Victorian Children at Work
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Transcript Victorian Children at Work
Life was very hard for poor people in the Victorian period.
At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s
reign (1837),
some children did not even go to school!
Poor children as young as four had to work to help support
their families.
Fish Seller Boy (aged 11)
Match Seller Boy (aged 9)
Countryside
Factories
Mills
Children did various kinds of
jobs. Many of the jobs they did
were horrible and unsafe.
Lets take a look at where poor
children may have worked.
Chimney Work
House Service
Coal Mines
Some children worked in coal mines. These were extremely
dangerous places to work; roofs sometimes caved in, explosions
happened and workers got all sorts of injuries. There were very
few safety rules.
One of the common dangers was shifting coal and to do so the
children had to bring it through the tunnels and small shafts. This
would require the children to bend down and this work disabled
many growing children.
Older children might be employed as "coal
bearers" carrying loads of coal on their
backs in big baskets.
Younger children often worked as "trappers"
who opened and shut doors to allow air to
circulate through the tunnels.
Many factory workers were children. They worked long hours, for
very low wages, and were often treated badly by the supervisors or
overseers.
Sometimes the children started work as young as four or five years
of age. Their work was unsafe because there were no guards or
fences around the machines to stop accidents happening.
As with mines and factories, thousands of
children also worked in cotton mills. Here too
the conditions were unpleasant. Children
spent most of their working hours at machines
with little time for fresh air or exercise.
Most mine, factory and mill owners did not
think anything was wrong with giving jobs,
particularly nasty jobs, to children.
There were no laws to protect children as there
are today.
Many fell ill or had serious
accidents. Some children were
scalped when their hair was
caught in the machine, hands
were crushed and some
children were killed when they
went to sleep and fell into the
machine.
This is a photograph of a Chimney Sweeper Boy; you’ll
find out more about him later.
Some orphans and
homeless children
such as Chimney
Sweepers were even
sold to employers.
Children were cheap
and they could not
complain. Boys like the
one in the photo were
forced through the
narrow winding
passages of chimneys
in large houses in
order to clean them.
Children suffered
many cuts,
grazes and
bruises on their
knees, elbows
and thighs.
It was a dirty and
dangerous job.
Many girls from poor families would go in to
service. This meant that they would work for
the local gentry in the big houses, or for
anyone who employed servants; they were
paid very little money.
Many servants had unpleasant jobs to do
like cleaning out fireplaces, and often had
to start work very early in the morning.
This Servant Girl is aged 12
Poor families who lived in the countryside were also forced to
send their children out to work. Seven and eight year olds
could work as bird scarers or stone pickers, out in the fields
from four in the morning until seven at night. Older children
worked in as casual labourers.
As you now know, the working life of children in
Victorian Britain was harsh; often very dangerous and
always badly paid. There are records which document
the experience of children at this time which come
from the reports the children gave to the employment
commissions.
These are the reports from three children, lets
learn about their experiences:
Name: Tom Fisher
Name: Sarah Carpenter
Name: Joseph Hebergam
Age: 10
Age:11
Age: 9
Job: Chimney Sweeper
Job: Factory Worker
Job: Cotton Worker
Date: 1851
Date: 1849
Date: 1847
For all the injustice that went on, it is fair for us to think that nobody cared
for these children. However, there were some people who fought to
change things. Lets meet them …
1.
Lord Shaftesbury knew that it was wrong to use children as cheap labour
and wanted to bring in laws to stop this practice. He encouraged
Inspectors, (called Commissioners), to go round Britain and collect
evidence from working children themselves. Their reports were debated in
Parliament.
The man with a walking stick is
Lord Shaftesbury talking to a
child down a mine
Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885)
2.
Dr Barnado wanted to provide homes for homeless and
abandoned children. He took photographs of the children
he rescued from the streets and used them to persuade
rich people to collect money for his Charity. Dr Barnado
believed all children should be looked after and receive
some education.
The picture shows Dr Barnado
visiting children who lived on
the streets
Dr Thomas Barnado (1845-1905)
3.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Charles Dickens did much to highlight the difficulties faced by poor
children. Perhaps you have read or seen his books which have
been adapted for TV and Film?
Charles Dickens would base his ideas on the social conditions
surrounding him. He sympathized for all the people who were
neglected and unloved. His main focus was how parts of
England were poverty stricken and before writing his novels, he
visited the places that he based his stories on. Charles Dickens
was aware of the cruelties children were suffering, and this we
can see in many of his books.
Throughout Queen Victoria's reign, new laws were
passed to make it illegal to employ young children.
1841 Mines Act - No child under the age of 10 to work underground
1868 Agricultural Gangs Act - No child under the age of 8 to be
employed in a gang of farm workers
1870 Education Act – Education was compulsory for all children aged 510, although it was not free until 1891
1874 Factory Act - No child under the age of 10 is to be employed in a
factory
1875 Climbing Boys Act - Illegal to send boys up chimneys
However there were still many children, over the age of 9, at work when
Queen Victoria died in 1901.
Today, fortunately there are strict laws on how old children
have to be to have a job and about the hours they can
work.