more specifically, ensigns,
volunteers, Greenwich pensioners and Chelsea pensioners. 410
Policemen first appear on
the scene in the 1840s in the Worcestershire parishes, while night-guards and watchmen
are listed in Redditch, perhaps guarding the needle-factories and warehouses. Studley
had a fire-brigade some time before 1850. 411
A Redditch prostitute figures in legal
documents, while a female prisoner is in Redditch jail in 1841. 412
References occur to various other occupations such as trumpeter, organist, violaplayer,
fiddler, comedian and portrait painter. Many of these were perhaps part-time
roles, which come to light because a greater number and variety of sources survive than
was the case in earlier centuries. Traditional lore was still practised by the white-witch in
Crabbs Cross, while the modern age was represented by the chemist’s servant and
408 Lewis’s Worcestershire Directory 1820, Pigot’s Worcestershire Directory 1828-9, Pigot’s
Worcestershire Directory 1835, Robson’s Birmingham and Sheffield Directory 1839 and Pigot’s
Worcestershire Directory 1842.
409 For instance in WoRO, Redditch baptisms 1813-1840 they are sometimes referred to merely as
‘travellers’, which causes confusion with ‘travellers’ meaning gypsies.
410 WaRO and WoRO, 1841 and 1851 censuses.
411 Griffin, This Noble Duty, A History of Fire-fighting in Warwickshire, p. 13, suggests, as with Alcester
that the Studley brigade may have been founded to counter the work of incendiarists circa 1830. The firefighters
must have been part-time, appearing under other occupations in the censuses.
412 SCLA, DR37/2/Box124/66 and WoRO, 1841 census.
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