The Child in the Industrial Revolution

Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution was an exploitation of children.

Children had always been a source of cheap labor in England and it was a normal

practice to apprentice children to a master craftsman. During the Industrial

Revolution however several aspects of child labor in England changed and in

doing so the normal became and exploitation of these very young workers. Many

jobs stand out for their mistreatment of children: mine, collieries, factory

jobs, and mill jobs. One good example is the chimney sweep.

Chimney sweeps are relevant to the problem of exploitation because of:

- Long working hours

- Separation from and/or destruction of the family unit

- Poor/dangerous work conditions

- Little hope for the future

Chimney sweeps had to work long hours because of the nature of their work. The

best time to clean a flue is in the early morning hours before the fire of the

day has been lit while the flue is cool . A good time to get started

as a chimney sweep was about 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning. Most did not return

home until sunset because the sweeps also had to carry away heavy bags of soot

and were commonly hired as nightmen in order to earn extra money for their

masters. Nightmen were lowered into privies in order to retrieve all the dirt.

These hours and this dirty work would tire a grown man who chose

this as his profession but grown men were usually the supervisors, watching

prepubescent boys do all the work.

Young boys that climb chimneys were usually separated form their families at a

very early age. In fact one year before Blake wrote "The Chimney Sweeper" in

Songs of Innocence, Parliament passed a law which went largely unenforced to

make the minimum age of a chimney sweep eight years old . Boys as

young as 4 and 5 were taken as apprentices. The smaller a child was the more

valuable to his Master since he could charge a great deal to clean a

particularly narrow flue. Like many other apprenticeship programs the child

went to live with his master the difference here was that the parents received

money for giving up their child as opposed to the normal practice of paying the

master to train their child. It was not unheard of for an unkind master sweep

to kidnap a child from a playground when no other source was available .

The working conditions of these "climbing boys" as they were known were

horrible. Boys, primarily under the age of 12 worked as slaves for their

masters. A meager breakfast before sunrise started their day then they walked

scantily clad, often bare-footed, no matter what time of year, in search of a

days work. The standard flue size of the time was 9 by 14 inches (perhaps the

size of your computer monitor) and some were as small as 6 by 6 inches (smaller

by far than apiece of notebook paper). The bald headed boys, shaved to keep

their hair from catching on fire stripped off their clothes, which tended to get

caught and climbed the narrow flue to the top of the house. Boys that hesitated

were prodded with pins, fire and threats. At the top the boys cried out "All up"

and waved to show they had reached the top then they climbed back through the

flue so they could pack up the soot and move on to the next chimney.

Being a sweep was a dangerous job and many youngsters died or were ruined by

their work. Those that did survive the dangers had very little to no education

and in many cases were handicapped in some way and could work only as a

journeyman sweep or a beggar.