Life for Victorian children was very different from our lives today. Children in rich households had toys to play with and did not have to work, but children in poor households often had to work long hours in difficult, dangerous jobs. They didn’t have toys to play with but sometimes made their own.
What did poor Victorian children do?
Poor children often had to work instead of going to school. Many worked with their parents at home or in workshops, making matchboxes or sewing. Children could also earn a bit of money as chimney-sweeps, messengers or crossing sweepers like the boy in this picture.
What was being a child like in the Victorian age?
Many Victorian children were poor and worked to help their families. This was not unusual during these times and not seen at all as cruel. You had to work to receive money and people thought work was good for children. The industrial revolution created new jobs, in factories and mines.
What did a poor Victorian child play with?
The toys children played with in Victorian times often depended on how wealthy their family was. Children from rich families played with rocking horses, train sets, doll’s houses and toy soldiers, whereas children from poor families tended to play with home-made toys such as peg dolls, spinning tops and skipping ropes.
Did poor Victorian children have an education?
Where did poor Victorians go to school? Poor children sometimes had the opportunity of attending a church school, but these schools had very poor facilities with class sizes of up to 100 children. However, from 1880 the law changed and all children between the ages of 5 to 10 had to go to school.
What was the life expectancy of a poor Victorian child?
Around one-third of children, and more than half in some poor neighbourhoods, died before they reached the age of five.
What was life like for poor Victorians?
Poor people – even children – had to work hard in factories, mines or workhouses. They didn’t get paid very much money. By the end of the Victorian era, all children could go to school for free. Victorian schools were very strict – your teacher might even beat you if you didn’t obey the rules.
How did Victorians punish children for poor behavior?
Boys were usually caned on their backsides and girls were either beaten on their bare legs or across their hands. A pupil could receive a caning for a whole range of different reasons, including: rudeness, leaving a room without permission, laziness, not telling the truth and playing truant (missing school).
How much did poor Victorians get paid?
A labourer’s average wage was between 20 and 30 shillings a week in London, probably less in the provinces. This would just cover his rent, and a very sparse diet for him and his family.
How much did a Victorian child get paid?
In 1830, a child working in a cotton mill earned just one tenth of an adult’s wages. Most factory owners and businessmen were very happy to employ children as they did not have to pay them very much, so they could make more profit. Click here to find out more about Victorian jobs!
What was school like for the poorest children in Victorian times?
Poor children went to free charity schools or ‘Dame’ schools (so called because they were run by women) for young children. They also went to Sunday Schools which were run by churches. There they learnt bible stories and were taught to read a little.
What would a poor Victorian child get in their stocking?
In a “poor child’s” Christmas stocking, which first became popular from around 1870, only an apple, orange and a few nuts could be found. Father Christmas / Santa Claus – Normally associated with the bringer of the above gifts, is Father Christmas or Santa Claus.
Why did Victorian children not go to school?
When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 education was still mainly for the privileged. Rich children might have a governess to teach them at home until they were old enough — if they were boys — to go to Public Schools such as Rugby (mentioned in the book, Tom Brown’s Schooldays).
Did poor Victorians have pets?
Even poor working-class families would capture wild birds like blackbirds, linnets and thrushes to keep as pets, often hanging the cages outside their windows and feeding them scraps, while aspirational middle-class families would buy more expensive pets, such as pedigree dogs, to signal their higher wealth and status.
Did Victorian children go to school?
In 1880, laws were enforced that meant every child between 5 to 10 had to go to school. For parents of large families who could barely afford enough food, paying a penny a week for their children to go to school was a great expense.
How did Victorians society treat the poor?
Poor Victorians would put children to work at an early age, or even turn them out onto the streets to fend for themselves. In 1848 an estimated 30,000 homeless, filthy children lived on the streets of London.
How did lower class Victorians live?
A poor Victorian family would have lived in a very small house with only a couple of rooms on each floor. The very poorest families had to make do with even less – some houses were home to two, three or even four families. The houses would share toilets and water, which they could get from a pump or a well.
Why was life unfair for poor people in Victorian society?
Large numbers of both skilled and unskilled people were looking for work, so wages were low, barely above subsistence level. If work dried up, or was seasonal, men were laid off, and because they had hardly enough to live on when they were in work, they had no savings to fall back on.
What clothes did poor Victorians have?
Poor Victorian women wore thin dirty dresses which were dark colours and made from cotton or wool because silk and linen would be far too expensive and wouldn’t last as long as they needed them to last for ages.
Did Victorians hang children?
Accordingly, young children could be sent to an adult prison. There are records of children aged 12 being hanged. The Victorians were very worried about crime and its causes.
How were kids punished in the 1800s?
Punishments in Tudor schools were still harsh. Boys were hit with a bundle of birch rods on their bare backside. Furthermore in Britain in the 19th century children were hit at work. In the early 19th century in textile mills, children who were lazy were hit with leather straps.