Millwright

[acceber]

Hello

Can anyone tell me what a 'millwright' did? I have found my g-grandad was a millwright on a marriage certificate in 1942. Would the millwright's job description changed by the 1940's from what it was in the 1800's?

Any help is much appreciated

acceber

[meles]

Designed, built and maintained mills or mill machinery, requiring a variety of skills, from reading plans to diagnosing and solving mechanical problems.

http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/m.html

meles

[acceber]

Thanks meles  thought it would be different to a miller but wasn't sure how. I will investigate this further.

It seems my g-grandfather had many different jobs from farm baliff in early 1900's to millwright in 1940's, back to a labourer in the 1950's and then working for the GPO when he died in 1961.

acceber

[Mart56]

R.A.Buchanan in his "Industrial Archaeology in Britain" (1972) sees millwrights as the ancestors of the modern engineers. The millwright he said developed from the tradition of the village blacksmith, wheelwright and carpenter:
" Such men could shoe horses, make cart wheels or turn pieces of wood on simple lathes and assemble the parts into furniture which could be graceful or utilitarian. They were the vital craftsmen of the early industrial community, but the new demands and resources of this community stimulated the emergence of the millwright as a sort of itinerant specialist in the construction of machines, industrial buildings, or improved roads and canals. The millwright was thus the representative of a significant transitional stage from the traditional crafts to the modern engineer. "