Occupation on Baptism record

[rogerb]

I'm looking at a Baptism record from 1815, and there is a column which I assume is the father's profession, as some of the words there are things like "trade", "lab" and "soldier" etc.  But on the particular page I'm looking at there are quite a few that look like "mech" with a superscript c.  OK, so I would assume this meant mechanic, but I can't be sure that's what it says, and also 7 out of the 16 on the page have this occupation, and I can't believe there were that many mechanics back in 1816.

Has anyone got any ideas please.

Roger

[Chrisann]

From what I have read the term mechanic was then used to mean that a person followed a manual trade - but, evidently, did not apply to argricultural workers. I hope that helps until somebody with more precise information comes along. Chrisann

[Nick29]

It would be useful if you could post a snippet of the page, so that we can see it for ourselves 

[majm]

I can confirm there were mechanics back in 1816, and probably for many years before then.  

Here's a cutting from a NSW (Aust) newspaper of Saturday 7 April 1810 showing one of the skills needed by one group of  mechanics in that decade.  
http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/627964

There's other cuttings advertising "Mechanics tools" ... these seem to indicate they repaired things ... perhaps "mechanic" of 1816 etc would be similar to "maintenance fitter and turner" of mid to late 20th C

Cheers,  JM

[JenB]

According to my (rather old edition) of the Oxford Shorter Dictionary, a mechanic was ' a skilled workman, especially one who makes or uses machinery'.

This is from a list of 'old occupations'
MECHANIC
[1] Manual labourer, working at a trade.
[2] Operator of a machine (less skilled than an engineer).
[3] A person who uses machinery to produce goods, e.g. frame-work knitter, spinner, weaver, etc.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/trades.html#M

[1] Machine operator, less skilled than an engineer
[2] A journeyman engaged in one of the lower forms of handicraft
http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/m.html

[rogerb]

Thanks for the answers - an I think you are probably all right in that maybe mechanic didn't mean exactly what it means today.

Also, I tried to upload a pic, but had a failure for some reason!

Not sure about the following though

[Nick29]

Usually uploads fail because they don't have a unique file name - I tend to use a date prefix i.e. 100326_mypic.jpg

The other reason is that the file size is too big - it has to be less than 500KB 

[Rena]

.. on the particular page I'm looking at there are quite a few that look like "mech" with a superscript c.  OK, so I would assume this meant mechanic, but I can't be sure that's what it says, and also 7 out of the 16 on the page have this occupation, and I can't believe there were that many mechanics back in 1816.

I also looked at old occupations and found a mechanic operated machinery. Whereas my idea of a modern mechanic is one who mends vehicles.  As there were so many of them on the page have you looked for the local history to see what factory was nearby, or what the area was famous for?