Hard Times

[BillyF]

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.

[Gadget]

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 

[Gillg]

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.

[BillyF]

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.

[Flattybasher9]

I started to deliver newspapers when I was 9.

Winter mornings plus nights and Sunday supplements. 

Malky

[Gadget]

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)

[Flattybasher9]

(I don't think Malky is that old)

I look and feel it though!!

Malky

[River Tyne Lass]

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.   

[stanmapstone]

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