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The mat weaver,the tea packer and the corned beef inspector

Occupations which have gone from British industrial life, like the wheel tappers and the saggar maker's bottom knocker also include common occupations in 19th century east end of London like the mat weavers and the tea packers.

There were numerous mat weaving factories in the east end in the late nineteenth century. coconut fibre was imported in large quantities to be made into mats which were an almost staple floor covering on working class houses, particularly those with stone floors. Coconut fibre was hard wearing and popular up to the 1950s but is almost lost as a material for the larger mats used in those days but is still popular for the small doormats. Hard-wearing and able to withstand years of use where front doors of houses come straight in off the street and dirt and wet being brought in on the shoes of every visitor.

In December 1906 the newspapers headlined a mat carpet made to cover the great arena at Olympia in London, It was 83,000 square feet in areas and was claimed to be the largest ever made in the world. It was sent to London by rail, and it is reported that it filled 37 of Harrod's pantechnicons and the procession of vans through the London streets was more than a mile in length. It was manufactured in Glemsford in Essex and the London "Express" called it a triumph of British manufacture, but this industry, like many others came at a price. My Grand Aunt, Rebecca Worsfold worked at the Glemsford factory and died a few years later from Carcinoma of oesophagus at the age of 52.

My mother was a tea packer when she married in 1918. The biggest tea company in the area at the time was Mazawattee who had a large factory at Tower Hill, quite a walk from Cable street, Stepney but not an unusually long distance for folk to walk to work then. Tea came into the country, mainly from India and Ceylon and was blended in the factory mainly by hand as the machinery for packaging was still rudimentary. The dust from the packing process was everywhere and and the hours were long and the work ardous affecting the health of all the workers. My mother only lived to the age of 60.

The corned beef inspector had a much safer job as of course he did not exist! Corned beef came into the country already canned so could not be inspected. The epithet "corned beef inspector" was given to anyone standing around with nothing to do.

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