'Boater Down' or 'Boater Down Labourer' has come up several times recently while researching family around Tipton area of Staffordshire. As far as I can see, a boater down was employed in an ironworks (an earlier census also gives the occupation as 'forgeman'), but would anyone have any idea what a boater down might actually do?
Do you know a particular ironworks that had his job? Googling around I find mention of "knock down" steamboat construction, where the parts (such as the hull) are fashioned at the ironworks, but are assembled closer to the site where the boat will be used. This is blacksmith-type work on a large scale. Other things built at Tipton ironworks are bridges. Some research into bridge parts might reveal an answer. I've had obscure job descriptions in my lot that reference a very specific spot in an industrial production line. This sounds like one of those.
I think you're right, Barb. Certainly ironworks around that area provided a lot of iron for bridges. There's a mention too of locomotives, as well as boats. I've been researching various other ironworks in the area - Biddulph, for example, but have yet to come across any 'boater downs' engaged there. Only at Tipton - and there appeared to be quite a number of ironworks there.
Not having seen the entry, I'd wondered if it might be a badly-written Beater Down (whatever that might be), but it seems the question has been asked before: Code: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/soc.genealogy.britain/for6hRwrdKA and someone suggested Bolter Down. I'm trying to imagine that with a Black Country accent, and I wonder if it might be feasible. I'm sure others know the accent better than I do, though.
I reckon Bolter Down is a good bet - the meaning of which can be found at https:// culturenl.co.uk/festivals/north-lanarkshires-war/museums/job-index/
I visited a number of ironworks and forges in the 1960's and 70's, including some at Tipton, but can't recall ever having come across the term. Arthur could well be right as a combination of "forging speak" and some of the local accent/dialect variations used to be quite something, often bordering on the unintelligible. Beyond that though, I'm about as clueless as everyone else.
An enquiry on another forum asks the same question. The answer was 'bolter down' and it was a suggestion, a wild guess, that the particular person in question could bolt down the two halves of a casting box. Other entries on the same census page were ironworkers. The entry in doubt was very hard to read with 'bo?ter down'. The third letter obscured and 'boater down' written in later.
Mm, I did wonder about the dialect. And it can be, as Bonzo says, a very difficult accent to understand. (My mother-in-law was from Dudley). We're definitely all thinking along the same lines. Thank you, everyone.
Breaker down? Putting 'boater down' into Ancestry search throws up an awful lot of 'boater downs' from the Black Country, in particular the Haycock family from Horseley Heath (as in, Horseley Ironworks) in 1911. Lodger William Cooper writes in his own hand 'boater down, ironworks', but son of household Charles Haycock is a 'braker down, ironworks'. I think it must've been a local term. My dad would've known this, I'm sure.
So...'Bolter Down' becomes 'Bo'ter Down', written and generally accepted as 'Boater Down'. And that's what I'm going with. This first appeared as the father's occupation in a 1871 baptism at St. Martin's, Tipton.
Doubt if this site has a definitive answer, but the forum Black Country Forges and Ironworks is a compelling read, with masses of information about Tipton, it's people and industries and the surrounding area. Code: www.blackcountrymuse.com
Enjoy it BH, it really makes a bosting (Black Country for very good) read and most posts contain anecdotes that bring the area back to life, warts and all.
