CHILD LABOUR IN VICTORIAN TIMES

CHILD LABOUR IN VICTORIAN TIMES

Home life was not easy. With parents and elder brothers and sisters at work for most of the day, you could find yourself left at home to care for toddlers and babies. If you were not lucky enough to find work as a servant, or in the mines or factories, you could find other ways to earn your living. Which one would you prefer?

CHIMNEY SWEEPING

This was a popular job for young boys and girls, who were chosen for their size and agility. Life was cruel and conditions were worse. Working in hot, dark and cramped conditions was very hard and tiring. Children often scraped their elbows and knees as they climbed up inside the chimneys. One sweep said…

“ No one knows the cruelty they undergo in learning. The flesh must be hardened. This is done by rubbing it, chiefly on the elbows and the knees, with the strongest brine (salt water) close by a hot fire. You must stand over them with a cane …”

If a worker was found sleeping on the job, or if by his own misfortune he became stuck in the chimney, his master would light a fire beneath him!

RIBBON MAKING

You may think that making ribbons for the hair and dresses of ladies was a pleasant, gentle occupation. Think again!

“Three hundred boys were employed in turning hand looms. The endless whirl had such a bad effect on the head and the stomach that the little turners often suffered in the brain and the spinal chord and some died of it. In one mill near Cork six deaths and sixty mutilations have occurred in four years”.

Victorian Observer