Occupations and Professions in your family

[CMcG]

Can someone please explain to me what exactly a stitcher did? I know that they sat at sewing machines and I think that they put the finishing touch to handkerchiefs but I would welcome a description from someone knowledgable. Many of the women in my family tree were stitchers. Several of them worked in a factory on the Grosvenor Road, beside or not far from a cinema (Coliseum? - not the Ritz or the Hippodrome).

Thanks in advance for your help!

One of the following companies may be a possibility, taken from the 1951 Lennon Wylie website street directory entry for Grosvenor Road, you can look at other years as well:

28-30. Grosvenor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
34-38. Victoria Hemstitching Works Ltd.
40-44. Rowntree & Co. Ltd. (York) depot
       Coliseum Picture House
...here is Durham Street

There was also Hardy, T. L., & Co. Ltd., linen handkerchief manufacturers on the same side, further down at nos. 10-12.

http://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/gcomplete1951.htm

The 1960 directory entry for the Grosvenor Manufacturing Company added 'light clothing manufacturers'. Newspaper advertisements show that both the Grosvenor Manufacturing Company and the Victoria Hemstitching Works employed stitchers.

There was a large fire in the Victoria Hemstitching Works in 1946 and in the ensuing salvage sale, there were newspaper advertisements for '500 Pieces of Cotton Handkerchief Cloth, Quantity White and Coloured Handkerchiefs, more or less damaged as the result of the recent fire...'.

Many of the newspaper advertisements by the Victoria Hemstitching Works were specifically for punch stitchers / punch hemstitchers, ie. folk who could use a hemstitcher sewing machine to punch a hole in the fabric (separating the fibres, not breaking them) and, using two needles, to sew around the hole, thereby creating a decorative design of holes, for example, like the edging of a handkerchief.   

[Eamann]

Thank you very much! What you describe brings it back to me - my relatives worked as "hemstitchers" and I am almost certain that they worked in the Victoria Hemstitching Works (I should have thought myself of consulting LennonWylie). Every Christmas we all received a box of handkerchieves - I still have half a dozen in my wardrobe!

[stalightr]

What about farmers and Inn keepers

[CregaghSarah]

Found out that my 3 times great grandfather Richmond was a Glass Embosser.

Am I correct in thinking that its the raised lettering on bottles and glasses? e.g " bumpy " lettering on Guiness pint Glasses etc.

[CregaghSarah]

Also discovered that my Great Great Aunt Lillian was a Warp Winder and my Great Great Aunt Margaret was a Parch Hemstitcher.

can someone clarify these for me?

[James James]

A warp winder, sounds like a warper, or warp dresser, who set up the warps, the threads, on weaving looms, prior to weaving.
They operated a machine which wound the yarn from containers onto reels and then from the reels onto the beams on the weaving loom.

[madge4500]

http://sites.rootsweb.com/~usgwkidz/oldjobs.htm

list of occupations in Ireland at the turn of the century, with descriptions. Enjoy

[Tipperdarby]

My 2x Paternal Gr Uncle James McFall was a famous Harp Maker in Belfast in the early 1900’s. He worked out of 22 York Lane, his son Malachy worked with him.  His “McFall harps” are in many places throughout the world.....Linenhall Library Belfast, the Vatican, Spain, USA, Australia. He died in 1950 and I was sad to discover earlier this year that he is buried in an unmarked grave in Milltown Cemetery along with his wife plus my Gr Grandmother and my 2 x Gr Grandparents as well as other relatives.
His last workshop was 13 Rathbone Street Belfast.

Eileen