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An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 4:21 pm
by kelvindaleman
Can any clever person out there tell me what kind of employment required a 'LOPPET CUTTER' ? This apparently, was the job of an inhabitant of 'Grahamston' which was a village which stood on the site of the present Central Station in Glasgow about 140 years ago. Nearest I got was somebody who cut loppets!!

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 7:44 pm
by dazza
Are you sure it isn't "lappet" cutter?

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 7:59 pm
by edward carolan

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 8:08 pm
by viceroy
Almost certainly Lappet or Lappit Cutter.

If I'm not mistaken this relates to an entry in the 1861 Census covering a woman called Jannet Urie living at 35 Alston St. in Grahamston along with her husband and 3 children. I looked up the actual census record - as usual the handwriting is obscure but it does look like "loppet" cutter. However this shouldn't be taken at face value. These old census pages are often crawling with transcription errors.

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 8:57 pm
by Lucky Poet
Lappet would figure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lappet

A strangely specific way to describe a person working in clothes manufacture, but that's the mid-nineteenth century for you, I guess.

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:45 pm
by robertpool

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:46 pm
by robertpool
the 1859 Post Office Directory shows a Brownlie, R., lappet wheel maker, 27 Montrose st.

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:04 am
by moonbeam
I had a relative who was a "cousieman" in the 1881 census. Extinct job. He put the coal hutches on to a cable going downhill in a mine and disconnected the tubs or hutches when they came up the hill full of coal inside the mine.

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 10:16 pm
by the researcher
according to my dads birth certificate his father(my grandfather) was a turner which is someone who turns metal or wood on a lathe which was most likely metal which is engineering related as my dad was good at car repair and did all his own on his cars ive also got this skill as i like repairing bicycles and am self taught having done bicycles since i was 14 and have also worked as a bicycle mechanic in a bicycle shop, ive also stripped down motorbike engines and rebuilt them
you never hear the word turner being used nowadays but most likely where the surname turner originates from

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 8:45 am
by Dexter St. Clair
Clippie.


Image

with thanks to ninatoo

[url]http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2944&start=120/url]

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 11:23 am
by Doorstop
Seeing the picture of the Clippies reminds me of a story a mate told me last week.

A photo was posted elsewhere of a couple of 1970's Glasgow kids standing in a back court, both dressed in identical astronaut outfits. Classic 70's stuff - silver lamé suits with NASA badges and big, goldfish bowl plastic helmets etc and my mate had commented that he remembered those well. All his mates had spaceman outfits or cowboy or soldier get ups, but for some odd reason a family member had bought him a bus conductor outfit, complete with change bag and clippie machine etc.

When all his mates were running around shooting each other with machine guns or laser beams, he was busy giving anyone that killed him a ticket.

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 11:25 am
by dimairt
There were conductors on the trams in Edinburgh yesterday.

Durachdan,

Eddy

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:25 pm
by yoker brian
dimairt wrote:There were conductors on the trams in Edinburgh yesterday.

Durachdan,

Eddy


They are on the trams everyday - no longer called conductors, Customer Service / Revenue Protection Officers is the new term

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:03 am
by Dexter St. Clair
They don't issue tickets they inspect them. They do issue fines.

Re: An extinct job?

PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 6:25 am
by ninatoo
I got a bit of a fright seeing my granny's pictures up there! I'd forgotten I'd posted them.