leather dresser (journeyman)

[Katie123]

Hi all,
What was a leather dresser (journeyman)? It is listed exactly like that on my grandmother's birth certificate in 1918. Is it something to do with the war? As the man in question was in the Royal Army Service Corps in 1918; I know he was involved with the transporting of horses...so I would have assumed that he would have put something about being a soldier rather than a leather dresser?!?
Any help appreciated

[behindthefrogs]

As a journeyman (from the French journee - by the day) he would have completed an apprenticeship but was employed rather than having his own business.

A leather dresser carried out the final stages in converting a hide into leather preparing it to be made into specific goods.

David

[Galium]

Someone who had volunteered or been conscripted into the army because of the war might not think of himself as primarily a soldier.  He was a leather dresser before, and probably hoped to go back to that trade afterwards.  If it wasn't him, but his wife who  registered the birth the same might apply to the way she thought of him.

[Rena]

If the father had enlisted into the army then his occupation would be soldier, but being forcibly conscripted into the forces during war wasn't considered an occupation.

[Katie123]

thank you all