Horrific tales from history | Worst jobs in history

There have been many horrific tales through history, from gruesome medical practices to bizarre punishments and even some very questionable cleaning habits but today, we’ll be diving into the world of jobs that were once commonplace but have thankfully, been lost to the history books.

Here are some of the worst jobs in history to make you feel better about your own.

Sin eaters

It sounds pretty metal but this isn’t a job many people would jump at. Sin eaters were hired to help the deceased enter heaven should they pass on before being able to confess their sins to a priest. Food, usually bread was placed on the deceased’s chest and then eaten by the sin eater. It was thought that the departed’s sins would then pass into the sin eater and they could then meet their maker in peace. Being a sin eater often meant you were shunned in society, possibly because of all the sins you had ingested and the role was mostly taken by people who were desperate for money and food. It isn’t that ancient a practice however, the last known sin eater in Britain worked up until his death in 1906!

Knocker-ups

If you had the early shift, how would you guarantee you’d wake up in time before the invention of alarm clocks? That’s where knocker-ups came in. People would be employed to go around waking up factory workers, particularly in the north of England where much of the industry was centered in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. It required a very early start as most shifts would begin before 6am.

Chimney sweeps

Though you can still come across chimney sweeps today, it’s a very different job to how it used to be. Many chimney sweeps would leave the actual cleaning of chimneys to their apprentices, some of whom were as young as four years old. Yep, chimney sweeping was primarily done by children as they were small enough to climb up and remove the built up soot. As you can imagine this wasn’t a pleasant job, but it is even worse when you consider that the children were either taken from an orphanage, bought from poor families and were subjected to the beatings and whims of their employers. It was an incredibly dangerous job too, chimneys could spontaneously combust because of the build up of soot and children were often burned, cut, suffocated and would get stuck in chimneys. As the years went on, it would also be discovered that soot was carcinogenic and many of these young chimney sweeps would die before their time thanks to cancer and other related illnesses.

Treadmill Worker

Back in the day, if you were sent to prison, you were likely to be given a menial job as your punishment, a sentence known as hard labour. Some of these jobs involved having to manually pull apart ropes but perhaps worse would be working the treadmill. Unlike the ones you use at the gym, hundreds of people would be required to walk on giant treadmills for an entire day in order to lift objects, usually stone or something similar.

Leech Gatherers

Before the advent of modern medicine, near enough every malady was cured by adding leeches to the affected area and hoping for the best. To be fair, leeches do have natural anaesthetics and anti-inflamatories in their saliva, so would probably be pretty good at healing cuts that might otherwise get infected but actively bleeding isn’t such a good idea. Anyway, those leeches had to come from somewhere, which is where leech gatherers come in. If you found yourself with this job, it meant you would have to walk around in bogs and marshes bare legged in order to attract leeches, which you would then remove once they’d eaten their fill and sell to local doctors. Leech Gatherers actually made themselves redundant because the kind of leech used in the field of medicine became extinct in the early 1900s.

Gong farmers

It isn’t as fun as it sounds. Back before we had plumbing, human waste was collected by the local authority and put into cess pits, which were known as gongs… Do you know where we’re going with this? Yep, when those pits got too full, the gong farmers would be called in to empty them. They were often paid by the tonne and some have been known to suffocate to death on the job. Being a gong farmer was quite lucrative though, as after you’ve emptied the cess pit, you could then sell the waste on to farmers to use as fertaliser, supplementing your wages.

Tosher

While we’re on the subject of… well… waste, here’s a related job – toshers. This wasn’t a job in the legal sense however, but was a way that people would make money, particularly in Victorian London. Toshers were people who would explore the city’s sewers searching for valuables which they could then sell on. Today, people do something similar for fun – mudlarking, though there aren’t sewers involved.

Rat catchers

Another job that still exists to some degree is rat catcher, however again, it isn’t quite the same as it used to be. Rat catchers would be employed to prowl around hunting and catching rats and were paid by the rat, which meant having to catch it and keep it alive long enough to collect their pay. Rat catchers would employ ferrets or terriers to help them round up the rodents, which would then either be killed, sold to a rat pit (apparently for fun, gamblers would go to rat pits, where they would watch a dog take on multiple rats and bet on the winner) or sold on as pets.

Body snatchers

Ok, this one wasn’t exactly advertised either, but was a great way to earn money, if you could stomach it. Body snatchers would dig up the recently deceased and would then sell them to a medical school. At the time, only bodies of criminals could be used to teach medical students about anatomy and there just wasn’t enough to go around, which made body snatching so lucrative. Two of the best known were called Burke and Hare who not only stole bodies from graves but also murdered people and then sold the victims to medical schools.

Barber-surgeon

Before there were doctors as we know them now, the local barber would also work as the doctor/mortician. Their jobs included being urine testers, where they would have to drink the urine of patients to make a diagnosis and would use the tools of their hair cutting trade to take on amputations. This was done by using scissors to roll skin back from a broken limb, sawing off the flesh and muscle, cutting through the bone and then stitching the skin back together again.

Groom of the stool

This was one of the most honoured jobs one could have in a royal household. The job consisted on being on hand to take the monarch to the toilet, check the bowel movements and then clean the regal bottom afterwards. The role was bought in by Henry VII and was abolished by Edward VII.

Whipping Boy

It’s a phrase you’ve likely heard of but did you know it was an actual job? Whipping boys were children employed by noble households to receive the punishments that had been earned by the children of the noble family. This was because tutors and others couldn’t beat their employer’s children. It was considered a great job for poor children because it gave them proximity to their betters and could advance their prospects.

Plague bearer

During the plague of the 1660s, Plague Bearers were brought in to tour the streets at night collecting the dead and burying them in mass graves. Plague Bearers were separated from their families and required to live in church yards surrounded by the bodies they had collected so as not to infect anyone else.