I came across this unusual occupation in the 1911 census… and I guessed that the work was to do with sash windows as the only other sash i know is like a ribbon or band to be worn across your shoulder and chest. I remember sash windows from old people’s houses of my childhood, they were rattly things which went u and down in a rather alarming manner and I always imagine my fingers or head might get trapped.
I tried to find a more detailed definition, in among all the other strange trades, sandesman, sandwasher, sarcenet weaver, savant, sawbones, sawer, sawyer and say weaver, but no sash maker. I’ve found a little about sash windows: sash windows are in frames made out of high-quality, slow-grown softwood timber that came, in the 19th Century, from Baltic forests. The sash window typically consists of two frames, or sashes, with anything between one and half-a-dozen or more panes of glass. They slide within the window case, while stabilised by sash weights attached to cords and hidden within the case of the window.
I am guessing that by the end on the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, with the massive mills and factories, warehouses and commercial buildings, wooden frames and sashes were no longer as practical as iron ones… which if painted and protected from the weather would be durable and long-lasting… and probably seen as being modern and fashionable…
This is only a guess… I’ll keep on instigating!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8114881.stm
Lois Elsden 
And I think the weights are called mice …. I like the sash windows sadly our have been replaced with upvc frames; not nearly so attractive.
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I didn’t know that… makes them sound very cute!
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I think that sash widows are as describe pretty cute … 😉
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Yes… you are right…it’s a shame they can’t make modern versions which would look like the old style and in keeping with the age of the house and yet would have all the advantages of being double glazed!
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And at a reasonable cost …. in my dreams 😉
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I met an old gentleman years ago while waiting for a bus. I asked him if he had worked at the steel plant like so many in our town and he said that he had been a mangler all his working life. I didn’t find out years later from a crossword puzzle that a mangler worked pressing clothes in a cleaners. Funny what sticks in your mind. I liked that old fella.
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I wonder what every-day jobs people have now will seem utterly mysterious in a generation’s time?
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