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Concept
Tradesperson
Summary
A tradesperson is a skilled worker that specializes in a particular trade. Tradespeople usually gain their skills through work experience, on-the-job training, an apprenticeship program or formal education.
As opposed to a craftsperson or an artisan, a tradesperson is not necessarily restricted to manual work.
In Victorian England:
The terms "skilled worker," "craftsman," "artisan," and "tradesman" were used in senses that overlap. All describe people with specialized training in the skills needed for a particular kind of work. Some of them produced goods that they sold from their own premises (e.g. bootmakers, saddlers, hatmakers, jewelers, glassblowers); others (e.g. typesetters, bookbinders, wheelwrights) were employed to do one part of the production in a business that required a variety of skilled workers. Still others were factory hands who had become experts in some complex part of the process and could command high wages and steady employment. Skilled workers in the building trades (e.g. carpenters, masons, plumbers, painters, plasterers, glaziers) were also referred to by one or another of these terms.
One study of Caversham, New Zealand, at the turn of the century notes that a skilled trade was considered a trade that required an apprenticeship to entry. Skilled tradesmen worked either in traditional handicraft workshops or newer factories that emerged during the Industrial Revolution. Traditional handicraft roles included, for example: "sail-maker, candle-maker, cooper, japanner, lapidary and taxidermist, canister-maker, furrier, cap-maker, dobbin-maker, french-polisher, baker, miller, brewer, confectioner, watch-maker, tinsmith, glazier, maltster, wood-turner, saddler, shipwright, scale-maker, engraver and cutler."
Tradesmen are contrasted with laborers, agricultural workers, and professionals (those in the learned professions). Skilled tradesmen are distinguished:
from laborers such as bus drivers, truck drivers, cleaning laborers, and landscapers in that the laborers "rely heavily on physical exertion" while those in the skilled trades rely on and are known for "specific knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Official source
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