Child Workers In A Cotton-Spinning Mill

 

Mule-spinning machinery. 

Britain's early cotton factories depended on child labour. Some children and young people worked as 'piecers'; they joined together cotton threads when they broke on a spinning-mule. The youngest worked as 'scavengers'; they cleaned up the cotton dust and waste from under the mule. As the mule carriage moved forward and backward three times every two minutes, this could be very dangerous, as they might get their head trapped. 

'Creel fillers' placed the cotton rovings on the mule ready to be spun. 'Doffers' removed full bobbins of cotton thread and replaced them with empty bobbins. 

In 1819, William Royle, a 30 year-old cotton-spinner at Thomas Ainsworth's Warrington mill, paid his piecers from 2 shillings to 6 shillings a week. He earned 20 shillings net after paying his child helpers. William said he had first started factory work when he was ten years old.

Half the workforce at this mill, which ran from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., was under sixteen years of age. On Saturdays, the mill stopped at 5 p.m. Four times per week, the children stayed behind for half an hour at the mill to clean the machinery after it stopped. 

The children had no breakfast, dinner or tea break. They had to eat while they worked, so their food was regularly covered with the cotton dust or 'fly' which filled the air in the factory. The children usually had porridge for breakfast, potatoes with perhaps a little bacon for dinner (lunch), and bread and butter for their tea. 

It was hot and humid in the factory (to help stop the threads from breaking) - over 80 degrees Fahrenheit - so women and girls worked in their petticoats, with a 'brat' (pinafore) over their petticoats. Boys and men worked without their waistcoats or coats. The workers were usually barefoot, without shoes or stockings. 

'Doing Their Bit'

In some earlier blog posts, I've looked at the sacrifices my family made during WW1. While soldiers were away fighting the war, the women and children of Britain 'did their bit' for the war effort, too, and this was true in both world wars. Women took over many jobs traditionally done by men before that date - working on the railways and buses, and in munitions factories and the steelworks.
Boys and girls - Scouts and Guides - helped with war work such as running messages, or harvesting crops. Young lads served in the navy and mercantile marine, and many patriotic underage teenage lads wangled their way onto active service. My book Tracing Your Ancestor's Childhood has lots of info on how to find out about records for your ancestors' wartime service and in youth organizations, and my latest feature for Family Tree looks at the effect of both world wars on children, especially at Christmastime.

Images of women bus and tram conductors, and a mother and child hauling a canal boat along the Regent's Canal, from the Nigel Wilkes Collection: The Times History of the War, Vol. IV, 1915.

Waifs and Strays

In an earlier blog post, I talked about eighteenth century children's charities like Captain Coram's Foundling Hospital. In late Victorian Britain, there were still huge numbers of impoverished children. They survived by begging and stealing, or selling matches, sweeping the streets and shining shoes, etc. 

Evangelical philanthropist Dr Thomas Barnardo (1845–1905) opened his first children’s home, for boys, at Stepney in 1870; a girls' home was founded shortly afterwards at Barkingside. 

Barnardo took in children with disabilities and social handicaps like illegitimacy at a time when some other charities would not take them in. In 1884 Barnardo opened a ‘Babies Castle’ at Hawkhurst. But when he found that the infants did not thrive well in an institution, he later boarded out the children. If you have an ancestor who was a Barnardo's child, there's help here on the Barnardo's website. 

The Church of England Society for Waifs and Strays (1881) was another famous organization: it is now the Children's Society. You can find out more about the Society, its children and the homes it ran here on Hidden Lives Revealed. 

Barnardo's and other charities believed that poor children would have better prospects in life if separated from their impoverished parents, and they began emigration schemes to Australia, Canada and other Commonwealth countries. 
Some child emigrants were treated very harshly in their new homes overseas, and were used as cheap labour. Some emigration schemes ran until 1970. The Child Migrants Trust helps former child migrants find their origins, and provides counselling. The Trust’s website has information about tracing records and the history of child migration. Tracing Your Ancestors' Childhood also has tips about tracing ancestors who were in charities' care, child migrants, WW2 evacuees. Websites and archives for charities and voluntary organisations are listed in its research guide. 
Images: 
Postcard of the Babies’ Castle, Hawkhurst, Kent, a Dr Barnardo home, postmarked 1911. 
A photo postcard of a mother and daughters, c.1910. Author's collection.
 

Street Sweepers and Shoe-Blacks

In my earlier blog posts I wrote about the poverty suffered by many Georgian and Victorian children and orphans. Many swept streets or cleaned shoes to earn a pittance. The shoe-black brigades were voluntary organizations linked to the ragged school movement. (As I've mentioned previously, child labour was all part of growing up during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries).

This week author Michelle Higgs, whose new book A Visitor's Guide to Victorian England is out now, has very kindly allowed me to write a guest post for her blog, and you can find out more about child street-sweepers and the shoe-black boys here. Michelle gives updates on her work and fun facts about Victorian England on her Twitter feed @MichelleHiggs11.

Image from my collection:   

Homeless street-sweepers sleeping under a railway arch in London in the 1880s. Cassell’s Family Magazine, Cassell & Co. Ltd (London, 1883).

Street Children

Poor children in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were expected to work from an early age – shockingly early to modern eyes (although sadly child labour is still commonplace in many developing countries). 

 

If you strolled down a street in Georgian or Victorian England, you could hardly fail to notice the many children dressed in rags, and obviously in need of a good meal. Children helped their parents with their work at home (perhaps preparing wool or cotton for the loom), or found work in a factory, or if very poor, sold matches or gingerbread on the streets.   

Very small children were in great demand as chimney sweeps (as it was easy for them to climb chimneys), and unscrupulous parents sold their children to master sweeps for a few pounds. 

Alternatively poor children went to the poorhouse or workhouse for relief.  Children (not necessarily orphans) were often apprenticed by parish officials to ‘learn a trade’, so that they would not be a burden on the parish rates.  

Several charities grew up to look after destitute children, and I’ll look at the work of some of these institutions in my next blog post.

Images from the author’s collection:

‘The Poor Cripple Girl’ selling gingerbread, ‘The Orphans' selling matches, and ‘The Little Chimney Sweep’, from Henry Sharpe Horsley, The Affectionate Parent’s Gift, T.Kelly, 1827.

Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood

My forthcoming book Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood, which will be published by Pen & Sword this September, is now available for pre-order from Amazon UK!

The first part of Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood and Education explores children’s experiences at home, school, work and in institutions.  In Victorian times, children and young people formed a far higher proportion of the population than the present.  In 2009, twenty per cent of the UK’s population was under sixteen years old.  In 1841, thirty-six per cent of the population of England was under fifteen.  If you could travel back in time and walk down a Victorian street or explore a factory, you would be struck by how many children and teenagers were present.  Many thousands of children lived in institutions, too: in 1840, 22,300 children aged nine to sixteen were workhouse inmates.

In my book, I discuss childhood records in detail such as poor law records, apprenticeship indentures, school registers, criminal records, wartime records, child migrant records (including evacuees), and so on. 

The second part of the book is a directory of archives and specialist repositories, and children’s societies. It includes databases of online records, useful genealogy websites, and places to visit.

Images from the author’s collection:

1920s postcard of children.

Two boys working Delarue’s envelope machine. Illustrated London News, 21 June 1851.

Birmingham Children's Lives

I recently discovered a very interesting new blog about children's lives, a project by Birmingham Archives and Heritage. The blog has historical photos of children and images of documents which give an insight into their lives such as school logbooks, so do take a look if you are interested in exploring your ancestors' childhood records. 

Birmingham was home to the metal trades, such as the manufacture of steel pens. The two biggest factories were Joseph Gillott & Co. and Hinks,Wells & Co. In the 1860s, conditions in Gillott's factory were clean, and few children under thirteen were employed, but at Hinks's works like Jack Parden worked in rags because the vitriol  used to clean the steel strips for the pens splashed onto their clothes. The boys often cut their hands on the metal strips.

I hope to have some exciting news for you soon, so keep checking back for updates! 

Image: Rolling steel for pens at Hinks, Wells & Co., Birmingham. Some of the boy helpers were as young as nine years old. Illustrated London News, 22 February 1851.