52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2014 – Week 10 Occupation Records

This week is week 10 of  Shauna Hicks challenge for 2014.  Shauna said that this blog challenge is to stimulate my own genealogy blogging efforts in 2014 by focusing on a different kind of genealogical record each week. I wanted a challenge that reflected my own archival background as well as my own genealogy interests and there are probably lots of other records that I could have included. The challenge has an Australian focus but most of these records will be found just about anywhere in the genealogy world.

It seems that each week (or when I get organised) I start to think about what to write for my post, I come up with something that I've already blogged about. This week is no exception. I thought I could share some of the certificates I have from when my great great grandfather William Lee Dawson studied medicine in Ireland and England in the 1840s and 1850s. This was my post for the 2012 Australia Day blogging challenge - Wealth for Toil by Shelly from Twigs of Yore

Instead I'll share occupation information about George Edward Lowe, spectacle maker of London and publican in Melbourne.

On 22nd November 1849, George Edward Lowe, spectacle maker of London was admitted to the Freedom of London. To become a freeman, men had to either complete an apprenticeship with a free man of the company and could now work at his trade in his own right, be a child of a freeman of the company, or buy the freedom of a company, Once you were a freeman of the company or guild you could apply for the freedom of the City. 
(Fitzhugh, T & Lumas S. (1991) The dictionary of genealogy. A & C Black : London.)




I have discovered no evidence of George Edward Lowe working as a spectacle maker in either Hobart or Melbourne where he lived. However, a search of Trove and Wise's Post Office Directory 1884-1885 revealed that George was the proprietor of Tankard's Family Temperance Hotel. 

The Public Notice below was published on 4th April 1883 in The Argus. It gives details of the transfer of the lease of Tankard's Temperance Hotel from John Tankard to George Ed. Lowe. 


The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957) 4th April 1883, p. 3
 

Occupation records through advertisements can also be found in Wise's Post Office Directories.


Wise's Post Office Directory 1884-1885.

Comments

  1. Advertisements are a great way to find out more about an ancestor's occupation. Thanks Sharon.

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