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Occupations of Rubys on the England and Wales 1881 Census


Nikki Brown has provided a thought-provoking post on analysis.  Many one-namers love the analysis phase of a study but are unsure how to start.  It may vary depending on your study. For example, my one name study has very little UK content but is more a story of emigration from the Channel Islands to different parts of the world - i love to compare the lives/experiences of these emigrants depending on where they landed.  NOTE: this was a technical challenge for poor Blogger due to the charts etc. and may appear a bit odd - if it is unreadable please provide a comment.  
There has been a wide variety of blog posts on the Ruby website. They have inclluded origins and migrations of Rubys; name changes and confusions; discovering different records with new ways to use them, and problems when using them; persons of interest and of course, experiences and lessons (ususally good!) learnt from working in a team. I wondered if there was something new to do. I decided to examine the occupations of English Rubys recorded in the 1881 Census of england and Wales. 
I have ended up with a collection of figures and graphs but, to be honest, not much of a conclusion. Perhaps, readers can draw their own or maybe the figures themselves are of enough interest? I have taken suggestions of how this information could be developed and at the end of the figures, I have highlighted some of the problems of carrying forward the ideas, although this is mainly the usual problem of not having enough time.
The Figures
The total number of people with the surname Ruby on the England and Wales census was 231.
Total of all people on this census was 25, 974, 439. Therefore, Rubys comprised 0.000889 % of the population.
49% of them were in employment which was slightly higher than the general population in which 43 % were employed.


                        


 Approximately two thirds of those         Male - 70            Female - 43 
 who were working were men.



   





















Agriculture
Food Industry
Total 11. All male. Aged 15 to 70 years
Total 8 of which there were 5 men and 3 women. Aged 16 – 71
The eldest is a farmer of 30 acres, hay dealer and employer of 3 men.
Three are sons of the head of household.
One is a hay dealer and the rest (6) are agricultural labourers
2 Grocery assistants (one male, one female), a grocer’s porter (male) and worker in the grocery business (female), a fish porter, a journeyman baker, a milkman (male) and a milk seller (female).
Note: the two indoor farm servants have been counted as servants


Transport
Servants
Total 7, all male. Aged 23 – 57 years
Total 23 of which 4 were male and 19 female.
The 4 men included 2 indoor farm servants, a Page and "Boots (Inn Servant Domestics)" (the head was a hotel keeper).
Four worked for the Railway (a station master, signalman, guard and railway servant). The other 3 were a Millers Waggoner (Carman), Coachsmith and a Carman
The women were: 2 nurses, 3 cooks, 1 housemaid, 12 General domestic servants and a charwoman (widowed)

Textiles

Some would be factory and some in the home
Hospitality
Total 4. All female (although Ann recorded as male).
Aged 16 – 71 years
A Licenced Victualler, 2 barmaids (one described as a servant) and a widowed lodging housekeeper
Total 16. Aged 16 – 68 and there were 2 men and 14 women.
At least 3 of the women were widowed T
here was a dyer (male), 2 cotton weavers (one male & one female), one corset maker, 8 dressmakers, one tailoress 2 laundresses and a rag sorter (widowed)


Building Trade
Total 11. All male Aged 15 – 56 years
Factory workers
Total of 3, Aged 17 – 25 years. One male and two females.
The eldest being a Builder Employing 8 Men & 2 Boys Apprentices.
One carpenter, a painter, 5 bricklayers (one a journeyman), one Bricklayer's labourer, a Stone mason, and a Wall mason
The male was a key stamper and the women were a mantle maker and worker in a couch factory


Office workers
Other Trades
Total of 3, all male, aged 24 – 58 years
Total 3, all male. Aged 16 - 26
A Collector Taxes (Clerk), Solicitors Clerk and a Journalist
A Blacksmith, Padlock smith, and a gold beater

Emergency Services
Mines & Quarry
Total 3. All male. Aged 24 - 45 years
Total of 7 men aged 13 - 52
Two police constables and a fireman
1 tin miner, 2 Copper miners, 2 copper mine labourers, a coal trimmer and a quarry labourer


Armed Forces
Labourers and General Labourers
Total of 5, all male, aged 22 - 54 years
Total 8, all male. Aged 16 – 71 years
Four in the Navy and include a sailmaker



Entertainment

One 21-year-old female musician


Any Conclusions?
The obvious thing to notice is the quite large percentage, that is nearly a quarter, of Rubys in service. Apart from that, the next biggest groups are in textiles, the building trade and farming. It is quite an interesting mix. So how to make some sense of the figures?
a)    Comparing occupations to the general population.
This proved more difficult than first thought. Finding tables of occupations of the entire population on the 1881 census was not difficult but interpreting them and comparing to my own was. Many sources noted problems in compiling the tables in the first place, General Report/Section 8. VI Occupations.  (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/census/EW1881GEN/8) has figures that are too general or too detailed for comparison to the above, as least without a considerable amount of further work
A vision of Britain through Time [1] has looked closely at all aspects of the census and produced tabulated results. Regarding the occupations on the 1881 census the site notes “The most laborious, the most costly, and, after all, perhaps the least satisfactory part of the Census, is that which is concerned with the occupations of the people”. I wish I had read that before I started! The tables on this site
Other documents such as the 1998 study by Matthew Woollard, [2]  notes problems with compiling the tables themselves because of “the number of the problems inherent in the collection of occupational titles” and “the problem of imperfection within the raw data.” As well as the definition of the term occupation at the time.
b)    Looking at changes in occupation through time.
Inventions associated with the industrial revolution meant that manufacturing replaced traditional rural lifestyles and people migrated to cities to work in factories. Associated with this was also the rise in industries to provide the workers with housing and railways to transport the goods.
The occupations of the Rubys in 1881, however also shows the rise in domestic service as the Industrial revolution was also had an impact on women being employed outside the home [3].
I was looking to compare the occupation figures of the 1881 census and the 1841 census. The 1881 E&W census on the Ruby One Drive matched the results when searching for Ruby on the 1881 census using Family Search. However, I was unable to view the images to access the occupations for the 1841 census from this site. (Although download is easier than for other sites)
Although not as scientifically pleasing, I looked at using other commercial sites. However, as with my own study, I found another problem, in that numbers across sites do not match up. The same is true when searching for Ruby.
1841 Census
1881 Census
Family Search
140
231
Ancestry *
353
256
Find My Past
159
258
                                     * (despite an “exact search, some are not Ruby)              ** (241 on a re-search)
It is possible to download from all sites and compare the results for a more accurate dataset, but this takes a lot of time.
c)    Another thought is that the different occupations may well be area dependent. This of course links into the industrial revolution too. But did the people move to the jobs or did the jobs develop around them. For this to be answered fully would require an analysis of the relationship between occupation and residence on the 1881 census and also a comparison of residence between the 1881 and earlier censuses. I admit this is new to me as in my own study, the Pullum were all in London (well also Surrey or Middlesex back then) by the 1841 census.
How to proceed?
Apart for a lack of time, I am not sure which comparisons would be the most enlightening and any of them would probably expand beyond the size of a blog! Hopefully though there is some food for thought here.
Sources
1. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/
2. Woollard, Matthew. (1998). The Classification of Occupations in the 1881 Census of England and Wales. History and Computing. 10. 10.3366/hac.1998.10.1-3.17.

3. Burnette, Joyce. “Women Workers in the British Industrial Revolution”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March 26, 2008. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/women-workers-in-the-british-industrial-revolution/

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