Genealogy Chat

On one of the marriage certs I have, the fathers ocupation says scavenger. Does this mean scavenger as we would think scavenger or does it have another meaning ?

Found on a site about old occupations: Scavenger / Scaleraker 1) Street cleaner 2) Scavenger - also a child employed in a spinning mill to collect loose cotton lying about the floor under machinery Scavenger - A person employed by the parish to clean the streets Suzanne

Hi Suzanne thanks for that. very interesting. Eileen

what a funny title to someone who cleaned the streets for the parish. maybe this should be a job for Tony Robinson?

He did include that in the most horrible jobs series - you can still see some of the info on the BBC website if you google Worst Jobs in History.

in coastal towns the term also was used for what we would now call beachcombers

Hubbys rellie was ''promoted'' to scavenger when he had finished being urinal cleaner for the parish! Merry

Scavengers was also used for night soil men, who had the lovely job of going round the back alleys with a cart, taking the hatches off the outside ash privvies and clearing away the contents. (Apologies if you've just had lunch!) Jay

Indeed, I have a gt gt grandfather who is named in one census as a scavenger and in the next census as a sewerman - possibly almost identical jobs then. Scavenger was certainly the name given to those people who searched the banks of the Thames for saleable items washed down through sewers from the streets of London - where my relative lived.