Can anyone help me decipher this please?

[TheAbbotOfUnreason]

I’m struggling to read the handwriting (it’s from the 1921 census).

First entry: shop assistant but I can’t read the next bit. Is it milinary or milling? Foundry?

Employer is ? ? Woodward and then I’m struggling with the next bit (but I think the last word is business). Family business?

The place of work is also the home address. It’s currently a shop, building looks Victorian or Edwardian, so I’m wondering if it was a shop back in 1921 and was she boarding over the shop? She is listed as the person responsible for completing the form.

Any help gratefully received.

It's definitely millinery/milliner and the second initial for Woodward is a G. Might be worth looking up in old business directories if you have access?

Bit of a long shot...milliner of fancy ???

Milliner and family business.

Final reply - will guess name is E G Woodward

Could it be 'farming'?

Thanks all - l’ll search the business directories for a Woodward and fancy millinary for that address.

It’s the middle of Birmingham so I’m guessing farming is unlikely (although my great grandfather kept cows in the middle off a town).

Have solved the mystery - my mother actually remembers meeting her mother’s employers, who were three elderly ladies (well, very elderly by the time she met them). It was a milliners and haberdashers shop.

Thanks for updating, I was puzzling about that! I have seen 'milliners and fancy draper' elsewhere. How great your mum met them!

I get the feeling they were hard nosed businesswomen rather than nice little old ladies that took in orphans though.