Isaac Hopper counsels Daniel Jones on February 14, 1848. He cites Jones’ pre-prison occupation as “file cutter,” a now-dead profession gobbled up by modern machinery.

According to Merriam Webster, a file is “a tool usually of hardened steel with cutting ridges for forming or smoothing surfaces especially of metal.”¹ Typically, a file is used to sharpen dull blades or other tools. A file cutter would forge files from metal sheets. As stated on the Hall Genealogy Website of Old Occupation Names, a file cutter “made files by cutting rows of sharp teeth into a metal blank.”²

In the BBC, Walter Ellison recalled his childhood experiences working in a file-cutting workshop in Grenoside. Most workshops, he said, had long windows to illuminate the work-area, and that at night paraffin lamps would be lit. Skilled cutters, however, needed no light to do the job well.

Walter’s weekly quota was 156 files---about 22 per day---but doesn’t say whether this number was typical of the average file-cutter’s quota. While this work seems strenuous and Sisyphean to modern readers, Walter recalls it not being unreasonably difficult or, interestingly enough, unhealthy. Indeed, he didn’t notice people developing joint problems due to the repetitive work.³ For many obvious reasons, however, this is rather unsafe evidence on which to pillar generalizations about the relative safety of file-cutting.

Sources:

1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/file?src=search-dict-hed

2. https://rmhh.co.uk/occup/f.html

3. www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/south_yorkshire/user_1_article_2.shtml