Genealogy Chat

Hi all, have just got a marriage certificate where the husband is stated to be a 'Deal Porter'. Have looked on the occupations but cannot find a 'Deal' porter. Any ideas anyone? Cheers!

I think deal is another name for a type of wood - pine? As in 'a deal table'. Perhaps he was a docker and unloaded ships carrying wood?? Just a thought - I don't really know. Anne

Anne... yes, you're right: Deal porters were a specialist group of workers in London's docks. They handled baulks of softwood or "deal", stacking them up to 60 feet high in quayside warehouses. This was a demanding and dangerous job. It required physical strength, dexterity and a head for heights, to such an extent that they were nicknamed "Blondins" after the famous acrobat. Deal porters wore special leather headgear with long "aprons" over their shoulders in order to protect their heads and necks from wooden splinters. http://www.sciencedaily(.)com/encyclopedia/deal_porter There's even a picture of one in action at the above website!

Brilliant. thanks so much. My Dad will be thrilled, it is one of his Great Uncles and my Dad was a docker too!!!!! Soooooo many thanks for that!

Thats really interesting Richard. Many of my ancestors were dockers. I can remember meeting dad to go to a pie and mash shop in Bermondsey and he would come down covered in sawdust and with the legs of his trousers tied with twine to stop the rats running up them as the men got nearer to the end of the unloading. I can remember mum cleaning his back where a rat had jumped on him and bitten him. And where one of the men had died from a ruptured stomach after slipping and falling with a bag weighing "2cwt 20" on top of him. (244 lbs) Dad was blinded in one eye after a crane swung back and knocked him into the Thames head first on to a barge. He fractured his skull, wrists and ribs. Returned to work 6 months later. Good old days, eh?