Jobs in History Series #1

disgusting jobs in history Tasha Tasha's or sewer hunters were people who ventured into the filthy sewers looking for valuable items such as copper coins or gold to sell on Victorian London was becoming a crowded urbanized metropolis and the Seward Network was under great pressure to wash away the growing populations waste this disgusting job offered many dangers to dark tunnels often crumbled and the deterioration which could bury you alive you could get lost in the complex maze like Network of the London sewers there was risk of suffocation from breathing in pockets of noxious fumes or foul air sometimes when the sluices were lifted a rush of water entered the sewers posing a risk of drowning in excrement and the most feared threat rats swarms of rats hid in the dark shadows waiting to attack the rodents were rampant in Victorian cities and cause disease one torture said when a rat bite is bad it festers and forms a hard core in the ulcer which throbs very much indeed this core is as big as a boiled fish's eye there are accounts of swarms of rats overpowering sewer hunters tearing them to pieces and to be discovered by their fellow Tasha's washed up on the Thames the next day this is why Tasha's preferred to move into the sewers in gangs of three or four led by an experienced veteran Tasha's used a variety of tools for the job as well as carrying lanterns for the dark tunnels and a pan for saving raw sewage from valuable items Tasha's carried a pole around which was seven or eight feet long with a large iron hoe on the end this vital tool was used in case of Tasha sank into a quagmire enabling him to attach onto something solid to pull himself out it could also be used to dig through rubbish and uncover the treasure they were looking for Tasha's wore long coats with large pockets for holding the items they collected canvas trousers and old slots for shoes they also wore a canvas apron and carried a bag on their side after 1840 it was made illegal to enter the London sewers without permission because of the dangers they poised large fines or even prison time weren't forced if detected and informers were rewarded handsomely so torches switched to working at night by lantern light even though the job was highly undesirable Tosh's thought of themselves as above mad lux people who searched the temps for cold wood or rope as they were searching for more valuable items such as gold or silver they were thought of as the elite of the scavengers they also made a good living at around 6 shillings a day putting them in the top earners of the Victorian London working class leach collector disgusting jobs in history leeches were used throughout history in medicine to relieve all kinds of ailments from headaches to hysteria hieroglyphics painted on walls show ancient Egyptians using leeches to treat patients during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance barber surgeons and plague doctors applied leeches to suck out the bad blood during plagues but in the early 1800s there was a leach craze which spread throughout Europe and America like no other which became an important part of the bloodletting process used by many medical practitioners medical practitioners applied leeches to the patient's mouth and inside of the throat using a leach glass and sometimes patients even swallowed them the peak of the leech mania was in the 1830s when tens of millions of leeches were used every year in France England Germany and the United States to the extent that demand was outstripping supply the leech collector became a familiar sight for their old horses were used if available the leech collector would commonly wade into the bogs and marshes themselves faired legged they did this so the leeches would latch onto their legs thinking they were cattle and starts drawing the blood with their front teeth the leech collector was traditionally a female occupation done by poor women in the countryside in areas such as the lake districts in England while the job wasn't physically demanding there were obvious dangers the leech collectors could suffer from a severe loss of blood or infection leeches would suck on to the calexis legs for up to 20 minutes and the wounds could continue to bleed but 10 hours when the leech collector had had enough they placed the leeches in a bucket and sold them to a medical practitioner leech collecting was not a well-paid job and could only be done during the hotter months as leeches are less active during the colder seasons the occupation went on the decline as the human blood sucking species of leech was becoming extinct in Europe due to over collecting and the medical value of bloodletting declined in the late 19th century as new discoveries were made chimney-sweep dangerous jobs in history chimney sweepers as the name implies had the job of climbing up into narrow chimneys to clean the ash and soot away without this maintenance chimneys could catch fire the job had been around for some time but it wasn't until the 18th century that the demand really increased with the rise of urbanization and the Industrial Revolution and as fireplaces were the source of heat for most homes the job was in high demand master sweeps took on apprentices known as climbing boys children became the preferred person for the job of chimney sweep due to their small size which made it possible for them to climb into the stone chimneys these climbing boys were poor and recruited from work houses and orphanages sometimes they were kidnapped by the chimney sweepers or sold to them by their parents the climbing boy had to climb up chimneys with a large flat brush over his head using his elbows and knees to move up like a caterpillar he also had a metal scraper to take away tougher bits the nastiest of masters would drop the climber or start the fireplace to terrify the climbing boy into working faster once they reached the top of the chimney they would slide down and bag up all the soot at the bottom to take away when they climbed up the climbing boys elbows and knees were often scraped raw and they would be covered in calluses the job was also claustrophobic because of the narrow chimneys sometimes so narrow that the climbing boy could become stuck with their knees close to their chin if a layer of soot fell while they were trapped like this they could die from suffocation or burned a life if the chimney caught alight there were also long-term effects of repeated exposure to the inside of chimneys inhaling the poisonous suit dust and smoke caused irreversible lung damage and disease which would eventually cause death their joints could also become deformed from staying in cramped positions for so long there was no pay for climbing boys which was taken by the master sweep instead they were given food and a place to sleep because of the narrow construction of chimneys younger children were used sometimes as young as four by the time they were 10 they were usually too tall the climbing boys were purposely kept malnourished so their stunted growth would enable them to keep doing the job in 1803 a new mechanical brush was invented as an alternative but chimney sweeps and their clients still preferred to use climbing boys to do the job in Britain in 1840 a law was passed which made it illegal for any person under 21 to climb a chimney and raised the minimum age of apprenticeship to 16 although it was mostly ignored a chimney sweepers Act passed in 1875 which required sweeps to be licensed and made it the duty of the police to enforce it finally putting an end to child chimney sweeps groom of the stool disgusting jobs in history what was a job in Tudor times that required absolute trust paid well but was very smelly this was the groom of the Kings qostoul or groom of the store in this job the groom of the store would undress the king and waited for the king to finish going to the toilet [Music] then he would wipe the king's backside using cotton and a bowl of water drying it with a towel sometimes the excrements was taken away to be inspected by doctors to make sure that King was healthy the groom would monitor the King's diet and mealtimes scheduling his day around when he needed to go to the toilet the job title emerged during the 15th century with the invention of the clothes store this was a portable toilet that resembled a chair with a chamber pot underneath the groom of the store first appeared in records in 1495 during Henry the seventh reign alongside the founding of the privy chamber the groom would be the head of this chamber alongside other servants who attended to the monarch in his private rooms while originally a role for people of low status when Henry the eighth became King of England it became a privileged position the title was only given to those close to the king so naturally it would go to a court companion such as the son of a nobleman or a member of the gentry this was because the Privy chamber became a part of Henry's governments so the job required someone who could be trusted and who could keep secrets while the job was disgusting the groom of the store was a very high-status was well-paid and had direct access to the king making him very powerful the groom also administered some of the royal finances having power over the Privy Purse one of the Kings grooms however did not have such a successful career Henry Norris who was Henry the eighth's groom of the store was executed after being accused of treason and adultery with Queen Anne Boleyn the job of groom of the store which was mail only came to an end under Queen Elizabeth the first who had a First Lady of the bedchamber then revived on the accession of James the first with the groom of the stool now head of the bedchamber naka upper weird jobs in history before cheap and reliable alarm clocks were widely available people relied on knocker ups or knocker uppers to wake them up this was a human alarm clock who would knock on the top window until the worker would awaken because of the demands of industrialization in the 19th century they could start waking people up as early as 3 a.m. in the morning the device they used was a long pole often made from bamboo with a piece of wire or a small knob on the end the knocker upper could also use the stick as a snuffer outer to extinguish gas lamps they might also use a peashooter to shoots piece at the occupants window the reason they tapped on the workers bedroom window directly was because knocking on the door would wake up every single person inside for this job the client would pay the knocker up a few pence per week and if they didn't pay up they would be left to dream on and miss their shift the role of the knocker Appa was mainly done by elderly men and women during the Industrial Revolution the knocker upper was a valued job their clients were often people who worked in mills or factories these mills and factories had strict timekeeping rules and if a worker was late they could be fined or even be locked out and not be paid their wages for the day repeatedly turning up late could end up in dismissal the knocker upper was born out of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and shows how workers needed to become punctual and how time tables were becoming more rigorous surprisingly the knocker upper continued in some places well into the 20th century and as late as the 1970s but with the invention of the alarm clock this is a trade now long lost a time subscribe for more history videos

Channel: Simple History

Views: 1,168,511

Rating: 4.8845768 out of 5

Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, jobs, worst, career, compilation, working, industry, leech collector, mudlark, chimley sweep, Chimney sweep, tudor, groom of the stool, knocker upper, alarm clock, tosher, Worst Jobs in History, sewer hunter, disgusting jobs, urbanised, employment, metropolis, work, London, tools, valuables, gold, copper, silver, spoons, money, wages, victoria era, toilets, sanitisation, chimney sweep

Id: XTLUfXBJXDo

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 16 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Johannes_Nielsen]

Well, We could say we were very lucky to be born in modern times.