CARPENTERS
The word ‘carpenter’ derives from the Old French carpentier/ charpentier, from the Latin word carpentarius meaning carriage. Carpenters have traditionally installed rafters, roofs, beams and joists to support a building, while joiners, according to early-19th-century manual The Book of Trades, spent their days “fitting various pieces of timber together”. In other words, joiners made and/or fitted windows, doors, wainscoting, picture rails, dados, skirting boards, staircases and floors in domestic interiors.
In reality, our ‘chippie’ forebears often combined these jobs, and it’s common to see “carpenter/joiner” as an occupation in census records. The joiner was the higher skilled, and his handiwork more exposed to the eye. But workers in both trades
