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Why change jobs from a shoemaker to a miner?

K

karenmurphy

Guest
Hello everyone out there.

I've just discovered an ancestor who changed jobs in the 1860s from being a cordwainer (shoemaker) to a coal miner.

This has puzzled me and I am wondering if anyone out there knows any history of the shoemaking industry (or just has an opinion!)

I can't imagine why one would want to exchange a fairly comfortable and safe trade for such a dirty and dangerous trade.

Was the wage higher for a miner than a shoemaker?
Was the shoemaking industry in decline and he had to look for a change in career and this was the only choice?

His wife came from a mining family so perhaps it was just peer pressure from the wife's family!

Would love to hear from anyone who could she any light on this.

many thanks Karen

(PS It did end up being a dangerous job for him as he got killed down the mine in 1881)
 
Karen
it might depend on the area he was in. I do think that mineworkers were (comparatively) well paid . They had to be for the risks they endured, both risk of accident and of developing serious lung diseases (pneumoconniosis - though i don't think it was known as that then). I gather that in some areas entry to a good job in the mines depended a bit on who you knew, so if his wife's family was in the industry, then it would help.
Mike
 
My maternal grandfather was born in Eckington, Worcestershire, in about 1885 and worked for a glove manufacturer until he was about 20, when he upped roots and moved to Brum. For one simple reason: money. He got a job as a shunting-engine driver at ICI Witton Works and stayed there until he retired in the early 1950's. He said his mother (his dad was dead) would never even consider coming to Birmingham to visit - as far as she was concerned Brum was on the other side of the world. I've got a photo of him with his mother, taken on a visit back to Eckington - he's wearing a rather flash suit, and looks very prosperous and full of himself, while she's in widow's weeds.

Big Gee
 
thanks Big Gee
I think I can presume then that it was probably more financially viable in the pit than the shoemaker's

regards Karen
 
Hi Karen.
The 1860's was a period when soldiers were returning from the Crimean War and the Indian Mutinee. Out of neccesity many of them had learned the leather and shoemaking trades and decided to ply their trades on the streets of the big cities and towns of the UK. Many of the professional shoemakers were unable to compete with this market and moved on to other trades. This also happened after the Napolionic wars. This may have some baring on the move to mining and although this wouldn't be the obvious choice, their was plenty of mine work about at the time and as stated, the rewards were there to be taken.
 
Maybe there was more to it than just the £££'s. A good friend of mine who lived in South Wales was a miner but lost his job when the pit closed. He worked as a sales rep for a couple of years, but at the first opportunity went back to the mines. It probably wasn't the money in his case - I think he just missed the camaraderie of the pit.

Big Gee
 
thanks for all the information, it shows that as always, there are always several possibilities (and that's why I find social history so fascinating!)

Chock2 - so are you saying that the soldiers had to learn the shoe making process whilst signed up to the forces? Why was that?
 
In the 1800s Shoemaking was a cottage industry supplying middlemen such as Clarkes Brothers on contract. In the 1860s Britain went into recession with lay offs as you have today. Industrial methods of shoe production in factories replaced the cottage industry. Independant shoemakers went the same way as the cottage weaver and small mill owner.
As to mining being one of the better paid jobs I am not so sure, mine owners have always had a name for being parsimonious and lax on safety measures. I have noticed in lots of family trees a movement from place to place and it is nearly always chasing work of whatever was available. Sometimes another branch of the family would help them gain work at a workplace they worked at by speaking up for them.
As you say something seriouse would have brought about the change in trades.
 
The cordwainer in my family lived in Ladywood back to backs 1853-1881 & I had always assumed the work was poorly paid - or people could not afford his wares. Perhaps mining was better paid.
 
I'd always understood that a cordwainer made high quality shoes , or at least that this was the original meaning. Of course that doesn't mean that he necessarily got paid well if he worked for someone else who took all the profits..
Mike
 
according to https://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~alan/family/N-Money.html , the nominal (don't know what nominal means in this context) annual income for a miner in 1861 was £62.89 /year. This compares to £44.18 for a general labourer , £53.94 for police, guards & watchman , and £63.26 for those "skilled in textiles". i think therefore that my earlier thoughts were not correct, as the miners didn't earn a particularly reasonable wage . The table also shows that, as now, the real crooks (solicitors & barristers) triumphed then as well, earning £1600/year (nominal) compared to surgeons who made £343 and teachers who earned £93.76
mike
 
I have an ancestor who was born in Dunchurch and became a shoemaker. Then in 1851 census he's listed as a Policeman in Long Itchington. By 1861 he was a shoemaker again and living in Coleman Street Aston. That must have been a bit of a culture shock, from rolling countryside to a back-to-back in Brum!
I would have thought a policeman was well set up...so why move to Birmingham and back to his old trade of shoemaking? I expect I'll never know.
 
thanks for all the information, it shows that as always, there are always several possibilities (and that's why I find social history so fascinating!)

Chock2 - so are you saying that the soldiers had to learn the shoe making process whilst signed up to the forces? Why was that?

I had a distant relative who lost both legs in WW1, Billy Pinfold of Baddesley Ensor. he was taught shoe making to enable him to support himself, which he did for many years.
 
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