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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Lancashire => Topic started by: Mumsiewumsie on Wednesday 05 August 15 21:40 BST (UK)
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Can anyone tell me what a Roller Turner did please? This was my gfather's occupation on the 1901 census in Bolton and there was the word 'fitter' after it but I think the enumerator (or whoever categorised the occupations) wrote that on afterwards.
Many thanks.
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In the "Dictionary of Occupational Terms" there are roller turner copper, roller turner rubber, roller turner textile machinery, and roller turner wood. Can you give the census details so we can see the census page?
Stan
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Have you found your grandfather in the 1891(if old enough to have a job) or 1911 census, to see what his occupations were then?
Also his occupation on his marriage certificate, and the certificates of any of his children just to see how he is described and whenever he stayed in the same occupation?
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Fitter and Turner.
From the 1891 census Classified list of Occupations. Classes, Orders, and Sub-Orders.
Classification. V. Industrial Class; Order 10, Persons working and dealing in Machines and Implements; Sub-order 1, Machines; Fitter and Turner (Engine and Machine)
Stan
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He was still at school in the 1901 census (and his father was a tailor, so no help there) and was in America looking for work in 1911. As far as I remember roller turner was the occupation on his marriage certificate and the BC I've got for my mother is only the shortform .
He died when my mother was 13 so she never really knew what he did, and he was unemployed a lot (this was in the '30s) but she described him as 'a sort of blue collar engineer-type'.
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Probably a turner, using a lathe to turn rollers of some sort. Bolton had a large textile industry that the rollers could have been for but other industries also used rollers. Whether he worked for a firm making rollers for their own use or a engineering firm making different rollers for different clients.
He could have been a skilled turner / fitter, turner, in which case he would [ most likely ] have served an apprenticeship and you may be able to find apprentice records. Or he could have been a semi-skilled lathe operator turning batches on a turret or capstan lathe or similar.
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http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/archives/archives-indexes
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Thank you stanmapstone and youngtug
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I would expect him to be working for one of the textile machinery manufacturers. Rollers are used in other machinery, but only a mass-production maker of anything would have a full-time roller turner. In the case of Bolton, that would be textile machinery.
There is a related trade, "roller coverer" which involves taking the rollers and covering them with a tightly-fitting leather surface. The seam in the cover would be hidden in a slot cut into the metal surface of the steel roller.
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There's the possibility he was a Roll Turner, a highly skilled occupation in the steel industry. I think Bolton had a steel works around that time?
Imber
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Roll Turner: (iron and steel rolling) turns rolls, or is responsible for turning, facing and setting of rolls, on a lathe, when surface of rolls has become uneven through much use; is responsible for working and condition of rolls, and usually controls work of hot and cold rolling department; supervises work of roll fluters where employed. "A Dictionary of Occupational Terms"
Stan
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Unless you can find who he worked for and what they did it is all conjecture given the amount of different industries in the area.
Rollers are a widely used object in different forms and sizes in many industries. They can be small such as those used in roller bearings, or large like those used in steel rolling or the textile mills, and many sizes between. A lot of things are transported in site on rollers and roller conveyers. http://www.rootschat.com/links/01fuy/
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Just a piece of fairly useless information; I once dismantled a printing press at a newspaper premises. It had been bought from a scrap dealer in the 1930s and was supposed to have been originally used by a Bolton newspaper. There were 6 large rollers on it, each weighing three quarters of a ton, also several smaller rollers.
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There's the possibility he was a Roll Turner, a highly skilled occupation in the steel industry. I think Bolton had a steel works around that time?
Imber
No, lots of foundries, but no steel works. The nearest would be at Barrow-in-Furness, where the rollers would be producing steel plate for ships.
Textile machinery was mostly cast iron, with steel used only where needed, to keep the cost down.
Rollers for conveyors are not precision objects; any old bit of rod would do. In textile machinery, you need a rollers to fit very specific places, made to close tolerances.
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Rollers on conveyors may not be high precision but "any old bit of rod" is going a bit far. In fact, if they are mismatched or not turned true then the conveyor will not work correctly. If they are different lengths then they will not fit between the side rails correctly. We are still talking of tolerances of a few thousandths of an inch. Even belt conveyors, like those in coal mines would have rollers.
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When I first read this, I was thinking it might refer to printing fabric, which could use rollers, as well as newspaper printing machinery, which obviously did.
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Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm sure it would be to do with the textile industry rather than anything else but I guess I'll never know exactly what it was.