Bloggeron

Thank goodness working laws have been changed and health and safety training introduced into the workplace.

In the 1800’s, health and safety training was not something ever heard of and, given the desperate need for all to work due to lack of social security, it’s unlikely that the working classes would have wanted something that prevent them from working.
That said, I’m guessing that given the amount of children lost to work related injuries and accidents, some protection would have been appreciated.

Child labour was a sought after thing back then. Children were allowed by their families to work through necessity - any income was better than none. Business owners, particularly in the factory and mining industries, sought child labour because it was cheap and convenient.

Many of these children were sent down coal mines where they were useful because of such small stature. This was one of the hardest jobs of its times. Children very rarely saw daylight and the work was physically gruelling. Many children died working in the mines, there was no health and safety training for them, they just had to do as they were told until they dropped, at which time they would be replaced.

In 1842 the Mines Act was passed through government decreeing that it was forbidden for mine owners to employ women, girls and boys under the age of ten. A few years later the lower age limit for a boy in the coal mines was twelve.

Cotton mills were also notorious for using child labour. Orphans were taken into workhouses but had precious little time for anything other than work in very difficult conditions. If their hair got caught in machinery they were scalped, hands were crushed whilst trying to fix machinery and many died when they worked until they fell asleep into the machinery and were crushed to death.

Of course, health and safety training today would see no such risks taken but that is also a product of the UK’s social security system. Without this, as in other countries, many children would seek work either by themselves so that they didn’t starve or farmed out by their families to bring in enough money to survive.

Chimney sweeps were normally small boys between the ages of five and ten, which is of some surprise to me. It takes a rocket to get my child out of bed these days, to spend a whole day toiling in this way would horrify him!

Children were often used in brick factories and match factories. They were required to dip matches into phosphorous, which would now given any health and safety inspector the terrors. Phosphorous is very dangerous and many children died from inhaling it. In the country, jobs for everybody, including children were limited, but some were employed for scaring birds from the fields.

These days it is illegal for children under the age of thirteen to work and their working hours and the types of jobs they can do are very restricted to ensure they do not come into harm’s way and that they do not miss out on their education.

When it comes to jobs that bring people into contact with any substance or tools that could be hazardous, then the age limit is raised to 18. If they complete health and safety training then they are allowed to move into more precarious work.