From how old did Victorian children start work?

Angelica <3: From how old did Victorian children start work?
From how old did Victorian children start work? And what sort of workwas there ? Mainly concentrating on children?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Laredo
Children were often forced to work almost as soon as they could walk. This was not something new to the Victorian period as children had always been been expected to work for hundreds of years. Many were used as cheap labour.

The lucky children got apprenticed in a trade, the less lucky ones worked on farms or helped with the spinning, other children could end up working as Chimney Sweeps, Factories, or as Street sellers, or down Coal mines.

In 1832 the use of boys for sweeping chimneys was forbidden by law, however, boys continued to be forced through the narrow winding passages of chimneys in large houses.

1833 the Factory Act was made law. It was now illegal for children under 9 to be employed in textile factories

The Mines Act was passed by the Government in 1847 forbidding the employment of women and girls and all boys under the age of ten down mines. Later it became illegal for a boy under 12 to work down a mine.

Answer by Louise C
It would vary considerably depending on their social status, and also the period they lived in. The Victorian era spanned a very long period, and many laws were passed in the course of the era limiting the hours children could work, the age at which they could start work, and what kind of work they could do.

At the start of the Victorian era, in 1837, many children would ahve gone to work at an early age. though a previous act had limited children from workign in factories until the age of 8. Large numbers of children worked in factories, and some even worked down mines. Chimney sweeps employed small boys to climb the chimneys and clean them. Many children went into domestic service, and they might start at quite an early age, before they were in their teens. Some children might be apprenticed to skilled trades.

More educated children would start work later, but even they might go to work very young. A boy might be employed as a clerk for instance when he was in his early teens. Schoolchildren sometimes became pupil teachers, which they could do from the age of 13, they did a five-year apprenticeship teaching in an elementary school, and would also have tuition from the head teacher. The 1870 Elementary Education Act made education a government responsibility, at this time there were over 16,000 pupil teachers, ten years later, whene education for children up to the age of ten was made compulsory, this number had doubled.

In 1843 the Factory Act limited the hours children aged 8-13 could work in factories to a 6 hour day. Another factory act in 1867 extended the same laws to smaller premises, and the Workshop Hours Act protected women and young children. The Factory Act of 1874 safeguarded children from working as chimney sweeps (previous attempts to stop this practice had been less successful.