Victorian Children

Photography

Children in Victorian dress with original objects associated with work children would have done in the 19th century. The boy on the left holds a chimney sweep's brush; the girl on the right holds a wooden washing dolly. In Victorian times laundry would have been done by filling a dolly tub with water and adding grated soap and the clothes that were to be washed. The dolly was placed in the dolly tub and was gyrated around to wash the clothes. Boys, some as young as 5, had to climb up chimneys to scrape the soot off the walls using a brush like this. Some chimneys were as narrow as 23cm square. Boys were sometimes too tired or frightened to work. Their masters would then force them to work, for example by sticking pins in their feet, by lighting a fire underneath them to force them to keep climbing, or beating them. Chimney sweeps suffered many cuts and grazes.

PX2913

CD 434

1) Photo Studio

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