RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: BillyF on Wednesday 08 May 19 19:32 BST (UK)
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I`ve been reading a list of Felons on a Welsh Legal History website, it makes for some very sad reading in some cases.
One in particular, a 13 year old boy employed as a collier ( !!!! ), sentenced to 3 days in jail for committing a felony; in the previous year he was also convicted of stealing coals and spent time incarcerated. At least he wa spared transportation.
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One in particular, a 13 year old boy employed as a collier ( !!!! ),
Not a felon but my great uncle in the 1881 census, shown below:
Gadget
Added - he later played football for Wales - a cousin has inherited his caps :)
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In the 1881 census I found my grandmother age 12 and her brother age 10 both working as piecers in a woollen mill. Their address was Mill Yard and their father was also working at the mill as a selfact minder.
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I think what struck me about this was that he may have been stealing the coal for his family, and what a young age to be underground.
I also have mill workers in my tree. My gt grandmother according to the 1841 census, was a Woolen winder at age 13, as was her sister aged 10, another 2 children aged 15 also worked in the mill, another child aged 8 with no description. Their parents had died and they all lived with their sister and her husband both 20 plus their baby.
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I started to deliver newspapers when I was 9.
Winter mornings plus nights and Sunday supplements. :( :( :(
Malky
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Lots of refs on child labour in Victorian era. e.g.:
https://victorianchildren.org/victorian-child-labor/
(I don't think Malky is that old)
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(I don't think Malky is that old)
I look and feel it though!!
Malky
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13070519-tough-times-and-grisly-crimes
One of the saddest stories I have come across was in a local newspaper and is also featured in a local book 'Tough Times and Grisly Crimes' by Nigel Green.
When you click on the link you will see a little boy in the top hand corner. He was called George Sayers. He was convicted of stealing along with his Mother in North Shields in 1900. Apparently, she had told him to do it. He burst into tears when he was charged. As well he might - for doing what his Mother told him he received three strokes of a birch rod.
I know stealing is wrong but how cruel to punish a little child when he was just obeying his Mother. :'(
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See the evidence given by children working in the coal mines to the 1842 Children's Employment Commission http://www.dmm.org.uk/childemp/names_a.htm
Stan
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I've just checked my great uncle's birth date (Reply #1). He was born 28 February 1870, so he would have been just over 11 years on the 1881 census that I snipped. I'm not sure if it was written on the page as 11 and corrected to 12 or vice versa.
Gadget
Add - my grandmother, in my avatar, was his little sister.
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I think that there were more children working than it appears from census entries. I am sure many families wrote 'scholar' when in fact the child was working.
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The most common designation for children in the census was that of "scholar", the returns should, however, be used with caution. The definition of the term "scholar" in the census instructions was vague, and became vaguer with time. There was a tendency to use scholar as a blanket term for children whether they were at school or working, as well as the not uncommon cases of "scholars" aged under five years.
In 1851 parents were to record their children as "scholars" if they were above five years of age and were" daily attending school, or receiving regular tuition under a master or governess at home." In 1861, however, regular tuition at home did not require the presence of a master or governess. In 1871 and 1881 children only needed to be "attending a school, or receiving regular instruction at home" to be returned as scholars. In 1891 there was no instruction on the subject. In 1901, however the instruction was that children attending school "and also engaged in a trade or industry should be described as following the particular trade or industry." With the advent of compulsory education after the 1876 Elementary Education Act there may also have been a temptation for some working-class householders to use the term to conceal the work of their children.
Stan
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Sometimes it worked out well in the end. My g-grandfather left school at 12 to take work as a grocer's delivery boy. He worked his way up to grocer's assistant, then grocery commercial traveler and finally director of the wholesale grocery company. When he died in 1930, he left a large house in Bristol, a Rolls Royce and £20,000.
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Thank you Stan, very informative as usual.
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Sometimes it worked out well in the end. My g-grandfather left school at 12 to take work as a grocer's delivery boy. He worked his way up to grocer's assistant, then grocery commercial traveler and finally director of the wholesale grocery company. When he died in 1930, he left a large house in Bristol, a Rolls Royce and £20,000.
Same for my G grandfather although left school at 14 & salmon fished for a couple of seasons before working as an errand boy (for the firm owned by some family friends) earning 5/- a week about 1898, by 1901 he was a warehouseman, 1911 a salesman and eventually managing director. He left over £25,000 when he died in 1953
On other lines I also have child workers, some as young as 8 and living away from the family. At least the farm workers got some fresh air, I really feel for the child miners and cotton mill workers :(
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Reply 8, sorry I just can`t do the quote thing !!
The Victorians had a lot to answer for ! Children as young as 7 underground, lungs being contaminated, being lamed etc, but good to hear of those ancestors who really were " self made
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Reply 8, sorry I just can`t do the quote thing !!
The Victorians had a lot to answer for ! Children as young as 7 underground, lungs being contaminated, being lamed etc, but good to hear of those ancestors who really were " self made
For the relevant nineteenth century Acts regarding the employment of children in mines. See https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=405956.msg2741639#msg2741639
Stan
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Stan, reading a another entry on your 8# reply; one boy aged 16 had been down the mine 11½ years. It`s almost incomprehensible.
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I have mentioned this before in other RC topics, but children as young as 3 years old had been working in West Riding collierys. It is recorded in the Royal Commission 1842
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Oh my goodness !! How could they not see it was totally wrong.
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Oh my goodness !! How could they not see it was totally wrong.
I suppose it was either work or starve.
There are instances in the 1842 commission of children working underground from from 5 in the morning till 10 at night. One child, who worked these hours, was given nothing to drink during the whole shift and also at times had worked barefoot
Coal mines were very numerous at the time, in all the industrial districts and even in areas you might not expect to see them
The commission, which was split into districts or counties, took evidence from the children themselves. It is very detailed and included names, ages, height, weight and also illustrations of the children at work. It also includes other industries like cotton, wool, flax industrial mill work, brick works, chimney sweeps and so on.
I've read it before online and I'm just trying to find a link to the whole report, which is more like a book, now. (Stans link is an extract for the Durham area, but the commission was countrywide.)
Local history websites often have a section of the report for their own area
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My husband`s ancestors were from the Welsh valleys, mines of all descriptions there. However, he`s not interested in doing any research into them, all he knows is that one grandfather was a lamplighter.
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I've read it before online and I'm just trying to find a link to the whole report, which is more like a book, now. (Stans link is an extract for the Durham area, but the commission was countrywide.)
Local history websites often have a section of the report for their own area
The whole 2,000 page report is not available on line, however there are 12 images from the report at https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/report-on-child-labour-1842
Stan
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Thankyou. I`ve taken a quick look but will read it later.
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There was a dreadful disaster at Silkstone Colliery near Barnsley on 4th July 1838. A nearby stream burst its banks after torrential rain and 26 children (boys and girls) who were working there drowned.
The children are buried in the local graveyard.
There are various accounts of this online.
I visited there in the 1980's and the memory of seeing the graves and monument stays with me to this day.
Thank God we have moved on and children are not exploited in this way.
Dorrie
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There was a dreadful disaster at Silkstone Colliery near Barnsley on 4th July 1838. A nearby stream burst its banks after torrential rain and 26 children (boys and girls) who were working there drowned.
The children are buried in the local graveyard.
There are various accounts of this online.
I visited there in the 1980's and the memory of seeing the graves and monument stays with me to this day.
Thank God we have moved on and children are not exploited in this way.
Dorrie
Yes, this was the Huskar Pit disaster (working the Silkstone coal seam). This disaster raised public awareness on conditions in the industrial districts and was partly why a Royal Commission into child labour (1842) was called for.
It's amazing to think really that when we look at the 1841 census, what we are seeing is many many child labourers on those pages and some even younger than the children listed below
Huskar disaster
The boys who died were-
George Burkinshaw aged 10 years.
James Burkinshaw aged 7 years, brothers
Isaac Wright aged 12 years.
Amos Wright aged 8 years, brothers.
James Clarkson aged 16 years.
Francis Hoyland aged 13 years,.
William Allick aged 12 years.
Samuel Horne aged 10 years.
Eli Hutchinson aged 9 years.
John Simpson aged 9 years.
George Barnett aged 9 years.
George Lamb aged 8 years.
William Walmseley aged 8 years.
John Gothard aged 8 years.
James Turton aged 10 years.
The girls who died were-
Catherine Garnett aged 8 years.
Hannah Webster aged 13 years.
Elizabeth Carr aged 13 years.
Anne Moss aged 9 years.
Elizabeth Hollin aged 15 years.
Hannah Taylor aged 17 years.
Ellen Parker aged 15 years.
Mary Sellars aged 10 years.
Sarah Jukes aged 8 years.
Sarah Newton aged 8 years
and Elizabeth Clarkson aged 11 years, who was buried at the feet of her brother.
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I've read it before online and I'm just trying to find a link to the whole report, which is more like a book, now. (Stans link is an extract for the Durham area, but the commission was countrywide.)
Local history websites often have a section of the report for their own area
The whole 2,000 page report is not available on line, however there are 12 images from the report at https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/report-on-child-labour-1842
Stan
Thanks Stan
It's a shame it isn't available online because the children in the Royal Commission are often named and this would be of interest to family tree researchers.
Also would like to see the various sanitation reports online too. This names streets and gives detailed descriptions of the conditions. If we found a street where we know our ancestors lived at the time, we could get a good idea of their circumstances
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Also would like to see the various sanitation reports online too. This names streets and gives detailed descriptions of the conditions. If we found a street where we know our ancestors lived at the time, we could get a good idea of their circumstances
See http://www.rootschat.com/links/01nsq/
Stan
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Great stuff Stan. Thanks again. You always post some wonderful info and resources
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Those poor families ! I suppose there were also mothers and fathers lost too.