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Seven Unusual or Lost Occupations from History

People still go Mudlarking by the Thames, you have to buy a permit now!

pla.co.uk

Thames Foreshore Permits | Port of London Authority

Anyone searching the tidal Thames foreshore from Teddington to the Thames Barrier - in any way for any reason - must hold a current foreshore permit (commonly referred to as mudlarking) from the Port of London Authority. This includes all searching, metal detecting, ‘beachcombing’, scraping and...
pla.co.uk pla.co.uk

I was speaking to an artist recently that mudlarks regularly.
 
Well Stokie, I think they have finished renovating the building now, so it will be a big waste of money if nothing does come of it
 
mikejee said:
Well Stokie, I think they have finished renovating the building now, so it will be a big waste of money if nothing does come of it
Click to expand...
There have been other sites for the project, Mike. And attempts to make science parks in Birmingham. If you explore the interesting Steamhouse site, you will see there was European funding. This will cease. I would like Birmingham to continue to flourish but will it do so by manufacturing? I honestly don't know. Service industries do well.
 
Stokkie said:
There have been other sites for the project, Mike. And attempts to make science parks in Birmingham. If you explore the interesting Steamhouse site, you will see there was European funding. This will cease. I would like Birmingham to continue to flourish but will it do so by manufacturing? I honestly don't know. Service industries do well.
Click to expand...
Stokkie, It will be difficult just for science to carry it. In the US its been found that "mixed use" office space works best, it tends to handle business cycles better. My son in law and daughter attorneys, have a firm with offices in three different cities. In two cities they are renting space in a version of Steamhouse. There neighbors are accountants, marketing types and other lawyers etc.
 
Richard Dye said:
It really looks well done, hopefully they can attract the many clients needed. Is there sufficient parking and transportation?
Click to expand...
I would say yes. The site is in an area where there will be intense development. But I don't know the plans for private cars.
 
Richard Dye said:
Stokkie, It will be difficult just for science to carry it. In the US its been found that "mixed use" office space works best, it tends to handle business cycles better. My son in law and daughter attorneys, have a firm with offices in three different cities. In two cities they are renting space in a version of Steamhouse. There neighbors are accountants, marketing types and other lawyers etc.
Click to expand...
Richard, this makes a lot of sense to me. But I became part of the 'creative industries.' A big contributor to UK GDP. Perhaps digital, even film will take off. The expensive new buildings in the centre of town are occupied or due to be occupied by accountancy firms, so far as I can see.
 
On a lighter note, I found this list of endangered crafts. Clay pipe making, do we really want to encourage that? Watch making is taught in Birmingham and given a deep enough pocket you can buy a hand-made watch actually made in the Jewellery Quarter. But there are few British makers, certainly nothing to compare with Glashutte in Germany. I should like a decent mechanical watch from Birmingham. That said, other family members look at their phones to tell the time.

https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/redlist/categories-of-risk/

Struthers

www.strutherswatchmakers.co.uk www.strutherswatchmakers.co.uk
 

Knocker up

I thought this was a bit unusual, it looks Victorian/Edwardian era based on the clothing. You usually see old pics of a man with a very long cane tapping on windows to wake people up for work. Mary Smith was paid sixpence a week to shoot dried peas at sleeping workers windows, presumably at...
birminghamhistory.co.uk
 

Denture Making a lost art​

Chinese denture market has been expanding over the last 10 years and now many dentists are sending work there to get it done more cheaply,"The knock-on effect means less people in the profession. In some ways it's a dying art.

so soon your new chompers could say "made in china":(
 
Stokkie said:
Richard, this makes a lot of sense to me. But I became part of the 'creative industries.' A big contributor to UK GDP. Perhaps digital, even film will take off. The expensive new buildings in the centre of town are occupied or due to be occupied by accountancy firms, so far as I can see.
Click to expand...
It’s called follow the money! I think you could add insurance firms to the list I’m sure!
 
Stokkie said:
There have been other sites for the project, Mike. And attempts to make science parks in Birmingham. If you explore the interesting Steamhouse site, you will see there was European funding. This will cease. I would like Birmingham to continue to flourish but will it do so by manufacturing? I honestly don't know. Service industries do well.
Click to expand...
 
The same could be said for the gambling "industry" which , personally,I think pretty parasitic, but also if people were employed to build buildings which were then destroyed . Mind you, with the present average lifetime of modern buildings that process could almost be said to be getting very near.
 
But I am rather going off topic. We had better get back to the subject of the thread
 
I don't remember lamplighters but I do remember the men who used to come round and clean the glass of the old gas lamps. They had a ladder which was narrower at the top just like in some of the pictures.

Silk stocking, pegs and condensed milk tin? So far, so good - but can somebody tell me what I do with the perishing things after I've enticed them into the trap please?
 
Struthers Watches made in Birmingham. I posted about watchmaking earlier in this thread. Now the BBC have made a radio programme on Rebecca Struthers, who with Craig her husband, manufactures high-end watches in the Jewellery Quarter. It will be on the Sounds App for a year. They met at Birmingham horology school. Plenty of mechanical watches are made in Germany, Switzerland and Japan, but few in the UK. I was pleased to see Roger Smith receive an hon doctorate from BCU, he was the apprentice of George Daniels. I'm only sorry that I can't afford a Struthers watch, but it is a treat to listen to this celebration of Birmingham watchmaking, a trade which is not quite extinct.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019457
 
Not lost (I don't think) but unusual for the time perhaps. Whilst searching for a George Edwards in the 1911 census came across one (not the correct one) in Bham who was listed as a Professional Roller Skater.
 
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