It’s three days until Christmas and the plot has already well and truly been lost. Regular blog followers will know that we enjoy searching censuses for daft occupations, names etc. Today, we searched for ….
SANTA!
…. and were amazed to find EIGHT including Elijah Harding who was the head of the household at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire and was, according to the Ancestry transcription, a ‘magic santa and exhibition formerley’. Are you having a laugh? Elijah’s actual occupation was a ‘magic lantern exhibitor (formerly)’. Aged 89 years, he had clearly earned his stripes and hung up his magical lamp.
Then there was Henry Almond of 29 Park Lane, Handsworth, Sheffield, who was allegedly a ‘general santa stone quarry old age pension’ – urm, no! General carter stone quarry, in fact.
George Edward Jones‘ occupation actually – remarkably – did appropriately have Santa Claus within its title. ‘Santa Claus Stockings and Fancy packages’ perhaps should have included the word ‘manufacturer’ though! Florence Taylor, lodging at 59 Moselle Avenue, Wood Green was a ‘Santa Clause Stocking Machineist‘ – yes, we know it should be Claus, not Clause, and machinist, not machineist!
More entertainment tomorrow – what shall we search for next? Reindeer….?
