Flock Dresser

[defallowfield]

Good morning, friends,

I'm trying to find out what a Journeyman Flock Dresser did.

This is the title given to a relative in the 1851 census for Spitalfields.

My 1886 dictionary tells me that a journeyman was often someone hired to work 'by the day'

The dictionary also tells me that the word 'flock' was used to describe the discarded bits of wool and cotton at the mill but while this possibly puts the occupation into some sort of context, it still doesn't really tell me what a flock dresser did.

The chap who had this job was aged twenty...

Is anyone able to help me out with this question?

With kind regards,

Kir 

[Corryn]

Hi Kir

This site might be useful for you

https://www.swicofil.com/consult/industrial-applications/para-textil-and-carpets/flock

Corryn

[stanmapstone]

Flock: A material consisting of the coarse tufts and refuse of wool or cotton, or of cloth torn to pieces by machinery, used for quilting garments, and stuffing beds, cushions, mattresses, etc. OED

From A Dictionary of Occupational Terms.
Flock worker; general term for any person engaged in picking, preparing, or handling flock; includes flock picker, flock sorter, card feeder. 

Scourer, rag; shoddy scourer; flock washer, rag washer, shoddy washer; prepares scouring solution and runs it into scouring machines; places rags in machines where they are carried along from one bowl to another by rollers and swing rakes to cleanse them and remove carbonised and other foreign matter.


Stan

[Kay99]

Looking at the flock dressers in the 1851 census, apart from the your ancester,  the flock dressers were mostly in Yorkshire in areas with woollen mills which seems unlikely in Spiltalfields. 

I noticed his parents worked in the tailoring industry and Spitalfields had a silk industry so I wondered if his job related to the manufacture of silk http://travelsintextiles.com/the-story-of-spitalfields-silk/


Kay

[youngtug]

Flock was reclaimed clothing etc. 
 flock and shoddy  - flock being a cloth made by grinding up old used woolens, and shoddy being a cloth made from a mix of recycled wool and new wool.

[youngtug]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19447015408687963?src=recsys

[Crumblie]

As a child growing up in Yorkshire in the 1950s the terms flock and shoddy were still around.

[defallowfield]

Thank you everyone for your help.  I really do appreciate it.

I've got a good idea now as to what a flock dresser did.

The family in question were from Scotland.  They migrated to London in the hope of seeking their fortune.  It was a terrible mistake on their part.  The father ended up dead in the workhouse and the mother died in the cholera epidemic in 1854.  Many of the teenage sons turned to crime and ended up in gaol after which they were drafted into the navy.  Of course if they hand't moved to London, their daughter wouldn't have married a London waterman and down the line I would not have been born, but their life is a sad tale of dashed hopes.

That website about Spitalfields silk is a good one as another group of my ancestors were silk weavers in the early day and their claim to the fame was assisting in the preparation of silk for Queen Victoria's wedding dress and I see that is mentioned in the article.

Cheers

Kir

[Viktoria]

Shoddy and Mungo were the terms used for old clothing etc which were pulled to shreds to make flock .
This mostly in Yorkshire where with the pulled used cloth some new waste bits were added for” bant”,this was Mungo but Shoddy was all old repulled stuff with very little bant.
Bant being quality .
Mungo was very inferior to new but much cheaper .
It would be sized to give some firmness but really was very poor stuff.
One branch of the firm for which my husband was Export and Shipping
Manager did a very busy trade with Yorkshire but also worldwide in reclaimed cloth ,for paper making but the sideline was for shoddy and mungo with Yorkshire.
The old flock mattresses would be stuffed with just that, flock.
It was washed however , as lots of the rags the rag bone man collected would be sold by him to firms for shoddy and mungo wher they would washed in big vats  and were torn to shreds in big machines and all fluffed up,to be re spun or used as stuffing for pillows and mattresses.

Viktoria.