Child Labour & The Industrial Revolution

During the 1800s the Industrial Revolution spread throughout Britain. The
use of steam-powered machines, led to a massive increase in the
number of factories (particularly in textile factories or mills).

From Country to Town

As the number of factories grew people from the countryside began to move
into the towns looking for better paid work. The wages of a farm worker
were very low and there were less jobs working on farms because of the
invention and use of new machines such as threshers. Also thousands
of new workers were needed to work machines in mills and foundries
and the factory owners built houses for them.Cities filled to overflowing
and London was particularly bad. At the start of the 19th Century about
1/5 of Britain’s population lived there, but by 1851 half the population of
the country had set up home in London. London, like most cities, was
not prepared for this great increase in people. People crowded into
already crowded houses. Rooms were rented to whole families or
perhaps several families. If there was no rooms to rent, people stayed in
lodging houses.


Housing

The worker's houses were usually near to the factories so that people could
walk to work. They were built really quickly and cheaply. The houses
were cheap, most had between 2-4 rooms - one or two rooms
downstairs, and one or two rooms upstairs. Victorian families were big
with 4 or 5 children. There was no running water or toilet. A whole street
would have to share an outdoor pump and a couple of outside toilets.
Most houses in the North of England were "back to backs" (built in
double rows) with no windows at the front, no backyards and a sewer
down the middle of the street. The houses were built crammed close
together, with very narrow streets between them. Most of the houses
were crowded with five or more people possibly crammed into a single
room. Even the cellars were full. Most of the new towns were dirty and
unhealthy. The household rubbish was thrown out into the streets.
Housing conditions like these were a perfect breeding grounds for
diseases. More than 31,000 people died during an outbreak of cholera in
1832 and lots more were killed by typhus, smallpox and dysentery.


Pollution

Chimneys, bridges and factory smoke blocked out most of the light in the
towns. A layer of dirty smoke often covered the streets like a blanket.
This came from the factories that used steam to power their machines.
The steam was made by burning coal to heat water. Burning coal
produces a lot of dirty, black smoke.


Improvements

Gradually, improvements for the poor were made. In 1848, Parliament passed
laws that allowed city councils to clean up the streets. One of the first
cities to become a healthier place was Birmingham. Proper sewers and
drains were built. Land owners had to build houses to a set standard.
Streets were paved and lighting was put up.
Over time slums were knocked down and new houses built. However, these
changes did not take place overnight. When slums were knocked down
in 1875 the poor people had little choice but to move to another slum,
making that one worse. Few could afford new housing.


Child Labour

Many factory workers were children. They worked long hours and were often
treated badly by the supervisors or overseers. Sometimes the children
started work as young as four or five years old. A young child could not
earn much, but even a few pence would be enough to buy food.


Coal Mines

The coal mines were dangerous places where roofs sometimes caved in,
explosions happened and workers got all sorts of injuries. There were
very few safety rules. Cutting and moving coal which machines do
nowadays was done by men, women and children.
The younger children often worked as "trappers" who worked trap doors.
They sat in a hole hollowed out for them and held a string which was
fastened to the door. When they heard the coal wagons coming they had
to open the door by pulling a string. This job was one of the easiest
down the mine but it was very lonely and the place were they sat was
usually damp and draughty.
Older children might be employed as "coal bearers" carrying loads of coal
on their backs in big baskets.

The Mines Act was passed by the Government in 1842 forbidding the
employment of women and girls and all boys under the age of teen down
mines. Later it became illegal for a boy under 12 to work down a mine.


Mills

While thousands of children worked down the mine, thousands of others
worked in the cotton mills. The mill owners often took in orphans to their
workhouses, they lived at the mill and were worked as hard as possible.
They spent most of their working hours at the machines with little time
for fresh air or exercise. Even part of Sunday was spent cleaning
machines. There were some 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.


Factories and Brick Works

Children often worked long and gruelling hours in factories and had to carry
out some hazhardous jobs. In match factories children were employed to
dip matches into a chemical called phosphorous. This phosphorous
could cause their teeth to rot and some died from the effect of breathing
it into their lungs.


Chimney Sweeps

Although in 1832 the use of boys for sweeping chimneys was forbidden by
law, boys continued to be forced through the narrow winding passages
of chimneys in large houses. When they first started at between five and
ten years old, children suffered many cuts, grazes and bruises on their
knees, elbows and thighs however after months of suffering their skin
became hardened.


Street Children

Hordes of dirty, ragged children roamed the streets with no regular money
and no home to got to. The children of the streets were often orphans
with no-one to care for them. They stole or picked pockets to buy food
and slept in outhouses or doorways. Charles Dickens wrote about these
children in his book "Oliver Twist".
Some street children did jobs to earn money. They could work as
crossing-sweepers, sweeping a way through the mud and horse dung of
the main paths to make way for ladies and gentlemen. Others sold lace,
flowers, matches or muffins etc out in the streets.


Country Children

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,out in the fields from four in the morning until seven at night.
Older ones worked in gangs as casual labourers.


Changes for the better

It took time for the goverment to decide that working children ought to be
protected by laws as many people did not see anything wrong with the
idea of children earning their keep. They also believed that people should
be left alone to help themselves and not expect others to protect or keep
them. They felt children had a right to send their children out to work.
People such as Lord Shaftesbury and Sir Robert Peel worked hard to
persuade the public that it was wrong for children to suffer health
problems and to miss out on schooling due to work.