Victorian employment

[war]

What job did a Wheelchairman do - is it the obvious push wheelchairs about or something else?

[Quizmonster]

'The Oxford English Dictionary' - generally the 'bible' in such matters - has no record of the word 'wheelchairman' ever having been used. (I wonder where you saw it.) However, wheelchairs, as such, have been around since the 1600s, initially being used by rich invalids. Since such people invariably had servants, I think it is more than likely that a 'wheelchairman' would have been employed specifically to do as you suggest...push the chair around.

[Ray The Grey]

There seem to be three options. 1 A person who made wheelchairs. 2 Some member of a left wing (Marxist-Lenininst) organisation. 3 A dark reference to a superhero.

I expect you need the first option

[Quizmonster]

It's surely pretty rare for the word 'man' - used as a sort of suffix - to mean a maker of the earlier element of the word. An anchorman doesn't make anchors, a bandsman doesn't make bands and a trawlerman doesn't make trawlers, for example. Surely it's much more usual for such a 'suffix-man' to do or operate or sell etc whatever the earlier element seems to suggest...in the present case, "wheel a chair".

 

I daresay we will now be inundated with appropriate instances, but right at this moment I can't think of any example of a ".....man" in which the man makes the "....."!

[archbishop]

After doing a search and coming up with the same results as Ray The Grey, I must agree with Quizmonster. Some of the search results included early marriage,birth,and death certificates which give occupations. Wheelchairman was there and if the gentry had footmen etc why not someone to push a wheelchair.