Children did not just work in dreadful conditions in the factories. This exercise will help you learn about other jobs very young children had to do in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries

Coal Mines
The coal mines were chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides places where roofs sometimes caved in, explosions happened and workers got all sorts of chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides. There were very few chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides rules. Cutting and moving coal which machines do nowadays was done by men, women and children.
The younger children often worked as "trappers" who worked trap chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides. They sat in a hole hollowed out for them and held a string which was fastened to the door. When they heard the coal wagons coming they had to open the door by pulling a string. This job was one of the easiest down the mine but it was very chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides and the place were they sat was usually damp and draughty.
Older children might be employed as "coal bearers" carrying loads of chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides on their backs in big baskets.



Chimney Sweeps
Although in 1832 the use of boys for sweeping chimneys was forbidden by law, boys continued to be forced through the narrow winding passages of chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides in large houses. When they first started at between five and ten years old, children suffered many chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides, grazes and bruises on their knees, elbows and thighs however after months of suffering their skin became hardened. Often they would be rubbed with brine (salt water) by their master to make their chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides hardened quicker.

Street Children
Hordes of dirty, ragged children roamed the streets with no regular money and no chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides to got to. The children of the streets were often orphans with no-one to care for them. They chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides or picked pockets to buy food and slept in outhouses or doorways. Charles Dickens wrote about these children in his book "Oliver Twist".
Some street children did jobs to earn money. They could work as crossing-sweepers, sweeping a way through the mud and horse chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides of the main paths to make way for ladies and gentlemen. Others sold lace, flowers, chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides or muffins etc out in the streets.

Mudlarks
Along the Thames street children would wade into the mud banks of the chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides to scavenge. Mudlarks were mostly children who prowled exposed Thames mudflats at low tide looking for bounty that had been dropped or washed into the chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides. Coins and jewellery were the greatest prize, but even items of clothing or driftwood were worth collecting. chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides could be cleaned up and sold on to the rag-and-bone men, or totters, driftwood could be dried and sold on as firewood. Mudlarks had a messy and dangerous job – many were swept away by the chimneysClothescoalcutsdangerousdoorsdunghomeinjurieslonelymatchesriversafetyskinstoleThamestides or became marooned in the soft mud