Genealogy Chat

Have you tried historical directories?

I could always look in an 1886 London directory under Soap Boilers ans see if a Thomas Roberts is listed. If there is none, then he probably just was a skivvy there. Ben

I should think the guy who owned the place was skilled, not so sure about people employed there!

' A skilled trade as a soap boiler had to know the correct mixtures and ingredients to make a variety of industrial and household soaps using fats, oils, quick-lime, soda and potash as well as the art of perfumery. Soap was once heavily taxed and soap boilers had to inform the excise officers 24 hours before making the soap' extract courtesy of 'A dictionary of old trades, titles and occupations' by Colin Waters I have a soap boiler in my family tree, never realised this was a skilled trade!

IThanks for your suggestions. I just wondered, as in 1877 Thomas Roberts had his own business as a coffee house priprietor in Lambeth, so wondered if he had set up another business. Mind you, he was only a night watchman on the 1881 census. Ben

If he worked anywhere like the soap factory at Boots near where I worked in the 1970's it didn't half stink. I wouldn't have wanted to be a soap boiler without a peg on my nose!!!

Not a nice job I wouldnt have thought - they used animal fat then, didnt they. I would have thought it would be in a warehouse/factory.

Hi, My husband has a soap boiler in his tree! We always assumed it was in some sort of factory - it was in Hull. Later in life he bacame a 'sailor of a Gold Duster' (fantastic!) which was a small boat trading between ships and shore in the Humber estuary. Anne

I suppose it could have been either. An old occupations site just describes a soap boiler as a soap maker. Kath. x

Hi My ancestor Thomas Roberts, in 1886 when his wife died was described as a soap boiler on her death cert. They lived in Holborn, London. I know he had many occupations in his lifetime, but that is his last known one. Would a soap boiler of ran his own shop or merely been someone who was employed by a soap boiling shop or company? Any ideas please? Ben