Customs or Excise?

[rocala]

Hi All

My ancestor, at the baptism of his child in 1819, was described as a 'Custom House Officer'. At a later baptism, 1821, he was described as an 'Excise Officer'.

Does this indicate a change of employer, promotion, internal transfer or were the terms used interchangeably?

[Peter Goodey]

Customs and Excise were in those days separate departments. The combined Board of Customs & Excise was not created until the 20th century. So the different terms, if they were used correctly, do indeed suggest a change of employer. Beware of vicar's mistakes!

See this Research Guide which will give you a taste of the rich staff archives available. You're very lucky - for most other occupations very little documentation has survived.

[rocala]

Thank you Peter, this is very helpful.

[shazzababe2361]

I have some ancestors in london at that time too and there father was a customs house officer i wondered if they crossed path or worked together..!

[The Tinman]

I was a Customs officer until 3 years ago,and I believe Excise officers were in charge of goods to be exported ,at one time many distilleries in Scotland had their own Excise officer living beside distillery . Paid by the distillery in part, so i suppose it was in their interest to have one available at all times.

[rocala]

Hi Shazzababe - my ancestor was Henry Fox of St Anne's parish, Limehouse. Presumably he would have worked fairly near. It would be fantastic to find out who his friends and colleagues were.

Tinman - thankyou for this. I am still pretty vague as to the difference between the two jobs, especially at that time. Every little helps.

[Nash]

Hi Rocala
Your Henry Fox may have been appointed an Excise man in 1820. If you do an “advanced search” on The National Archives (TNA) website and put “Henry Fox” in the “exact search” field and "Excise" in the “one or more of these words” field, two Henry Fox records come up.
I found my ancestor that way and was lucky enough to be able to include photographing his records when I spent a day at The National Archives. In my ancestor’s case he was trained to be an officer and I can see from the census records that he was posted all over the country, but it seems that there were several other types of employment for an Excise man.
Excise men appear in House of Commons records and Google Books have several editions of the House of Commons papers. I think I may have found a reference to your Henry Fox. He is listed on page 123 of Volume 14, of the House of Common papers published in 1821. If so, Henry was appointed on April 11th 1820. Under “station” it says “watchman” ... “3 List, London” ... “Salary £34. Emoluments 2s per day when occupied”.
HTH
Nash

[rocala]

Fantastic, thanks very much Nash.

[justlez]

My GGGrandfather was a Riding Vicar of Customs around 1820. At the time he lived in St PetersThanet (Broadstairs).
What type of customs officer was he then? I know I've been told that he probably toured the coastline on a horse looking for smuggelers. How true is that do you think? Quite a dangerous job too living in the community and having to grass some of them up.

[Kerrywood]

My GGGrandfather was a Riding Vicar of Customs around 1820.

Perhaps a Riding Officer of Customs?

http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riding_officer