I am looking to better understand the Victorian era (mainly in the U.K., & Europe) and I have realized that, to a real extent, what I don't know is very limiting.
What are some Victorian businesses, trades, and occupations that would be common or at least normal during that era that are now rare or extinct?
In most places, chimney sweeps. Less homes are built with chimneys and because chimneys are less frequently used in houses with them, there's no need for cleaning.
Edit: idk if you would call it a profession, as it was largely done by children.
Launderess was a woman who had fallen on hard times (usually due to the early death of her husband) and did the laundry of people rich enough to afford to. It took 6 days to run a load of laundry and was a massively disruptive process.
I know that you can technically still pay for a service like this, but the socio-economic circumstances that created that entire profession almost exclusively for widowed women was unique to that time period.