A relative of mine worked as a shingler in Wigan in the 1890's. Anybody know what the job involved and where he might have worked.

Hello Ispy,according to google it's someone who shingles roofs.

Shingler...Iron worker who operated a steam hammer on wrought iron from the furnace..

Possibly worked at "Top place" Ironworks, Kirkless, New Springs...Wigan Coal & Iron Co. Ltd.

cheers that sounds more like it. One clue was that he had to wear a mask so that figures.

They had some funny job titles back in the day, my grandad was a "puddler". Turned out that was a job in a steel factory in Ince.

Not only the old times we had a customer in our Pub 1970 who said to the employment exchange he was a Chain Man so I asked him one day What is that, he said well I dont want to work so that is what I say I am , and when the m5 was being built I used to put the chains on to vehicles to tow them .How about that and he never did get a job

When I worked in Construction a Chainman or Chainboy was someone who worked with the Engineers setting out levels etc.

A chain is a measure used by surveyors.
1 chain = 22 yards,(cricket pitch) or one tenth of a furlong
So he could have been a surveyors assistant

Spot on Art.

you aint no dummy art.

absolutely correct Art, the 'Chain' was literally that it was 22yds long with 1ft long links with various brass toggles at different lengths so that you could easily know the distance along from given points in order to enter offsets into the field book to replot back onto the survey drawing, it was always difficult to wrap the chain back up for storage the skill was to be able to hold it fully in one hand so that next time in use you could throw it out 11yds (double) and then pull the end handle out the remaining 11yds just some more useless information which is now lost to modern day surveyors.

If you've never seen one....Here 'tis..

hope you didnt find that in your cellar Art

I think the later models came in 100ft long but were still called chains , the senior surveyor took great pride in telling me to rewrap it until he could get his hand round the bundle.
His name incidentally was Tom Partington of Mort St Springfield and then of Buckley St he also was a regular of the Pagefield maybe Nicola new him ?

Surveyors underground (down t'pit), were always known as "Dialers"
A damn sight more difficult to survey when you can't see what's around you..

they look like summat outa prescots bedroom art.

modern day job titles to impress, Mineral extraction engineer(Pit-man).Domestic engineer(cleaner)