Victorian Era Factory jobs for men (a little help please)

[DawnM]

Everything we are looking up is related to children working in the factory.

 

We are trying to find adult male jobs in factories during the Victorian Era.

 

My son has to find a specific job.....not just "factory worker."  I know textile work was very prevalent, but can you name two or three specific jobs a 20 year old male would have in a factory?  Or point us to the right websites?

 

Thanks,

 

Dawn

[Jean in Newcastle]

http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/history/work/index.html

 

 

[HomeAgain]

Manager comes to mind.

 

[Lori D.]

Check out this page for lists of Occupations in Victorian England, with numbers employed in those jobs, and wages.

 

From a very fast superficial search, it looks like much of the factory work (esp. textile mills) was done by women and children, while unskilled or semi-skilled jobs for men tended to NOT be in the factories so much as in coal mining, construction, working on the railways or in the navy yards (rope making and rigging, boat-building, etc. or as sailors), agriculture, skilled trade workers and unskilled support jobs in the trades, urban "odd jobs", and as domestic labor (gardeners, grooms, hired help, etc.) 

 

Check out this page from the book Work, Gender, and Family in Victorian England -- it looks like in the second half of the 19th century (early Victorian times), adult men increasingly worked in skilled and supervisory jobs (at least in textile factories).

 

From Jean in Newcastle's link, in one of the sub-links, it does look like that in the early Victorian era, a factory might be a large warehouse which "mass produced" (through large number of workers working by hand, NOT mechanized production) a product or finished off a product, and you might have a number of stations with grinding stones for grinding or sharpening different products.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Lori D.

[Guest]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/lancashire/article_1.shtml

[DawnM]

http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/history/work/index.html

I saw that, but it has to be a specific job in a factory. Not a general job as listed here.

[DawnM]

Manager comes to mind.

Do you have any links to what exactly the job entails?

[DawnM]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/lancashire/article_1.shtml

Thanks.

 

That is still a bit general. He is supposed to write several paragraphs about a specific job and what it entails.

[bluepetermum]

Men employed in chemical factories who had to balance on one-legged stools in order to avoid falling asleep? Interesting because it emphasises how factory work was simultaneously boring and dangerous.

 

This page seems like a good starting point - last paragraph:

http://www.wattylercountrypark.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5001

Edited December 9, 2016 by bluepetermum

[DawnM]

Thank you.

 

I can't believe how hard it is to find info.

[Guest]

One has to do one's research. The article I linked listed a few specific jobs men had in the cotton factory, with a few details about mule-spinners. From there, further research will pick up more details. If you want to list the job he chose to research, perhaps people can play librarian and suggest sources.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Heigh Ho

[prairiewindmomma]

What about the Victorian potteries (Stoke on Trent area, etc.)?

 

Here's a list of jobs, and what they entailed:

http://www.thepotteries.org/jobs/index.htm

 

ETA: the pottery work was largely dominated by men, here's another source: https://books.google.com/books?id=KhGeKyNbYn8C&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=men+in+victorian+potteries&source=bl&ots=GBsgAFuY8H&sig=BJmE11W5E6ZSxdNzdSBH_LLLrNc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT7anRp-fQAhUrwFQKHXmVBSIQ6AEINzAG#v=onepage&q=men%20in%20victorian%20potteries&f=false

Edited December 9, 2016 by kbeal

[Alexigail]

I'm a little late here but the book North and South comes to mind. The men and women were employed in a cotton mill. Very dangerous work.