I'm not sure which one I would pick

[Kwacky]

Turnip shepherd sounds pretty relaxing.

[D41]

Hmmm.....there were some colourful and imaginative people back then, it seems.

And then there was the all-encompassing w@nker category mentioned above.

[Jack]

sampler of drugs and proprietor of midgets , surely thats one job ....

[C00kiemonster]

Random Waller for me...

[StMarks]

Amusing though it is, fwiw I'm doubting the authenticity of that article Kwacky.
Apart from the socially contemporary feel to the humour expressed by some of the answers, mains electricity was virtually unknown at that time.

Fatuous pauper.

[Jack]

An "Electric Bath " was generally powered by a frictional electric machine and would charge the apparatus with static electricity , a process called Franklinisation after Ben Franklin . No mains electricity required .
My great granddad's brother was a "Knocker upper" he woke people up for their shifts at a time when clocks were very expensive .
What we call the modern era hasn't been around for very long , there were still slums in most towns and cities until well after WW2 . Until the 1930's most clothing for the working classes was 2nd hand at best and was bought as such .

[duke63]

An "Electric Bath " was generally powered by a frictional electric machine and would charge the apparatus with static electricity , a process called Franklinisation after Ben Franklin . No mains electricity required .
My great granddad's brother was a "Knocker upper" he woke people up for their shifts at a time when clocks were very expensive .
What we call the modern era hasn't been around for very long , there were still slums in most towns and cities until well after WW2 . Until the 1930's most clothing for the working classes was 2nd hand at best and was bought as such .

It would be very hard for my grandparents to fathom the modern world were they still around.

Go back to the 1970s, and i can remember us having leftovers from the main meal the day before, as to not do so was a waste of money and my parents did not have much spare money.

I had one pair of school shoes and one pair of trainers. That was it. All the football boots i had at school were secondhand.

And i'm not sure my son is any happier with his world where he can buy so much stuff new. In fact i would reckon there is a lot more unhappiness in kids these days than in my day.

[Kwacky]

Yep. School clothes, a set of clothes for best and your scruffy playing out clothes. We would have new clothes for holiday but weren't allowed to wear them before the holiday. One holiday a year. I didn't have my first foreign family holiday until I was 12.

Shared bathwater. Meals like bubble and squeak were not unusual. You ate what was put in front of you. No choices. We would only eat out if it was someone's birthday. Mum would only shop once a week - Fridays which were pay days. Sandwiches for school on a Friday were always cheese because that's all that was usually left before mum shopping on the evening.

You would only get new things for birthday or Christmas. If you broke something then tough shit.

Back to StMark's point - people still put all sorts of crap on the census. How many said they were Jedis for the last one?

[StMarks]

Thanks for that Jack, I'd never learned about that (rather crackpot, from our perspective) invention.
Duke, we still routinely eat leftovers next day.
From one generation up ( in this area), post WW2 apparently almost every home owned it's own pig that was fed with the household waste.!
Kwacky & Duke, presumably (like myself) looking back to school I can hardly recall ever seeing any other pupils that were "fat". The only one I do remember wasn't at all by contemporary standards.
I wonder how credulous (Cav) is going to find these recent posts.??

....... How many said they were Jedis for the last one?

Now what would be really fun, is if on the 1881 census stated Jedi under occupation (presumably religion wasn't enquired about at that date).

[D41]

The Jedi died out long before the 1881 census, unfortunately.

[Kwacky]

Or did they?

[D41]

"The Jedi are extinct. Their fire has gone out of the universe."

.......Grand Moff Tarkin, shortly before his fire also went out of the universe.

This is the way.

[Kwacky]

He died. There were Jedi after his death.

I have spoken.

[D41]

Well...there was still Vader, I suppose....a disgraced Jedi....and Yoda, a retired Jedi on "not-much-of-a-pension" by the look of things.

They were kind of like Journey without Steve Perry, I suppose.

[duke63]

Thanks for that Jack, I'd never learned about that (rather crackpot, from our perspective) invention.
Duke, we still routinely eat leftovers next day.
From one generation up ( in this area), post WW2 apparently almost every home owned it's own pig that was fed with the household waste.!
Kwacky & Duke, presumably (like myself) looking back to school I can hardly recall ever seeing any other pupils that were "fat". The only one I do remember wasn't at all by contemporary standards.
I wonder how credulous (Cav) is going to find these recent posts.??

....... How many said they were Jedis for the last one?

Now what would be really fun, is if on the 1881 census stated Jedi under occupation (presumably religion wasn't enquired about at that date).

Being overweight was very rare back in my school days.
Keeping animals for your own food production is still common place in rural parts of mainland Europe.
How have we got it so wrong now?

[Jack]

I think the majority of the jobs listed are true jobs just not very well described or described in a humorous fashion :
colourist of artificial fish was a painter possibly of childrens toys
Knight of the Thimble was a tailor
Disinfector of railways - cleaner on the railway
Examiner of underclothing - inspector in a factory making underwear checking product for faults
Invisible net maker - this one threw me a bit possibly some sort of fishing net maker
Electric bath attendant - as practiced by quacks and charlatans
Proprietor of midgets - Showbiz , baby !!!
52 years an imbecile - MP , local councillor , etc .

[Jack]

when all the kids were living at home I kept chickens , 3 of them , Janet , Tina and Whitney , they layed twice a day and I've never had nicer eggs .

[Cav]

Eggs from your own chickens are absolutely amazing! It does make me want to keep a couple of chicks, I just don't have anywhere for them.... and their shit stinks

[D41]

Keeping your own chickens sounds like one step too close to "The Good Life" for me.
Tom & Felicity, or whatever their names were.....?

[kiwikrasher]

Keeping your own chickens sounds like one step too close to "The Good Life" for me.
Tom & Felicity, or whatever their names were.....?

My neighbour has chickens and we get the excess eggs from time to time, absolutely delicious.