Child Labour

Poor Victorian children grew up in large families, but in very cramped conditions, often living in tenement (high-rise) buildings. Many families living on each floor in no more than one or two rooms per family. Rooms were shared with siblings and other family members, sometimes as many as ten to a single room. There was little, often no privacy at all. 

 

Due to the large families, children were sent out to work as soon as they were able, sometimes as young as three-years old. Little or no time was given to play and enjoying life, it was a case of making money just to survive. 

 

Poor women would often have many children and it was believed that the more children they produced, the more money there was to be made, however, it also meant the more mouths there were to feed. 

 

Disease was rife in poor slums at this time and more than half the babies born would die before they reached their first birthday. These diseases included scarlet fever, tuberculosis, measles, rickets and cholera for which there was no known cure and the death toll from these was high. As if the harsh living and working conditions endured, were not enough. 

 

Child labour was a very lucrative business in Victorian times and a wide variety of occupations were available, some more dangerous than others, but the conditions in all were harsh. 

 

These included: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some children were also forced into a life of crime from an early age and gangs of child pick-pockets were commonplace. As also was prostitution for young girls who had no other means of support. 

 

Many children were forced into the more hazardous of these jobs where the death toll could be high. 

 

 

Children as young as three-years old were made to climb chimneys. Their small size made them ideal for clambering inside the narrow flues, and as the children got older some bosses would half-starve them to keep them skinny so they could continue with the work. 

 

Very often their skin would be scraped red raw by climbing in the confined space affecting areas of the body such as their arms, elbows, legs and knees. These wounds were washed with salt and water but there would be no time to rest and recover, being sent up the next chimney as soon as possible. 

 

The Master Chimney Sweep was there to make money, not to care about the welfare of the children in his employ, and there would always be others to take their place. 

 

The risk of death was high in this profession as well as in many others. The most common form of death was falling or getting stuck in the chimney and suffocating but there were also the long-term effects of lung disease with the breathing in of all the dust, and very few chimney sweeps ever made it to middle age. 

 

 

There were many different types of factories including Textile Mills, Paper Mills, Iron Foundries and Match Foundries. 

 

The writer Charles Dickens worked in a Blacking factory aged just twelve while his parents were in a Debtors Prison. 

 

Employing children in factories was big business for many reasons and some owners had more children working for them than adults. After all, children had no rights, didn’t complain, and were cheap labour compared to adults. 

 

Children were made to work long hours, sometimes up to eighteen hours a day, six days a week. They would be given hard and dangerous jobs including cleaning the machines. 

 

It may not sound hard to clean the machines, but they would still be operating while the cleaning was being done as too much money would be lost if the machines were turned off merely to clean them. The child would crawl underneath the machine, in very confined spaces to clean and many would die by getting mangled in the workings and being crushed to death. 

 

The risk of injury or death was also high due to fire, especially in the textile mills and lung disease was rife from the breathing in of oil, soot and dust. 

 

 

Children were again attractive to mining companies due to their size for they would be able to drag the coal carts through the small, tight spaces of the mine-shaft that adults could not. 

 

This was very dangerous work, for If the children lost their grip on the carts, the carts would fall back and kill them. The hours were long in the mines and there was always the risk of a cave-in or explosion. 

 

The children suffered from many health issues including breathing problems, spine deformation due to having to constantly stoop in the mine, and poor lighting causing permanent eyesight problems. The areas they worked in were also rat infested. 

 

A tragedy was always likely to happen and one such incident took place in Yorkshire on 4th July 1838. 

 

 

In the mining community of Silkstone, near Barnsley, the afternoon shift had just started when at about 2pm a fierce storm broke. 

 

A warning was sent to the miners to evacuate the pit and some tried to exit via a drift (tunnel) in Nabbs Wood. Sadly, a stream near the entrance had swollen and burst its banks. 

 

This caused a torrent of water to pour into the drift and twenty-six children, aged between seven and seventeen years-old were drowned in seconds. 

 

The loss of twenty-six young lives shows how dangerous this work was but despite great sadness few questioned the continued use of unregulated child labour. 

 

Children were often treated badly by their masters, who were only interested in money, and they were beaten for many reasons including making mistakes, not working quickly enough, falling asleep or being late amongst other things. 

 

Children were in the main treated little better than slaves, but not all Masters in Victorian times were harsh and brutal. 

 

One man became a pioneer of workers rights. 

 

 

In 1799 following his marriage, Robert Owen purchased the New Lanark Mill and the stone-built mill workers housing from his father-in-law Daniel Dale. 

 

Robert Owen’s management of these mills created a caring and humane regime which was little known elsewhere at the time. He tended to the needs of his employees, reduced the hours of work, and instigated many social and educational reforms. He believed that if people had happy and contented lives at home then they would perform better at work. 

 

New Lanark started the first Infant School for poor children in the world, and evening classes for adults. It also provided a creche for working mothers, free medical care, and organised leisure activities such as concerts and dancing. It also changed the rules for child labour, when children under ten were not permitted to work in the mill. 

 

Robert Owen employed his own inspectors to guarantee the mill houses at New Lanark were kept clean. The workers that lived there were provided with a set of rules and regulations and these houses were regularly inspected by the ‘bug hunters’ as they were known. 

 

Robert Owen was inspirational in his thinking at New Lanark Mills and created a model that it was a shame others did not follow at the time. 

 

It took many years for the workplace treatment of children to improve, however improve it did due to the implementation of various Factory Acts, though initially they were hard to enforce. 

 

The first major change came following the intervention of Lord Shaftesbury, the social reformer who had earlier played a role in the abolition of the slave trade. 

 

He now wished to improve the lives of Victorian children but was strongly opposed by the business owners who believed that any restrictions made on their trade would affect their profits. Money to a business owner was more important than a child’s life. 

 

With the help of Lord Shaftesbury, the first restriction on child labour to become law was The Factory Act of 1834 which banned children under nine from working. 

 

It also limited the hours that could be worked: Children aged nine to thirteen could work no more than nine hours a day while those aged thirteen to eighteen could work no more than twelve hours a day. They were also to receive daily schooling. 

 

The only problem with this Act was that it had only four inspectors assigned to it and it also only related to textile factories, but it was a start. 

 

Many further Acts were to follow, including: 

 

The Coal Miners Act of 1842 stating that women and children were not to work underground. 

 

The Ragged Schools Union was established in 1844, which set up schools for the poor and Lord Shaftesbury became the Chairman of it. 

 

This was followed over time by the Elementary Education Act 1870 which set out a framework of schooling for children aged five to twelve in England.