John Elder(mealer) at Agnes Hill Resolis(c1828).

[nikitah]

Hi, trying to return to my Elder tree ,
I have Charles Elder born Resolis, 14/ 3/ 1828,   Father John Elder, Mother Mary Paterson,   
John is a MEALER at Agnes Hill, 
Looking mealer up tells me , a mealer is " a person rooming at one place and boarding at another" , is there another definition?.     
When John married Mary Paterson  he was said to be a servant at Calmaduthy, Mary was of Resolis.   My question is, was he from another area? or was mealer a description for some one in  farming ? . Keep safe nikitah.                                                                                             

[Gadget]

A few online dictionaries say

a person eating but not lodging at a boarding house

[ev]

Looking at the 1841 Census transcription on FreeCEN-
Agneshill , Resolis , Ross & Cromarty.
John Elder 50 ag. lab born Ross & Cromarty
Jane(?) Paterson 40 unknown
Jane Elder 20 unknown
Isabel Elder 12 unknown
Donald Elder 4 b. Ross & Cromarty


ev       

[Skoosh]

 Scots: Mealler, a cottager who lives rent-free in return for bringing so much waste-land into production each year, eventually a number of these plots were amalgamated into a farm or added to a farm & let. Mailler same thing, mail=rent.
Can also just mean a tenant farmer.

Skoosh.

[ShaunJ]

Skoosh is probably right.

Looking at census occupations which have been transcribed as "mealer", most seem to be mis-transcriptions of dealer, anealer, master, etc. "Fish mealer" is one of the few that seem genuine.

[Forfarian]

In 1851 John Elder, 59, labourer, born Resolis, is in Resolis with wife Mary, a son and a daughter. So it would appear that he was not from another area.

If a mealer is someone who lodges in one house and gets his meals in another, there's no reason why he would necessarily be in farming. A lodger in a city might also make a similar arrangement. His relationship to the head of the household might be mealer, but his occupation could be clerk, or shopman, of factory hand, or student, or anything else.

It does seem slightly odd, if he was only a mealer in a particular house, that he would be recorded there and not in the house where he was lodging, because the census was supposed to record people in the household where they spent the night.

Edit: I had not seen Skoosh's post, which makes absolute sense. 'Mealler' isn't in my dictionary

[Skoosh]

It was back-breaking work for little return and at the end of the day the mealler lost the plot and started afresh somewhere else if he was fit enough or had a son.
 Largely how, generation after generation, & plot by plot, the big farms in NE Scotland were created. A cotter wouldn't have a Clydesdale for the work either as it required feeding that the cotter never had.

Skoosh.

[ShaunJ]

Where does the "mealer" reference come from? The baptism?

[Skoosh]

Meal/Mail rent, blackmail, protection money taken to prevent cattle being stolen .

Skoosh.