Daily AncestorPlumber
A plumber fitted and repaired pipes for water, gas and drainage; in earlier times the word meant any worker in lead.
The word comes from Latin plumbum, lead. Romans used lead for roofs, conduits and pipes, and in medieval England anyone who worked with lead, even on a roof, was called a plumber.
By the 1800s the plumber installed and repaired the pipes and fixtures carrying water, gas and waste. Census instructions from 1900 name plumber as one of the exact trades enumerators should write instead of the vague mechanic.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1880 to 1940 census
Thos. Quinn, 29, Plumber
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Plumber." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/plumber. Last checked 2026-10-10.