'Slave to Family' - occupation recorded on 1911 Census return. Is this a joke?

Question

Poor Marion Elizabeth Wilde, a citizen of Willesden, Middlesex, England, is a 'slave' to her family on her 1911 England Census return.

Is this a bizarre attempt at a joke, or a colloquial expression of the day? Does anyone know?

Comments

Sarcastic occupations are not unknown in the censuses.

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Brilliant, I love that :-) clearly a woman with a sense of humour, gives you a real glimpse as to who she was :-)

Answer 1

It's a joke.  Just possible that she was protesting in a suffragette style, but more likely just a joke.

UK Suffragettes often refused completely to fill in the 1911 census, and put big NO VOTE NO CENSUS stickers on there.

Comments

Thanks Ros! I haven't seen any NO VOTE NO CENSUS stickers yet in my research but hope to come across one soon. Go UK suffragettes!

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Now I have a David Bowie tune stuck in my head.  It's ok, I like that song.

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Interesting history, I had never heard this until now.  Thanks for sharing.

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Same as SJ. Thanks for enlightening us, Ros!!

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I just found a woman on the 1911 UK census who had put that she was a 'grass widow', separated, doing very well. (Grass widow means that her husband was away so often with work, she might as well have been a widow LOL)

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Oh, that's funny!!

Answer 2

I have an old Scottish mum Who indicates her occupation as “in charge”

Answer 3

Thank you for sharing this Clare. I have never seen this before, and I will be looking more closely now for it.

I did not know that people "joked" on Census records. I thought everyone was very serious about that stuff back then.

Thanks again for the education lesson tonight.

Bless you!

Comments

Not intended as a joke, I have given "human rights advocate" as mine.  Since these answers provide us some sense of who our people were, and I am so much more than my wage earning, I answered according to what I want my descendants to know about where most of my heart and energy was directed.

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Thank you Lynn. I was referring to the messages above where they mentioned it was a joke, not that the census records were a joke.

I always check the records because I am very interested in seeing what my ancestors did for a living and some of them are kind of hard to figure out.

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I have seen someone link to a record before where a teenage daughter's occupation was "Does as she pleases." I would have liked to know her!!