RootsChat.Com
Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: pipkim on Saturday 23 February 08 14:51 GMT (UK)
-
I have just received a marriage certificate for my GGreat Grandfather, who I already knew was a Coach Maker. He married a lady who's father was a Coach Smith.
Can someone tell me the difference between the occupations if any?
Did he marry the bosses daughter!
Pipkim :)
-
The only definition of coachsmith which I have seen gives it as a maker or mender of horse drawn carriages, so the same as a coach maker. It may be that the father of the bride thought it sounded a grander sort of title than coach maker but possibly quite simply that they used different terms to describe the same job.
A census entry might tell you whether the father-in-law was also the boss.
Jen
-
A coachsmith was a smith who forged by hand or under a power hammer the iron work used in the building of railway or tramway coaches, carts etc.' repaired, cleaned and tempered coach springs etc.
A coach maker, aka body builder, body maker, built up by hand the wooden parts,e.g. framework, lining, floors, mouldings, of the bodies of coaches, carriages, railway carriages, tramcars etc.
Stan
-
Hi Jen,
Joseph Whitall the Coach Smith, was the same in the 1851 census but there was no reference to self-employment.
Hi Stan,
Your post makes sense, metal working alongside the wood. Maybe they worked for the same business or at least community.
Charles Hooker b.1839, who was my GGreat Grandfather and the Coach Maker, learnt his skills from his father (also Charles Hooker b.1811), who did have a business in Basingstoke in 1851 and employing 3 men. He then moved to St Georges Hanover Square, still as a Coachbody maker but I am unsure about whether he had a business still.
Thanks for the help.
Pipkim
-
A coachsmith was a smith who forged by hand or under a power hammer the iron work used in the building of railway or tramway coaches, carts etc.' repaired, cleaned and tempered coach springs etc.
A coach maker, aka body builder, body maker, built up by hand the wooden parts,e.g. framework, lining, floors, mouldings, of the bodies of coaches, carriages, railway carriages, tramcars etc.
Stan
My g.g.grandfather (1846-1903) was originally a wheelwright then coachbuilder, would he have done both jobs then? He lived all his life in Liverpool.
Jean
-
Hi Jean,
Coach Builder was a general term for workers engaged in building carriages or coaches
A Wheelwright was a man who made wheels and wheeled vehicles.
A wheelwright assembled the wooden parts of carts, vans etc. prepared by a sawyer, or by a woodworking machinist, and fitted these parts together to make complete vehicles, he often also did the work of a wheel builder, or wheel maker.
Stan
-
So they would in essence be two different trades?
Wonder if he started out as an apprentice wheelwright but transferred to coach building instead.
Jean
-
Is there any apprenticeship register for those in 19th C who became coach related tradesmen? How does one chase this down?
I have several HUMPHRIES from Nunney nr Frome in Somerset who emigrated to Ontario as young adults and were coachbuilders, wheelwrights and so on and I wonder where they did their apprenticeships.
charlotte
-
So they would in essence be two different trades?
Wonder if he started out as an apprentice wheelwright but transferred to coach building instead.
Jean
As I understand it a wheelright could make both the wheels and the vehicles, and was a more skilled trade than just a wheel builder
Stan
-
Coach smith normally a blacksmith who specialized in coach work
-
also Charles Hooker b.1811), who did have a business in Basingstoke in 1851 and employing 3 men. He then moved to St Georges Hanover Square, still as a Coachbody maker but I am unsure about whether he had a business still.
Thanks for the help.
Pipkim
Hi Pipkin, it looks like the business was turned over to a gunsmith? in the early fifties,see
http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/AdvancedSearch.aspx?GeoType=London see 25th May 1852 second & third down on the left & 7th Juned 1850 is interesting,there are more but later years.My PDF is to slow to look.
Celia
-
Hi Celia,
Wow! thanks Celia for looking for me and passing the info on.
That is really interesting and adds more flesh onto the bones of Charles Hooker. I don't understand the legal jargon but it looks that he might of hit hard times in business and sold it all on, debts and all. Now I will have to find more about his move to London.
I've never managed to find anything on that site, so thanks again.
Pipkim ;)
If I remember rightly, his address in Basingstoke was next to a public house.
-
i am currently trying to help Trisholdham on her scavenger hunt find her relation James George Grace
for info: http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,403453.msg2725339.html#msg2725339
- wont repeat it on here but on the birth certifcates of 4 children he is given as a coachsmith this is late 1840's early 1850's and on one other he is given as a blacksmith, would this be a natural progression or would he have to do an apprenticeship?
later in the census he is a blacksmith
also a coachsmith in this census i thought referred to horse drawn carraiges not coaches pulled by engines i.e trains.
a long shot but do you know if there are records of coach smiths?
-
Hi Toni*,
Sorry, I don't have any records about coachsmiths and whether they have had or have not had apprenticeships.
The ancestor I have, Charles Hooker b.1811 (who became a coachbuilder), his father was a wheelwright and did an apprenticeship through his school, as did some of his brothers but I haven't had time to confirm that.
A wealthy benefactor left money to build a school, giving poor boys an education and trade. Not all the boys in the Hooker family seemed to benefit if their siblings where still at the school. Some of these school records I have found on the Hampshire archive but not accessed them.
I as yet don't know if there is a central register.
Sorry I can't help any more than that, at this moment in time at least.
Pipkim :)
-
thanks for your reply Pipkim, we are still looking for James George Grace in the 1841 census your comment of being a student and learning a trade made me rethink the one i found at Pembroke College who was a student right age not born in county everthing matches in that respect but looking at the actual image i think his name was Grant and not Grace. Its pre 1847 we cant find him thats why i wondeed about indenture records and the like
Toni
-
Toni
later in the census he is a blacksmith
also a coachsmith in this census i thought referred to horse drawn carriage.
You are correct A coachsmith Made & repaired Horse drawn Coach's,Blacksmiths if i remember rightly from my last (going in to it)Were also qualified to repair the Iron bits on the coach because they had the equipment to work Iron with.Blacksmith were also responsible for all the ion work you see high up in the old train stations today,so i was told :)
Celia
-
so would he have been able to progress from coachsmith to blacksmith without apprenticeship and woul dhe have had to had an apprenticeship for being a coachsmith
-
so would he have been able to progress from coachsmith to blacksmith
Its only a guess, but i would think it might have been the other way round.He would have to know how to work with Iron to work on coach's.So I would imagine he would serve his apprenticeship as a blacksmith first.Blacksmiths did many jobs
once qualified they could make anything ;D On the other hand repairing the ion on a coach is a bit different from making horse shoes,and ion girders ;D They have to do it right or the coach might fall apart.So yes they would probably have to serve an apprenticeship with a coachsmith.
Then they might have various jobs,but always working with.
Iron.
Celia
-
That would make sense Celia
thanks
-
I have a blacksmith/wheelwright who employed coach builders to work for him.
he started as a blacksmith and built up his business.
Margaret
-
My Great Grandfather was an unemployed coach smith, living in Birmingham in 1881. But he was an apprentice to a blacksmith.
-
All my coach body builders etc were based around Odiham, Southampton, Basingstoke and London.
-
A lot of the iron work in stations etc' is cast-iron & came from an iron foundry then assembled on site, not produced in a blacksmiths shop.
Skoosh.