Children of The 1800's

A child living in London at the end of the 19th century would have experienced a very different childhood to that of their grandparents born in the early years of the century.

By 1899 London was an extremely crowded city, as more people came to live and find work in the capital.

Many urban developments altered the lives of all children, but the experience of changing childhood in the 19th century was closely linked to family and social background. The life of a wealthy child was very different from that of a poor child. Wealthier children throughout the Victorian period were made aware of the suffering of the poor through the moral and religious education they received at Church Sunday schools. Those more comfortably off were encouraged to help those less fortunate than themselves by donating their money and time to charity.

Poorer families greatest fear was ending up in the workhouse, where thousands of homeless and penniless families were forced to live. If your family was taken into the workhouse you would be split up dressed in uniform and have your hair cut short. This could happen to a family if father were taken ill and unable to work.
Lots of children in poor families died of diseases like scarlet fever, measles, polio and TB which are curable today. These were spread by foul drinking water, open drains and lack of proper toilets. In overcrowded rooms if one person caught a disease it spread quickly through the rest.

By the end of the 19th century, not only families but the government too had changed the way it treated children. At the time, more than a third of those living in England were under 15 years old. In an attempt to control the growing numbers of young people whilst, at the same time, protecting them from violence and poverty, the government introduced laws relating to the specific needs of children. This new attitude helped children to develop their own identity. They were no longer officially seen as 'miniature adults' but treated as a distinct social group with their own needs and interests which deserved special laws and treatment.

Work + Factory Acts	Crime and punishment
Orphans	Education + Education Acts
Leisure Time	Death and Disease

Crime and punishment

Children often experienced violence at home, school and work. Many poor children and orphans survived by joining street gangs and turning to crime and prostitution. In the novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens describes how children could become organized into pick pocketing gangs controlled by adult criminals.

At the beginning of the 19th century, child criminals were punished in the same way as adults. They were sent to adult prisons, sometimes transported abroad for theft, whipped or even sentenced to death. In 1814 five child criminals under the age of fourteen were hung at the Old Bailey, the youngest being only eight years old.

The Victorians were very worried about crime and its causes. Reformers were asking questions about how young people who had broken the law ought to be treated. They could see that locking children up with adult criminals was hardly likely to make them lead honest lives in the future. On the other hand, they believed firmly in stiff punishments. In 1854 Reformatory Schools were set up for offenders under 16 years old. These were very tough places, with stiff discipline enforced by frequent beatings.

Orphans

London had many orphanages but places were usually given to orphans who had come from wealthy or respectable families. Many poor children whose parents had died were forced to live on the streets or in workhouses where conditions were extremely hard.

By the end of the 19th century, poor orphans were beginning to enjoy an improved lifestyle. By this time many were living in special children's homes such as those established by Dr Barnardo. Children who suffered violence at home could also get help from the National Society of the Prevention for Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) set up in 1889.

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.
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.

Work

Breaker Boys

Poor children were forced to work from a very young age. Many earned a few pennies by becoming chimney-sweeps or working on the streets running errands, calling cabs, sweeping roads, selling toys or flowers and helping the market porters. Other children worked alongside their parents at home or in small, dark and dirty workshops sewing clothes, sacks or shoes.

The industrial revolution had resulted in many children being employed in large factories. They were often responsible for operating dangerous machinery. Children who worked in factories suffered a hard life. The young girls who worked in the match factories run by Bryant and May endured long hours and poor pay. They worked with dangerous materials such as phosphorous that could cause a disease known as 'phossy jaw' that rotted their lower jaw.

Children started working in factories on the average between the ages of nine and twelve. In many instances fathers would employ their own children, who would work along side their fathers in the factories. There were children working in mills up to twelve hours a day. This use of child labour was influenced by the technology of the time. The first cotton spinning machines were so small that the persons most capable of operating and fixing them were children. Also cotton spinning was easier for the kids to learn. In the 1830s children worked as piecers, joining together pieces of broken thread on spinning machines. These kids made about 2 to 3 shillings per week. The fact that mills were small kept the owners looking for workers who were between six and twelve years old.

Many children worked as servants in the homes of richer families. In the 1850s one in nine of all female children over the age of ten years worked in domestic service.

Through the first half of the 19th century, English home owners cleaned their chimneys by hiring chimney sweep to bring small children to go up the chimneys to clean out the soot. Orphaned children as young as four were sold by orphanages to master chimney sweeps to clean the chimneys. It was also legal to capture vagrant, homeless children and force them into slavery. The children would be sent up into a chimney to clean the soot from the chimney walls with their hands or with scrapers. little was done to end the exploitation of young children as chimney sweeps until 1840 when an act was passed forbidding anyone under 21 from climbing chimneys. This act had little effect as penalties were small. In 1864 Lord Shaftesbury introduced an act which imposed a £10 fine (a large amount at the time) on anyone breaking the rules. The penalty had widespread support in its enforcement from the police, the courts and the public. This act finally signalled the end of this particular form of cruelty. It was not until 1875 that Parliament passed an act which stated that all chimney sweeps had to be licensed and licenses were only issued to sweeps not using climbing boys.

From the middle of the 19th century, charities tried to help poor street children by providing organised work for them. In 1866 John Groom set up the 'Watercress and Flower Girls' Christian Mission to provide a home and work for young and disabled flower sellers.

From 1851 the London Shoe-Black Brigade, established by John MacGregor and Lord Shaftesbury, offered regular, better-paid, employment for children who made their living cleaning boots and shoes. Members of the London Shoe-Black societies wore a uniform with a coloured jacket indicating the area in which they worked. Those working in the City of London area wore red. In the evenings these children could attend lessons at the Ragged Schools.

Here are a list of some Acts that affected and also helped some of the working children of the 1800's.

1802 - Health and Morals of Apprentices Act (not enforced): No apprentice in textile factories to work more than 12 hours a day. Night work was banned.

The regulations, briefly stated, were the following:

1 - The master or mistress of the factory must observe the law.
2 - All rooms in a factory are to be lime-washed twice a year and duly ventilated.
3 - Every apprentice is to be supplied with two complete suits of clothing with suitable linen, stockings, hats and shoes.
4 - The hours of work of apprentices are not to exceed twelve a day, nor commence before six in the morning, nor conclude before nine at night.
5 - They are to be instructed every working day during the first four years of apprenticeship in reading, writing and arithmetic.
6 - Male and female apprentices are to be provided with separate sleeping apartments, and not more than two to sleep in one bed.
7 - On Sunday they are to be instructed in the principles of the Christian religion.

1819 - Factory Act limits working day for children in cotton mills to 12 hours. Children under the age of 9 should not be employed, but magistrates did not enforce this.

In 1833 the Government passed a Factory Act to improve conditions for children working in factories. Young children were working very long hours in workplaces where conditions were often terrible. The basic act was as follows:

1 - No child workers under 9 years of age

2 - Employers must have a medical or age certificate for child workers

3 - Children between the ages of 9-13 to work no more than 9 hours a day

4 - Children between 13-18 to work no more than 12 hours a day

5 -Children are not to work at night

6 - Two hours schooling each day for children

7 - Four factory inspectors appointed to enforce the law throughout the whole of the country.

However, the passing of this Act did not mean that overnight the mistreatment of children stopped.

1842 - Mines Act: Women and girls, and boys under the age of 10, were not allowed to work underground. Boys under the age of 15 were not allowed to work machinery.

1844 - Factory Act: Children under 13 to work no more than 6.5 hours per day. Women and children aged 13-18 to work no more than 12 hours a day.

1847 - Factory Act limits women and children under 18 to 58-hour working week.

1850 - Factory Act establishes standard working day

1860 - Mines Act: Boys under 12 not allowed underground unless they could read and write

1875 - Act passed which required all chimney sweeps to be licensed. Licences were issued only to sweeps not using climbing boys.

1878 - Factory and Workshops Act: Employment of children under 10 banned. Regulations of control safety, ventilation and meals.

1891 - Factory Act made the requirements for fencing machinery more stringent. Under the heading Conditions of Employment two considerable additions to previous legislation. The first is the prohibition on employers to employ women within four weeks after confinement; the second the raising the minimum age at which a child can be set to work from ten to eleven.

A young girl selling shrimps on the streets of London in the 1880's

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Education

At the beginning of the 19th century, children were not required to go to school but, by 1899, all children up to the age of twelve officially had the opportunity of going to school.

The sort of education they received depended very much on how wealthy their families were. Rich children could be educated at home by a private tutor or governess; boys were sent to boarding schools such as Eton or Harrow. The sons of middle-class families attended grammar schools or private academies.

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, the only schools available for poor children were charity and church schools or 'dame' schools set up by unqualified teachers in their own homes. Ragged schools were introduced in the 1840s. Working in the poorest districts, teachers (who were often local working people) initially utilized such buildings as could be afforded - stables, lofts, railway arches. There would be an emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic - and on bible study. This mix expanded into industrial and commercial subjects in many schools. They were established as charities and relied on people donating money and volunteering to become teachers. The President of the London Ragged School Union, founded in 1844, was Lord Shaftesbury. There were eventually 200 Ragged Schools in Great Britain providing an education for over 300,000 children who, as Charles Dickens noted, were 'too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter any other place'.

The Ragged School Union was also responsible for the provision of several welfare schemes aimed at improving the lives of children from deprived families. Refuges were provided for the homeless, school meals provided for the hungry and clothing clubs and saving banks were set up to encourage frugality. The Union was often active in finding work for its pupils, such employment usually came in the prospect of the armed forces for boys and domestic service for girls.
It is difficult to calculate the impact made by the work of the Ragged School Union on the lives of children. Hundreds of children continued to live a life of vagrant crime and long working hours. However, the Ragged Schools certainly helped to reform the lives of many of their pupils and were credited with not only improving employment opportunities for young people and of reducing the number of children in jail.

From 1870 the government introduced a system of education that enabled local authorities to set up schools paid for out of the rates or taxes. This meant that all children between the ages of five and thirteen could go to school if they paid about 2d (1 pence) a week. Many people could still not afford to send their children to school. The teaching in these schools was often poor and undertaken by monitors who were only about 12 years old. Classes were large and often had over 60 pupils.

The 1870 Education Act made schools under the control of locally elected School Boards possible. Drafted by William Forster, Education Minister in the government headed by William Gladstone, the act stated that any area, which voted for it, could have a school board. These new board schools could charge fees but they were also eligible for government grants and could also be paid for out of local government rates, by 1874, over 5,000 new schools had been founded.
Boards provided an education for the five to ten age group. In some areas board school boards pioneered new educational ideas. For example, the London School Board introduced separate classrooms for each age group, a central hall for whole-school activities and specialist rooms for practical activities. In Bradford Fred Jowett and Margaret McMillan pioneered the idea of free school meals for working-class children and in Brighton Catherine Ricketts developed the idea of increasing attendance rates by hiring women to visit mothers in their homes to explain the benefits of education. School boards came to an end with the passing of the 1902 Education Act.

1844 - "Ragged Schools" set up for poorest children

Under the 1880 Elementary Education Act, education became free up to the age of 10, but was also made compulsory up until that age as well.

In 1891 the government introduced free education for all children up to the age of eleven. In 1899 the school-leaving age was raised to twelve. But many children still failed to attend school regularly, and continued to work during the day to help support their families.

The 1893 Elementary Education Act raised the school leaving age to 11.

The 1899 Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act, raising the age of exemption from 11 to 12 years.

1918 - School-leaving age rose to 14.

Leisure time

London was an exciting city for children. Many spent much of their day on the streets where there was always some form of music and entertainment to enjoy, including organ grinders, acrobats and jugglers. Until 1868 children could even join the crowds watching the public hanging of criminals outside Newgate prison.

Wealthier children with more leisure time could visit the zoo, museums, exhibitions and art galleries and from 1894 enjoy a ride on the revolving Great Wheel at Earls Court. At Christmas time they may have been taken to the theatre to watch a pantomime. At home they played with a range of toys from wax dolls to toy soldiers and train sets. There were many toy shops in London including Hamley's 'Noah's Ark' Toy Warehouse. In the Strand there was even a specialist toy arcade called Lowther's lined with many small toy shops selling a range of both expensive and cheap, mass-produced toys.

Death and disease

Victorian children were very close to death and suffering. In the 1830s almost half the funerals in London were for children under ten years old. Many people died from infections and diseases that we would rarely die of today, such as measles and scarlet fever. Children often experienced the death of a parent, brother or sister. If one of their parents died, wealthy children were expected to go into mourning and wear black clothing for up to a year. They may also have worn mourning jewellery such as a bracelet of plaited hair removed from the head of a dead relative.

Poor children were more likely to suffer from death and disease. Many lived in dirty, crowded conditions and shared living accommodation with other families. They often lived in homes without heat where the only furniture was a heap of rags and straw. The lack of nutritious food, toilet facilities and the poor quality of drinking water resulted in serious cases of diarrhea, typhoid and other infections. Raw sewage in the drinking water and the stench of the River Thames also made people feel almost constantly sick. Many people could not afford to visit a doctor or pay for medicines. Although the Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children was founded in 1852, most sick children continued to be cared for at home in dirty and crowded conditions. Babies were especially likely to become ill and up to half of all poor children born in London died in their first year.

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