Making sense of the census

[Christine]

Does anyone know if there's a site that can help with some of the occupations etc that are listed in the census from the 19th century. In particular I'm trying to work out what a fund holder is. I'm thinking it must be someone living on the parish or something similar as this "occupation" is for a 78 year old widow whose husband 10 years earlier was described as a pauper formerly gardener.

[grannyscrap]

I've just googled "victorian fundholder" and lots of sites came up. You might like to trawl through and see if you can find anything. Good luck

[Kihaku]

they basically looked after funds raised by charity for church/school etc - lke a treasuere now i think

edited to add

or maybe not...

been findng more site that list it as something to fo with gps and nhs.. "June 1995, Labour committed itself to the "abolition" of fundholding"

http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/books/health_reform/britains_nhs.html

Fundholding: giving GPs their own budgets for buying care

Labour's main concern is the current "two-tier system" in which a patient whose GP happens to be a fundholder gets a head start. The party has therefore committed itself to "end fundholding" and replace fundholders with "commissioning GPs." These are meaningless terms. Everything depends on how "fundholding" is defined. If you reform the status quo and give it another name, you can claim to have abolished it whereas in reality you have refined it. This is an example of how Labour must satisfy two different constituencies-its members' wishes and the demands of common sense. If one of the perceived problems with fundholding is that those who are not fundholders are left behind, two approaches are possible: abolition and extension. Now a simple map of marginal constituencies which Labour needs to win overlaid with locations of fundholding practices amply demonstrates that the party cannot commit itself to abolition. Fundholding is popular with those who benefit, and the party will not wish to alienate them. Thus, there is only one possible approach: extension in some form.

In government, Labour will enact "abolition" by making the concept far more flexible: all GPs will be fundholders. Practices wishing to carry on pretty much as now will be able to do so. Those that do not will be grouped with other practices and pool their administrations. In June 1995, Labour committed itself to the "abolition" of fundholding. One of the first acts of the Labour government will be its extension.

It should be clear that Labour's policy in government will, if anything, involve extending the current reforms. Labour can do some things, because it is implicitly trusted to look after the NHS, which the Conservatives can never do because they are implicitly distrusted with the NHS. The longer into government one looks, the easier it becomes to see Labour taking the Conservative reforms farther than the Conservatives would dare. Labour could and perhaps will move towards further "devolution" of responsibilities to the trusts, and it could justify this as part of its programme of devolving power back to communities.

In the long term, this devolution of power within the NHS could open up the possibility, now attacked by Labour as privatization, of non-state providers such as mutual provident associations entering the NHS market. The exponential growth over the next decade of private health insurance schemes arranged by trade unions for their members will make this devolution even more likely.

But this is speculation. At this stage, Labour is fundamentally opposed to private insurance. In a world of wishes, Labour members would outlaw it overnight. In reality, however, Labour tolerates private insurance as an evil it cannot abolish, either legally or because many of its supporters use it. The idea of working with the private sector-profit making or not-repels almost all members of the Labour Party. Although there is historical precedent in the very origin of Labour for cooperation between the state and non-state sectors and there is an economic need for such cooperation, most Labour members dismiss the idea, not intellectually but purely because it entails working with the non-state sector.

Previous Labour governments have always been guided by pragmatism rather than ideology. The next one will be, if this does not sound too strange, ideologically inclined to be pragmatic rather than ideological. A U.K. Labour government will have little financial alternative to pragmatism.

[Kihaku]

the current meaning of a fundholsder is:

Each restricted fund has a fundholder
who is responsible for ensuring that
the fund is used in accordance with its
charitable purpose and administers the
fund in line with best practice so as to
maximise the benefit to the public.
Fundholders are usually senior members
of staff e.g. consultants, ward sisters,
managers etc.

[grannyscrap]

I think you might have been right the 1st time, Kihaku. I've just found this:

http://www.findonvillage.com/0038_the_cumbrous_pews_of_yesteryear.htm

I've also found this site:

http://www.census1891.com/occupations-f.htm

It could be very useful, although not in this instance.

[Christine]

Thanks for the info.

I think you were probably right with the first definition Kihaku. She did live in one of the houses known as Church Steps and I believe they were Alms houses.
Pauper seems to be another "occupation" that crops up regularly especially with older people in the mid 1800s. The equivalent to retired now but without the pension!!!