Chimney Sweep Child Labour Industrial Revolution

Children were widely used as human chimney sweeps in england for about 200 years and the lives of these little ones who were forced to climb chimneys were the stuff of nightmares.

Chimney sweep child labour industrial revolution.

The prominence of using small children as chimney sweeps began after the great fire of london which occurred september 2nd through 5th 1666. From cotton mills to coal mines children were cheap labour and small enough to fit into the hard to reach places such as sliding underneath looms to pick up loose cotton or wedging themselves between rocks ready to open mining trap doors. During the industrial revolution particularly moving into the 19th century and the victorian era child labour wasn t uncommon. The chimney sweeps act 1834 was enacted in an attempt to protect the children employed by the sweeping masters from cruel exploitation.

For each child the master sweep was paid 3 4 pounds by the government when the apprenticeship agreement was signed. Powerless children were made apprentice chimney sweeps from 1773 master chimney sweeps regularly kept anywhere from 2 to 20 children depending on how many they could use for their business. At the time this poem was written chimney sweeps were mostly comprised of child laborers who had an extremely difficult life and were unprotected in british society.