Chimney Sweep Child Labour Industrial Revolution

The act forbade the apprenticing of any boy under the age of 10 years and the employment of children under 14 in chimney sweeping unless they were apprenticed or on trial.

Chimney sweep child labour industrial revolution.

During the industrial revolution particularly moving into the 19th century and the victorian era child labour wasn t uncommon. 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. For each child the master sweep was paid 3 4 pounds by the government when the apprenticeship agreement was signed. In the modern day our view of chimney sweeps has undoubtedly been influenced and affected by portrayals in popular media.

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. 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.