• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Corporation Labourer

N

Nostromo

Guest
According to my grandmother's birth certificate, my great grandfather was a corporation labourer. Does anyone know what this means exactly? Also, does anyone know if it is possible to access records relating to corporation employees in the early 1900s?
 
Thanks. I wonder what they worked on in particular: the roads, constructing houses, sewers, pipes, parks?
 
Re: Corporation Laborer

Nostro it could have all sorts of meanings, another one was a Laborer did all other jobs which skilled men didn't do.

My Grandad as a Labouror for Birmingham Council on one Document, then another said he was a Carrier which was a Horse & wagon driver:)
 
Like The Steel Curbing To The Pavements In Those Days
My Uncle Bill Was One When He Was Young In The Late Forties And Early Fifties , He Was A Grafter ,,
 
Hello Nostromo

Certainly up to and including the 1901 census 'Labourer' did not neccarily mean unskilled or un timeserved. It was generally taken literally to mean somone who laboured physically at work whose job perhaps did not have a commonly recogonised name (by the clerking class). I have an ancestors in urban Birmingham who was a Brickburner. (He ran the furnace at a succession of the brickyards) His census entries have him in all but one case as Brickyard Labourer while certificates and other evidence are consistant. The same applies to someone else who was an Ag Lab but was hired and worked as a gamekeeper throughout his entire adult life.
 
My Grandfather was a corporation sewer man in the 1890s he was followed by my father and my uncles,then by my brothers and for a shor ttime myself total service to the city well over 200 years last Brooks retired 2009
finishing the line a Brooks on the Corporation payroll for over 110 years
 
Hi centurian
nice story to read ; just like to say my uncle bill from whitehouse street also in his younger days
was a corporation worker he was a steel curb layer around birmingham in the early years of the forties
he was made redundant and laid off ; so he went to work at averys scales in foundry rd smethwick where he spent his entire life
in the electro plating department ; right up until his retireing age and he actualy got me a job along side of him in my early days of youth ; but i never spent my life there like because of the fumes ;
i think most people worked for the corporation in those days either doing labourering or within the actual corporation building
i think it was more of the late 1800;s to the early 1900;s that this type of work was only going in those days
either laying tram lines and etc and then of of course there was parcel deliverys on the old brs, britsh road services as it was known
in those days such as walter street nechells whom employed alot of people
have a nice day best wishes astonian ;;;;
 
Back
Top