Victorian England

Victorian England

THE LABORING CLASSES

Perhaps the darkest shadow to have fallen over the nineteenth century was the harsh and often inhumane treatment of Britain’s laboring classes, and especially of the women and children who made up so many of its numbers. The poorest classes … were looked upon as a drain to the public purse, and even the lot of the able country laborer and his family was a hard one.

CHILD LABOR

In the year 1801, the overcrowded conditions in most factories and mills, combined with long hours, poor food and ventilation and overwork, caused an outbreak of epidemic fever among workers in England. For the first time in history, not only was the public conscience roused, but the House of Commons was urged to intervene. An act of 1802 limited the daily work hours to twelve for children, with an hour and a half for meals and rest. This meant that child laborers still worked, on average, from 6 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. In 1833, another act limited children under thirteen to not more than forty-eight hours per week, and they could not work between the hours of 8:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. Lord Althorp’s Factory Act of 1833 set legal limits on the working hours of children and young persons, enforced by factory inspectors. The Ten Hours Bill of 1833 limited daily work of women and children in textile factories to ten hours per day.

CLIMBING BOYS

Youngsters continued to be used as climbing boys by chimney sweeps despite legislation, until 1875, when the continued deaths of children in flues aroused public outcry. … In 1834, a halfhearted act was passed ordering that before a boy was bound to a sweep as an apprentice, he should be examined by two magistrates and made to state that he was “willing and desirous to follow the business of a Chimney Sweep.”

Climbing boys, or “chummies” as they were known, usually started at the age of five and were employed until they were killed or grew too large to climb up inside a chimney flue. In the porrer districts across England, where children were plentiful and wages low, children of any age from four upward were sold to master sweeps, who were under no obligation to look after them, physically or morally.

In 1848, a case came before the Hull magistrates in which it transpired that a boy of ten had been sold from sweep to sweep five separate times, and though the injuries he had sustained in chimney climbing had crippled him for life, he had been driven up no less than twelve flues in the space of the few days prior to the case being heard. Two years lates, at Nottingham, a boy became jammed within a chimney above a smoldering fire. He was pulled out by force but died a few hours later, and no inquest into his death was ever held. Additional chimney sweeps acts, in 1840 and 1864, remained largely disregarded by householders, local authorities and magistrates. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded in 1884, when further reforms were instituted.

Conditions were worse still in the coal pits. In every mining district throughout England, children were commonly employed at the age of seven; in many pits, there were sent underground at age five or six and “trappers” and taught to work in the trapdoors upon which the ventilation system of the mines depended. Once below ground, the children often spent twelve or more hours in complete darkness and silence. Youngsters were also used for pushing trucks from the face of the mine to the bottom of the shaft. These carts were drawn by children who were harnessed to them like animals and forced to crawl through the shafts on all fours.

FEMALE LABOR

There were few ponies used in the coal pits, as it was found that female workers were less costly to keep. Lord Shaftesbury’s Mines Act of 1842 forbade women and children under ten to work below ground in the mines. Yet even after these conditions had been brought to light, they were met with disbelief or, worse yet, complacency from an upper-class society who lived in an entirely different world. This separation of classes is best illustrated by the lot of London seamstresses.

The industrial revolution allowed for the production of large quantities of inexpensive fabric, allowing women from the middle class to follow new changes in fashion. Seamstresses became much in demand, and for girls from the lower classes, entering the dressmaking field was seen as a step toward bettering oneself. While it was deemed a ladylike occupation, the realities of the seamstress’s daily life were harsh. A girl might serve as an apprentice for two or three years, beginning at around the age of fourteen. Her family paid twenty pounds or more to the dressmaker for this apprenticeship, for which she received room and board and was taught the trade, but the girl received no salary. After the girl’s skills had been deemed competent, she might be moved up through the line of production, doing finer tasks, which brought with them more responsibility. However, some employers attempted to keep the girls from advancing in order to keep them at minimal pay.

In order to make the sumptuous dresses in which society women dressed themselves, sweated labor was needed. Seamstresses generally worked from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. during the winter and from 6 a.m. until 12 a.m. in the summer. During the fashionable season (April through July), when the number of balls, dances and other entertainments increased the demand for dresses, it frequently happened that these hours were extended in order to meet increased demand. For special orders, such as for court drawing rooms, general mournings and weddings, the women might work through the night for up to three months at a time. These conditions lasted well into the 1860’s.

AGRICULTURAL LABORERS – Cottagers

Many farmers rented small areas of land, usually measuring one hundred acres or less, from the gentry and aristocracy. In addition to what he earned from the land, a farmer might have been given the use of a cottage for a token rent or rent-free, and would usually have been given a share of food at harvest time. These rural farm cottages were never elaborate buildings, with most having but two rooms, resulting in crowded living quarters. The farmer’s diet was also inadequate, consisting of whatever could be grown by the family, with such items as tea and bacon fat being considered luxuries. Beginning in the 1850’s, the publication Punch and other venues began to advertise these scandalous living conditions. The Prince of Wales purchased and renovated Sandringham during the 1860’s, and over the next twenty years erected over seventy new cottages for his laborers, each having three bedrooms and two common rooms, prompting other landowners to follow his example.

The small-farm worker, or cottager, was given little say in the running of country government, and his children did not regularly receive an education, even after the 1850’s and 1860’s, when country schools were set up. An act of 1870 made the provision of education ofr all English children a law, and local landowners and clergy sought to erect schools in their towns and villages. Still, the amount of money a child might contribute to a family’s income took precedence over education. It was also feared that education would broaden the minds of country children and make them want for things above their station, or prompt them to leave home in order to seek out their own fortunes.

STREET VENDORS
Most city residents conducted their daily marketing by purchasing food, supplies and services from street vendors. Each morning, the residential streets came alive with the cries of street hawkers of every description. The baker typically appeared between 8 and 9 a.m., calling out, “Hot loaves!” as he rang his bell to signal his arrival in the street. Bakers sold warm rolls at one or two a penny, and in the winter they also sold muffins and crumpets.

As common a sight as the baker was the milkmaid. Curiously enough, the delivery and sale of milk was given over entirely to women. The milkmaids’ day began anywhere between 4 and 6 a.m., with milking the cows. Afterward, they delivered milk to the various houses on their routes until nearly 10 a.m. The dairy cans were then washed, and at noon, the cows were milked again. The delivery of milk was then resumed and went on till nearly 6 p.m., when the cans were washed and prepared for the next day’s work.

Milkmaids who lived on farms at the outskirts of the city brought milk in daily. They walked long distances while carrying a pair of churns from a shoulder yoke. … The milkmaids walked donkeys and cow to the houses of customers who had babies, drawing the milk straight from the beats and into their customers’ jugs.

A VARIETY OF VENDORS
Once the milkmaids and bakers had made their appearances, the streets began to teem with other vendors. Baking or boiling apples were sold by women who carried charcoal stoves in their barrows so that their customers might buy hot apples. The bandbox seller could be seen carrying his wares at the end of a pole, which he rested on his shoulder. These boxes were made in the homes of the poor and sold for sixpence to three shillings, while boxes of slightly sturdier deal, with a lock and key, sold for from three to six shillings. …

Tradesmen, different from vendors, also plied the streets. The cry of, “Chairs to mend!” was heard in every town. Common chairs that did not have seats of wood had seats of rush, which were cut from rivers in the early autumn. The chair man carried a bolt of rushes in his arms as he went about the streets, and repairs were undertaken in the street in front of a house. …

Among other items for sale were sand, used for cleaning floors, live rabbits, doormats, rat traps, baskets, fish and ice, which could also be purchased from the fishmonger or from ice companies, who delivered ice to homes. They also sold ice chests, the forerunners of the refrigerator. A block of ice was wrapped in a clean cloth and placed into the wooden ice chest, which had removable shelves placed atop the ice block and onto which food could be placed and kept cold. A brass tap was fitted into these chests to allow the melted ice to drain off.

Some street sellers, like the muffin man, lasted well into the 1920’s, and girls selling lavender could still be found during World War II. Street vendors sold jellied eels, pea soup and hot pies from stalls, and there were still seven hundred cow keepers in the London area in the late 1880’s.

Hughes, Kristine. Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901. Cincinatti: F&W Publications, 1998.