16 of the Oldest Professions that No Longer Exist

Let's take a trip down memory lane.

Reviewed by Chris Leitch

Worker in oldest profession cleaning street light

College students and new graduates are always thinking about new careers. Professionals who have been stuck in the same industry for 15 years are considering transitioning to new occupations.

If you’ve watched 1931’s Frankenstein, then you might have thought about snatching dead bodies. Or if you caught up on the entire Tudors series, then you may have considered becoming a Groom of the Stool for the king. Well, we’re sorry to burst your bubble, but these jobs no longer exist.

The dynamism of the market-oriented economy around the world has birthed entirely new professions and destroyed old ones. And, of course, those new professions were eventually wiped out to make room for newer positions – some strange and some necessary. It’s a never-ending cycle, and that’s a good thing for the advancement of civilisation.

So, what jobs have gone the way of the dinosaurs? We’ve compiled a list of 16 of the oldest professions in the world that have met their demise.

1. Groom of the Stool

Thank goodness monarchies today don’t rely on men and women for their toileting needs. There is indoor plumbing for that. But it wasn't so easy back in the good old days without air conditioning, refrigerators and toilets.

In the Tudor era, there was a position that involved attending to the king's, er, bathroom needs: the Groom of the Stool. Also known as the Groom of the King's Close Stool, the job involved supplying water, providing towels and ensuring the king had a washbowl when he had finished his washroom duties. While it would be considered a disgusting job today, many people viewed it as something special because the king would sometimes confide in the groom.

Not only was this a gross occupation, it also had one of the weirdest job titles in history!

2. Travelling bookseller

The Pew Research Center found that fewer people are reading books. Reading has been on the general decline for decades, thanks to various alternatives such as television, video games and staring at the wall. Without the demand for reading, why would travelling booksellers be in existence?

They were quite prevalent in the mid-20th Century, with thousands of booksellers travelling door to door and selling books. Of course, if people are interested in buying a book today, they can just head over to Amazon!

3. Soda jerker

Back in the day, when Peggy Sue and Billy were going steady, they would visit the nearby drugstore after school and get the soda jerker serve the young couple in love some ice cream sodas. While not the greatest of job titles, the soda jerker could earn a commendable living operating the soda fountain in the drugstore or at a fast food restaurant. If you had strong people skills and were just as rambunctious as the kids you served, this job was for you.

Although some restaurants have tried to bring back the soda jerker in some type of capacity, it has never really taken off because it’s just too old-fashioned. Suffice to say, people simply prefer to push a button at the automatic fountain and get their Coca-Cola that way. What’s the need for a slick kid who has better hair and a uniform than you do?

4. Pinsetter

One of the earliest jobs to be eaten alive by automation is the pinsetter. This job entailed manually setting up bowling pins in a bowling alley every time customers would finish their round. With the advent of the automated mechanical device, this position became superfluous and eventually obsolete.

5. Radio thespian

Who doesn't love a good radio drama? If you’ve ever listened to radio series, such as Suspense, Escape or Dragnet, then you realise just how special radio entertainment was until the 1960s.

Not everyone was William Conrad or Joseph Cotten, resulting in many actors playing minor parts in 20-minute serials. Or thespians might have done a radio spot. Either way, radio acting jobs are no longer in existence because they died a long time ago to make way for television.

6. Knocker-upper

No, a knocker-upper isn't what you're thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter!

A knocker-upper was a profession mainly found in Great Britain and Ireland at the height of the Industrial Revolution, and the purpose was to wake up people in the morning to get to work on time. Since alarm clocks were not prevalent, the person had to serve as the most hated man in the community and wake everybody up.

7. Ice cutter

Before there was the ice box, there were icemen. And, no, we’re not talking about the Eugene O’Neill play. The iceman, also known as an ice cutter, would deliver a big square of ice and smash it into tiny pieces for you to use in your glass of lemonade, scotch and soda or sarsaparilla.

With everyone owning a refrigerator and able to make their own ice at home, the ice cutter has entered the dust bins of history.

8. Elevator operator

The elevator operator was one of the most ubiquitous and iconic jobs of the 1930s until the 1960s. The job was simple enough: take passengers to their requested floors. This was before elevators became automatic and forced tens of thousands of elevator operators out of work. Hotels, commercial towers and flat complexes – if your building had an elevator, there was a man or woman operating it. But in some countries this profession hasn't gone extinct just yet, in fact, elevator operators are still common in Japan!

9. Lamplighter

Before electricity, most streetlights were powered by gasoline or candle. Somebody had to maintain these streetlights, and that somebody was the lamplighter. This person was employed to light, maintain and turn off these candles or gas-lit streetlights. It’s rare to find this job since most street lighting had already been replaced by electric lamps many years ago.

10. Body snatcher

Also known as resurrectionists, body snatchers were in high demand up until the 20th Century. A body snatcher’s duties were exactly what the job title states: snatch bodies buried in the ground.

There was a huge demand for dead bodies, mainly from institutions and schools for dissection. The resurrectionist would go into cemeteries, exhume corpses and then transport the bodies to the customer. While it was not an official occupation, it was still quite popular.

11. Linotype operator

The dying newspapers of today can take their offset lithography printing and computer typesetting. The real action was in the linotype machine. This device put together matrices (bolds for the letter forms in a line) and then cast a 90-character slug from motel type metal that was then used to produce a newspaper.

All this needed a linotype machine operator. This was a common job since newspapers were everywhere. Either the individual adapted to the changing technology or they vanished.

12. Lector

Do you ever feel like your office lacks fun and excitement? Is everyone too uptight? Is it too quiet? Well, for many years, businesses would often hire lectors to inject some life into these mundane offices.

The lector would be employed to read from newspapers, crack some jokes or even sing to employees. This job is extinct because, let’s face it: who wants somebody reading the Washington Post out loud while you’re working? That would be annoying!

13. Leech collector

Yes, everybody knows how the healthcare industry relied on leeches for many decades to treat patients. But have you ever wondered where those leeches came from? Somebody had to gather them!

A leech collector had been around dating back as early as the Medieval Ages, but the job ballooned in the 19th Century in Europe for medicinal purposes. These men would go into the wild and retrieve these tiny bloodsuckers. Since the medical community has learned better over the last 100 years, leech collectors are not unnecessary.

14. Rattener

Some people pay for rats to be fumigated in their homes. Others want rats gone from their establishments. In the Victorian Era, customers wanted rats inside their homes.

Ratteners were called in to capture and sell rats to pubs that were eaten by dogs or played with for entertainment. Who would ever want to play with a rat is beyond the scope of this writer… Oh, those crazy Victorians! What ever will they think of next?

15. Gong farmer

When you sit on the toilet today, have you ever wondered how human waste was disposed of before these shiny white apparatuses? The world had gong farmers.

A gong farmer was a popular employment opportunity in the Tudor Era because there was plenty of work. The daily task was simple enough: dig out and remove human excrement from privies and cesspits. That's it. If you think that’s a disgusting job, you would be right.

Like the Groom of the Stool, the gong farmer doesn’t exist anymore. The next time you complain about paper cuts and working with a slow computer, just think what these guys had to go through!

16. Bematist

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. But how many steps is a thousand miles anyway? You could always ask a bematist.

This was a specialist who was educated to measure distances by counting steps. Talk about a monotonous and exhausting job! Thankfully, there’s a mobile application for that now and you don’t need to hire a bematist to accompany you everywhere you go!

Technology continues to change our world mostly for the better. It is a remarkable thing to go back in history and learn about the many different occupations that allow people to earn a living, whether it’s waking people up at the crack of dawn to get to the nearby factory or gathering leeches for medical professionals.

These jobs had a purpose, but technological developments have decimated the employment opportunities to make room for another generation of jobs that serve a purpose – for now. Eventually, many of today’s jobs will disappear.  In a century, people are going to visit CareerAddict and be surprised that there were real-life authors who wrote content. Oh, wait…

Can you think of any other professions that no longer exist today? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

Originally published in May 2015.