The Tambourer

My 3x great-grandmother, Agnes Gilchrest Crosser, was a tambourer by trade.  What's that?

Family member name: Agnes Gilchrest Crosser

Lifetime: 1820 - 1895
Tree branch: Anderson
Relation: My 3x great-grandmother (My mom's dad's mom's mom's mom)

How do we know she was tambourer?  The 1871 Scotland Census mentions her occupation.  See it highlighted in red.

In French, le tambour means the drum.  It's where we get the word tambourine.  But was my 3x great-grandmother a drummer? No, probably not.  Here is the definition of the word tambour.

a: an embroidery frameespecially : a set of two interlocking hoops between which cloth is stretched before stitching

b: embroidery made on a tambour frame

She most likely was an embroiderer.  Throughout the centuries, when fine clothing with embroidery or beading was made, it was done by hand.  Even though machines have been invented to add beads to fabric, upscale, haute-couture clothing even today is still embroidered by hand.

The tambourer uses a tambour hook tool and fabric stretched tightly across a frame to create beautiful designs.

Here is an example of a fancy Victorian dress that was made around the time of this Census.  Perhaps Grandma Agnes was commissioned to add the detailed embroidery to dresses like this.

Sources:

1871 Scotland Census for Bothwell, Holytown

London Embroidery School - A brief history of tambour

Dream With my Hands

You Tube - Tambour Embroidery: Basic stitch

Warleigh Manor

Do you like British historical TV shows about upstairs/downstairs stories like Downton Abbey?  It turns out my ancestor was part of the "downstairs" staff in a grand English country manor.

Family member name: Charles King

Lifetime: 1775 - 1868
Tree branch: Bromley
Places lived: Near Bath, England

Relation: My 5x great-grandfather (my dad's mom's mom's dad's mom's dad's dad)

An Ancestry.com member kindly posted this scan of some old King family notes.  Notice the area I highlighted in red.  It mentions Charles King, born in 1775, was "for over 50 yrs. valued servant of Skrines, Warleigh M[anor]."

Warleigh Manor is just outside of Bath, England.  It was built in 1815.  If Grandpa Charles was hired as a servant at Warleigh as soon as it was built, he would have been 40 years old at the time.  

I have questions!!!  

What were his duties? Was he the butler? Did he live on the grounds? Or were there servants quarters inside the Manor House? He must have been very "valued" if the family kept him on for 50 years.  He would have been 90 years old when he retired!  Maybe the Skrines thought of him as part of the family, like Carson on Downton Abbey.

Whatever his profession in "service", he did it well.  Congrats Grandpa Charles!

PS: More about Warleigh Manor

* Warleigh is a small parish outside of Bath with a population of 1,759

* The Skrine family bought the land in the 1600s 

* Henry Skrine finished building the current Manor house in 1815 

* It is a lovely early example of a Tudor villa with Victorian additions

* It remained in the Skrine family for seven generation, until the early 1960s

* From the 1960s until the late 1990s it was a reform school for the most emotionally troubled pre-teens in England

* Around 2000, it was sold and underwent a fabulous restoration and now is broken up into luxury "apartments", one that is 4,500 square feet

Links to sources and pictures:

The Bathford Society

Video: Flying around Warleigh Manor, Bath

2018 pics of renovated interior