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.

For each child the master sweep was paid 3 4 pounds by the government when the apprenticeship agreement was signed. 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. 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. As a chimney sweep permanently blackened with layers of soot to provide some protection against the fire and heat of chimneys hudson was among the most visible of child labourers.

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. The chimney sweeps act 1834 was enacted in an attempt to protect the children employed by the sweeping masters from cruel exploitation. The prominence of using small children as chimney sweeps began after the great fire of london which occurred september 2nd through 5th 1666.