Workshop with an archivist to explore historical trades and occupations through diaries, journals and oral histories.
Nottinghamshire Archives is hosting a workshop called Making a Living - Trades and Occupations on Thursday 26 November, starting at 2:00 PM. It's a session built around the kinds of old job titles that sound like they belong in a different world, the ones you might stumble across in a family tree or an old census and have to stop and think about. The workshop starts with questions like 'What did a Platcher do?' and 'What were the duties of a Warrener?' — the sort of things that don't have an obvious answer in a modern dictionary.
Rather than just being told the answers, you'll be working through the archives yourself. You'll spend the session going through diaries, journals and oral histories, piecing together what these roles actually looked like on a day-to-day basis. It's about taking those strange titles and finding the real people behind them, using the records to build a picture of what working life was like in the past. You'll be led through the process by one of the library's archivists, so you don't need to be an expert in old handwriting or historical research to get stuck in.
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It's a hands-on afternoon, and since you're working with original materials, it's as much about the process of discovery as it is about the trades themselves. If you've ever wondered about the odd jobs that used to exist in the region, or if you just fancy spending a few hours in the archives with someone who knows their way around them, this is a good way to do it. The workshop runs at Nottinghamshire Archives on Thursday 26 November, starting at 2:00 PM.
