Bessy's Reality

 I was intrigued by Bessy in North and South, and her representation of the detrimental effects of the industrial revolution on the working class. This photo is one of a flax mill, similar to a cotton mill where Bessy would have worked in. As we can see it is extremely crowded both with workers and equipment, which leads to the infamous heath complications within factories. The main illness contracted in cotton anf flax mills was byssinosis, the blockage of the lungs caused by the cotton and flax particles within the air of these poorly ventilated and crowded spaces.

     Bessy is a prime example of the stresses and unfair conditions put upon child labor in the Industrial Revolution of Britain, even though she was more of a young woman. The need to exchange her suffering for the well-being of her family, and eventually lose her life, was a widespread issue affecting countless British families. Even after the factory act was put into place in 1833 in an attempt to ease the suffering of these children, conditions were far from ideal and would continue to be so until children were able to not be held accountable for their family's finance.

Contributed by Grace Rogers

Child Labor Laws In Victorian Era: The Factory Acts

In nineteenth-century Victorian England and even through the beginning of the twentieth-century, child labor laws were virtually nonexistent and, where they did exist, went largely unenforced by figures in government until the Factory Act of 1833 was passed by English Parliament which offered protections, if a bit scant, to the class of citizen most in need of protection: children. For an upper-class child in Victorian England, a day might be spent tutoring under a nurse between meals in a private estate; however, for the lower class, children were often forced into public jobs that would help supplement their family’s income with some parents treating the children themselves as sources of income. Thus, in the words of a writer with victorianchildren.org, “having more children who worked raised the income of the home,” as children were pawned off to employers who would offer the child board and pay parents as little as fifteen shillings (about $69.82 today) per year for a laborer who would work for upwards of fourteen hours per day and even into the night with scarce breaks for eating or resting (Victorian Children). For many children this life was normal, even expected, and after learning to behave under their new masters, they grew used to the ever-growing threat of death and disease hanging over them as they worked in factory and mining settings with poor ventilation, unclean conditions, and claustrophobic spaces that threatened to suffocate them at every turn. The Factory Acts of the nineteenth century helped to revolutionize how children were protected from the labor force, and, although provisionary and largely unenforced, they helped lay a groundwork that would outline child liberation in the twentieth century.

Child Labor Before 1833

Before the signing of the first Factory Act which helped protect the workers in cotton mills, mines, and industrial factories, legal protections for working children were almost non-existent. Some children started working in factories as young or younger than nine years, and their slight bodies were used to perform labor that even adults were unable to accomplish. Many children worked in mines where they were often strapped to a cart filled with coal and forced to pull it on their hands and knees to the opening of the mine for collection. Because the mines were not properly ventilated, respiratory problems and black lung were common among child workers who performed these tasks for twelve to eighteen hour per day (Victorian Child Labor). Other children worked in city cleaning as street sweepers or chimney sweeps, literally crawling into chimneys to clean them only to be scrubbed perfunctorily with salt water and sent down the next one. Without legal protections and a way to enforce them, children were tasked with the most dangerous jobs that ought to have been reserved only for the most able adults among them.

To understand this issue more clearly than I can explain it, read the following excerpt from a transcript of an interview with a young woman who had spent most of her life as a laborer:

Elizabeth Bently, called in; and Examined.

What age are you? – Twenty-three.

What time did you begin work at a factory? – When I was six years old.

[…]

What kind of mill is it? – Flax mill.

What was your business in that mill? – I was a little doffer

What were your hours of labour in that mill? – From five in the morning till nine at night when they were thronged.

[…]

What time was allowed for your meals? – Forty minutes at noon.

[…]

Suppose you flagged a little, or were too late, what would they do? – Stap us.

Are they in the habit of strapping those who are last in doffing? – Yes.

Constantly? – Yes.

Girls as well as boys? – Yes

Have you ever been strapped? – Yes.

Severely? – Yes. (Scott)

That excerpt was taken from an interview given before the Sadler Committee in 1831 who worked to give a voice to those who were victimized by the institution of child labor.

The Factory Acts

Although poorly executed in the beginning, the laws passed by British Parliament were among the first in the world to provide any protections for children in the working class. The Factory Acts, as they would be called, began with an Act called the Cotton Mills Act in 1819. According to the official UK Parliament website, this first Act prohibited children younger than nine from working in cotton mills “with a maximum day of twelve hours for all those under sixteen,” (UK Parliament). The Act was narrow in scope and almost impossible to enforce, but it opened the door for a line of legislation that would follow to provide protections for the weakest in Victorian society. The next Act that would follow came in 1833 that demanded that no child under nine should be employed in any industry as well as limiting work for children under thirteen to no more than nine hours per day. It also provided children with schooling for at least two hours per day and prohibited work at night according to the UK National Archives (National Archives). These advances on their own were revolutionary in the early 1800’s, but what made the biggest difference for those children was the final stipulation of the law which required that four factory inspectors would be appointed to enforce that law and offer heavy fines to those who broke it. Following this Act, several others would be passed in 1844, 1850, and 1884 that would improve working conditions and further restrict working hours to only week-days and part of Saturday. Those laws then remained largely unchanged for the rest of the Victorian Era until the end of WWI. Although the new laws were not perfect and would have to evolve further, the Victorian Era ended with rights granted to workers that could not have been imagined by those soot covered children at its beginning.

Works Cited

Moore, Amanda. Factory Act 1850. 2011. Web site. November 2021.

Nye, Eric W. Pounds Sterling to Dollars: Historical Coversion of Currency. 2021. Website. November 2021.

Scott, Jonathan F. Readings in European History Since 1814. Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1930. eBook.

UK Parliament. The Factory Acts. 2021. Web Page. November 2021.

victorianchildren.org. Victorian Child Labor and the Conditions They Worked In. 2 March 2013. Website. 1 11 2021.

—. Victorian Children in Victorian Times. 11 December 2012. Website. November 2021.

Contributed by Kaden Eyre

Huskar Pit Disaster

The Huskar Pit Disaster (also known as the Huskar Colliery Tragedy of 1838) was a terrible event that illustrates the horror children faced working in coal mines. First off, we must understand what coal mines were like. Coal mines were deep pits. They were usually around 300 feet underground. Huskar Pit was used as ventilation for the miners. Whole families often worked in the mines together. Children worked as trappers, hurriers, and thrusters, helping to bring the coal from the rock face to the surface by carts and passageways. While women worked as hurriers, most often. Trappers sat in the dark and waited for the carts to come pulled by the hurriers. Trappers also kept the mine ventilated. Hurriers were strapped to the carts and pushed and pulled them along the passageways until they reached the surface. Thrusters pushed from behind. They kept the cart moving. These were the roles children had within coal mines.

The roles of children in coal mines are already horrific, yet on July 4, 1838, 26 children lost their lives. That day was a fairly typical day until the early afternoon. A storm blew in and brought with it rainfall and hail. In this specific coal mine, there was a steam engine which brought the coal and the workers up from the pit. The rain doused the boiler, and the engine was unable to work. The many adult workers moved down to the bottom of the pit where they were to most safe until they could be brought up. The children, both boys and girls, waited for the engine to start again. They heard a thunderclap and were afraid something had exploded in the mine. They had been down in the mines for nine hours already, so they became desperate to save themselves. They decided to take the Huskar Pit ventilation drift out. They climbed it and reached an air door. Outside the door, the rain had caused a small stream to bulge and grow to an abnormal size. The children were unaware of the increasing water. They pushed the door open and were soon washed down the drift. They drowned. 26 children died that day, eleven girls and fifteen boys. When this incident was told to Queen Victoria, she took great interest in it, and it led to the Royal Commission which investigated women and children's labor in coal mines.

They have the names of each child that died. I have included them here to help make them a little more real:

Catherine Garnett       11 years

Hannah Webster         13 years

Elizabeth Carr             13 years

Ann Moss                    9 years

Elizabeth Hollings      15 years

Ellen Parker                15 years

Hannah Taylor            17 years

Mary Sellors                10 years

Elizabeth Clarkson      11 years

Sarah Newton             8 years

Sarah Jukes                 10 years

George Birkinshaw     10 years

Joseph Birkinshaw      7 years

Isaac Wright                12 years

Abraham Wright         8 years

James Clarkson           16 years

Francis Hoyland         13 years

William Atick             12 years

Samuel Horne             10 years

Eli Hutchinson            9 years

George Garnett           9 years

John Simpson              9 years

George Lamb              8 years

William Wormersley   8 years

James Turton               10 years

John Gothard              8 years

"Huskar Colliery 1838." Mine Accidents and Disasters. Mining Accident Database. 2021. http://mineaccidents.com.au/mine-accident/202/huskar-colliery-1838

"The Huskar Pit Disaster." The Penistone History Archive. 2018. https://penistonearchive.co.uk/huskar-pit-disaster/

Drawings by Ernest Jones

Perhaps one of the most recurring themes and topics that is ever present in our texts and in the Victorian era in general is the topic of labor. The Industrial Revolution was important but it had its darker sides and consequences. One of these darker sides were the conditions of the people and children forced to work. 

Ernest Jones was a strong leader, poet, and writer who was very concerned about the conditions of the working class. Jones illustrated these two depictions of ‘The English Town’ and ‘The Grecian City’ around 1843-1853. The contrast emphasizes the horrific conditions of the industrial cities in England during the Victorian Era. The differences in the English city and the Greek city underlines the consequences and conditions that industrialization and urbanization can create. The Greek city’s sky is light, there’s space and nature, and the water is light. On the other hand, the English city’s sky is dark with smog, the water is dark, there’s no nature or space, and it’s filled with warehouses and factories. He depicts the warehouses with names like ‘Bone Grinder & Co.’ and ‘Killmen Bros’ to accentuate the horrible things that happen to the workmen. 

We see the mistreatment of the working class in North and South with the strike that occurs. The workmen feel like they’ve been taken advantage of and the bosses don’t take them seriously. This mistreatment is also widely covered in The Condition of the Working class in England in 1844. Engels says, “After roaming the streets of the capital a day or two, making headway with difficulty through the human turmoil and the endless lines of vehicles, after visiting the slums of the metropolis, one realises for the first time that these Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilization which crowd their city” (Engels, COVE). With this industrialization, came human turmoil like what Engels said. The conditions of the industrialization were horrific, dirty, and entirely unsafe. The illustration made by Ernest Jones, spotlights the conditions caused by this Industrial Revolution and therefore reveals what England would have looked like during that time period.

Contributed by Lexie Persinger

Dickens' Urania Cottage

Urania Cottage was Charles Dickens' attempt to help "fallen women." Fallen women were women who, often through no fault of their own, had had premarital sex. Becoming fallen could have been due to seduction, immorality, or poverty. Once a woman "fell" she was considered unredeemable, no matter the reason. Prostitution was seen as an end to respectable society.

Dickens went into this business with realistic expectations. He knew there would be relapses, desertions, and even fits of madness. He knew some would take the help and be grateful while others just could not be helped. Dickens liked being in the nitty-gritty parts of it. He liked being in the day-to-day activities in the home. He was very particular about it being called a home because it pulled away from the idea that it was an institution. 

Dickens chose the women who he allowed in the home. He would go to prisons and workhouses and find eligible women. He would talk to them and give them his pamphlet, "An Appeal to Fallen Women." In the pamphlet, he told them about the future they were destined to have if they didn't change anything in their lives. Dickens made sure there were daily routines with structure. Dickens also taught them to read and write. He was horrified they didn't know how.