There is no quantitative record of jobs lost to, and generated by, creative destruction as industries mechanized in Great Britain over the 19th century. Such a record would enable a long-term view of the impact of occupational decline, adding a dimension to debates on the future of work. I created a new, sub-industry, occupation level for England between 1851 and 1911, using text recorded in individual-level English census observations, as digitized by the Integrated Census Microdata project (ICeM), as data. I focus on the impact of mechanization on the bootmaking industry and assign 1.3 million English bootmakers to the sub-industry “tasks” they performed. I show that technological unemployment obscured at an industry level analysis is revealed at the task level. In bootmaking, the occupational structure was transformed as the industry mechanized. Approximately 152 000 jobs disappeared as skills became obsolete, and another 144 000 jobs, demanding new skills, were generated. The new jobs went almost entirely to young bootmakers, and incumbents did not transition into the new employment opportunities. This did not mean labor displacement – instead, incumbents were “grandfathered out”. The technological shock primarily impacted the matrix of employment opportunities available to young people.