Boot and Shoe Perator

[Currie]

Of the 70 or so newspapers in the 19C British Library Newspapers collection only four are Scottish. If I search in all newspapers for Tinsmith and Gasfitter in close proximity I get about 142 results. Of those, about 90% are in Scottish newspapers and most of the others are either about Scots or from parts of England not too far south of the border.

Could this Tinsmith & Gasfitter trade be a Scottish thing?

I did see a couple of stories in passing that might suggest they didn’t know much about gas. One Tinsmith & Gasfitter and his entire family were asphyxiated by a gas leak caused by a wooden or cork plug inappropriately used in the end of a gas pipe apparently having fallen out. In the other case, a Tinsmith & Gasfitter took on the task of finding the source of a bad gas leak in his tenement building. He used a candle for illumination and he and almost all of his family were killed in the natural consequence. Then there was the case in Sunderland where a Tinsmith & Gasfitter attempted to unsolder components of a canister that unfortunately still contained a stick of dynamite. The results were much too gruesome to describe.

Alan

[bobloes]

Alan Sharp -- Good point, shows my ignorance.

[Rockford]

Could this Tinsmith & Gasfitter trade be a Scottish thing?

Hi Alan,

My Great-Great Grandfather and his brother were both (Scottish) tinsmiths in 1841, living in Edinburgh's Rose Street, but both moved south to the bright lights of London. By 1861 my GG Grandfather is a Dry Gas Meter Maker. Perhaps tin was used for gas meters due to some property of the metal or its pliability. GGGf ended up at the Railway Works in Wolverton (now outside Milton Keynes) constructing/fitting out Railway carriages. It might be the case that they (and other tinsmiths) adapted their skills to new technologies and during the transition, some didn't understand the risks. I suppose it's like firemen allegedly being electrocuted wearing their metal helmets into fires where electrical lighting had been installed.

Best wishes

Brian

[Alan SHARP]

Alan Sharp -- Good point, shows my ignorance.

Easy done. The advance in materials has been so fast, in the last generation or two, it is hard to put oneself into the life and times of distant past relatives. Today it's all plastics and stainless steel, yet I can remember visiting a milk powder factory in the early 1960's where the product was loaded into square tin cans, in wodden shipping boxes, with the cans possibly holding 100 lbs of powder. To my eyes they were large cases.

Sheets of tin, copper, and light galvanised iron, were crafted into all manner of objects, not just items more commonly associated with the roofing and plumbing trades.

Alan SHARP.

[carlineric]

The definition of a tinsmith in the 1920 Census Occupations Dictionary is

tinplate worker, tinsmith, tin worker; tinman; a sheet metal worker who works in timplate, i.e., sheet metal coated with tin, cutting, rolling, raising, hollowing and shaping tinplate and closing rims, solder, seaming, or riveting joints of articles, e.g., domestic utensils and cans for food preserving.

for gas meter maker

meter maker, gas; a tinplate worker q.v. engaged in making bodies of gas meters; sometimes specifically designated, e.g., wet gas meter maker.

and for gas fitter

gas fitter; cuts iron gas piping to required lengths with hacksaw or special pipe cutting tool; taps ends of pipes for screwing into sockets for L-ends, joints, etc.; fixes piping in customer's premises with staples: fits burners, taps, meters, stoves, gas fires. etc.; finds escapes and executes repairs; is sometimes also a plumber; cf plumber and gas fitter (252); sometimes specifically designated. e.g., gas lantern fitter.

Ga engineers can still be a bit reckless. We were having the gas meter where I worked changed, the engineer used a cigarette lighter to read the serial number of the meter!


Eric