10 quirky jobs from history that no longer exist 

When we complete our census returns and CVs today, we may include jobs like nurse, marketer, or retail assistant. But centuries ago, the world of work looked rather different for our ancestors.  

Here are ten historical occupations that you would struggle to spot out in the wild today. Will your family history research uncover any of these job titles within your own lineage? 

Knocker-up 

Today, we rely on multiple alarms on our phones (and snooze all but one) to get us up and running in the morning. A century ago, that morning routine looked a little different for the nation’s workers. 

Meet the knocker-up. This human alarm clock would stalk the empty streets in all weathers to rouse factory workers and miners before alarm clocks became more widely affordable.  

In Bolton a century ago, 44-year-old Daniel Armitage was employed as a knocker-up. All his working-age children worked at a nearby cotton factory. 

The Armitage family in the 1901 Census. View the full record here. 

Daniel would have used a long stick to tap on the workers' windows at dawn.  

Not everyone was thankful for their services, however. One person wrote to the Liverpool Echo in 1906 to complain about being rudely woken as early as 4am by a persistent knocker-up. 

Liverpool Echo, 1 December 1906. 

We can still find knocker-ups in the late 1930s, such as housewife Ethel Ball in Warrington, and Tom Holland in Burnley. 

A cartoon from 1934, showing a knocker-up rousing people to vote, in Leeds Mercury, 26 October 1934. 

But then along came the modern alarm clock, and the job was no more. Reckon you’d prefer to be woken by a person knocking on your bedroom window? 

Town crier 

In times gone by, you’d most likely spot the town crier in a dashing Georgian uniform, ringing a bell while making public proclamations and announcements. It’s a nostalgic image of a bygone era, one where a mostly illiterate population would have learned of news or local bylaws. 

One such official was Mrs Mary Ann Blaker, who was the town crier in Chertsey. She took up the post, which had been in the Blaker family for generations, when the current town crier, her husband, and their son were both on active service in France during the First World War. 

Small adjustments were made to her uniform, including a dark skirt in place of the ‘nether garments of her husband.’ 

Mary pictured in her Georgian uniform, in Picture World, 18 January 1916. 

She also helped recruit men for the armed forces throughout the First World War. Even when her husband returned, Mary retained the position of town crier. 

Mary Blaker in the 1939 Register. 

She died in 1940 and was survived by her husband, son, and daughter. You might still spot a town crier in Britain today on the odd occasion, dressed in their traditional uniform and still ringing that bell. 

Lamplighter 

We might take a quick switch to turn on the big light for granted today, but 200 years ago, our streets were illuminated by gas rather than electricity – and it was all done by hand. 

People like George Allen of Hackney, who worked for the Gas, Light and Coke Company, would light each lamp one by one. 

Mr Allen lighting a lamp in the Temple in the 1950s, from the Findmypast Photo Collection.  

The 20th century brought an array of technological advancements, including electricity. Gas lamps along public streets were gradually phased out, and as a result, so were the lamplighters.  

By 1986, there was only one lamplighter left in London. Cliff Buhlman lit the lamps in Inner and Middle Temple by hand. The work took him an hour and a half each twilight, and then he’d return at dawn to extinguish them. 

You might still find the odd gas lamplighter in more historical areas of the world’s towns. 

Switchboard operator 

Forget mobile phones and landlines. Calls had to be connected manually during the early years of the pioneering telephone. Picture an office, miles of cables, and people at the desks plugging jacks into the required ports over and over again.

Switchboard operators of the London Region Fire Control Room in 1940, in the Findmypast Photo Collection.

Liverpool-based Dorothy Ainsworth was a switchboard operator in the early years of the Second World War. She was also in the Women’s Royal Air Force. 

The Ainsworth household in the 1939 Register. 

Live operators aren’t needed today with computerised dialling systems. You might find a receptionist in a busy office directing calls, or a call handler fielding first responders to emergencies, but you’ll see far fewer cables, and computers will be powering their work. 

Mudlark 

This odd job of scavenging involved roaming muddy riverbanks, hunting for valuables and lost trinkets to sell. This was particularly prevalent along the ancient Thames River in London. 

Daniel Upson of Essex listed his occupation in 1871 as a mudlark. The 23-year-old was a married man with two children. 

The Upson family in the 1871 Census. View the full record here.  

Sin eater 

This obscure occupation of old performed rituals believed to absorb the sins of the dead. Even by the late Victorian period, this job seems to have slipped into legend. 

Pearson's Weekly, 27 July 1895.

When someone died, the sin eater was called for. He was fed, and then he would proclaim that the soul had departed, ‘for which he would pawn his own soul’. 

Crow scarer 

Couldn't afford a scarecrow? Meet the human scarecrow – the crow scarer. 

We could only find a dozen instances in 80 years of census records, but they are there. Including 13-year-old William Mockett, who was contributing to his family’s farming effort by shooing away unwanted flying nuisances.  

The Mockett family in the 1891 Census.

In most instances, the crow scarers were teenage boys who would then go onto other work (just like Henry Green, who became a postman), but we did find 72-year-old Frank Tunnage doing the same job in Essex. 

One Ben Thackray got his first job aged eight picking potatoes on a farm and was often paid to walk through the fields shaking a rattle to disperse the pesky crows. 

Nightsoilman 

This unenviable task involved emptying cesspits and clearing streets before modern sewers were introduced. In times of old, large towns and cities could suffer ‘The Stink’, so the role of the nightsoilman was crucial. 

They would make the rounds with a cart, collecting any household or business waste left on the streets and taking it away. 

John Henry Hebelthwaite of Bucklow, Cheshire, was a nightsoil labourer in the ashpit – that's where the waste was taken. Sadly, he didn’t make it to the next census in 1911, dying in 1905 aged just 27. 

The Hebelthwaites in the 1901 Census.

As Britain quickly industrialised and its population expanded, more modern sewerage systems were built, and the role of the nightsoilman slowly became redundant. But even today, there are people who work long hours in every weather to ensure our bins and recycling are collected. 

Computer

No, not the machines we use daily in the modern age. Human computers would perform complex mathematical calculations for fields like astronomy, weather forecasting, and even codebreaking. Women of the WRNS at Bletchley Park were instrumental not only in running codebreaking machines during the Second World War, but also doing those all-important manual calculations.

Minnie Hind worked as a computer for the Civil Service, in the 1939 Register.

But with the dawn of the machine computer, human computers turned out to be more expensive and more prone to error, and they evolved into computer programmers.

Ice cutter 

Before modern refrigerators and freezers, ice was hewn from frozen surface water and used for cold food storage in the warmer months.  

Harvested in the winter with a handsaw, workers would cut the ice before it was exported around the world to those who could afford it – big houses, businesses, stately homes.  

Ice cutters in 1910, from the Findmypast Photo Collection, image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

You might struggle to find an ice cutter in Britain even a century ago, but plenty of people worked in the ice business, like 23-year-old Francis John Ottley, an ice carrier for the London Ice and Cold Storage Company.  

The ice trade largely fell out of use as electrical refrigeration became more widely available.  

Delve deeper into ancestors' old occupations 

Whether they were labourers or lamplighters, how our ancestors earned their wages tells us so much about their story. As you build your family tree, uncovering the world of work helps to understand your family's experiences beyond the milestone moments. Online resources and handy tools can reveal what their day-to-day lives looked like.  

How to uncover the jobs that defined your family's story  

Our research guides make researching old occupations easier than ever. Whether you're a census specialist or you're just starting your family tree, explore how to find your ancestors’ jobs and how to trace inherited English occupations.