Formerly the chimneys used to be cleansed by the house servants,
for a person could easily stand erect in the huge old-fashioned
constructions, and thrust up a broom as far as his strength would
permit. Sometimes, however, straw was kindled at the mouth of the
chimney, and in that way the soot was consumed or brought down to the
ground by the action of the fire. But that there were also regular
chimney-sweepers in the latter part of the sixteenth century is
unquestionable; for in the days of the First James and Charles, poor
Piedmontese, and more especially Savoyards, resorted to England for the
express purpose. How long they laboured in this vocation is unknown.
The Savoyards, indeed, were then the general showmen and sweeps of
Europe, and so they are still in some of the cities of Italy and
France.
As regards the first introduction of English children into
chimneys--the establishment of the use of climbing boys--nothing
appears, according to the representations made to Parliament on several
occasions, to be known; and little attention seems to have been paid
to the condition of these infants--some were but little better--until
about 1780, when the benevolent Jonas Hanway, who is said, but not
uncontradictedly, to have been the first person who regularly used
an umbrella in the streets of London, called public attention to the
matter. In 1788 Mr. Hanway and others brought a bill into Parliament
for the better protection of the climbing boys, requiring, among other
provisions, all master sweepers to be licensed, and the names and ages
of all their apprentices registered. The House of Lords, however,
rejected this bill, and the 28th George III., c. 48, was passed in
preference. The chief alterations sought to be effected by the new
Act were, that no sweeper should have more than six apprentices, and
that no boy should be apprenticed at a tenderer age than eight years.
Previously there were no restrictions in either of those respects.
These provisions were, however, very generally violated. By one of
those “flaws” or omissions, so very common and so little creditable
to our legislation, it was found that there was no prohibition to
a sweeper’s employing his own children at what age he pleased; and
“some,” or “several,” for I find both words used, employed their sons,
and occasionally their daughters, in chimney climbing at the ages
of six, five, and even between four and five years! The children of
others, too, were continually being apprenticed at illegal ages, for
no inquiry was made into the lad’s age beyond the statement of his
parents, or, in the case of parish apprentices, beyond the (in those
days) not more trustworthy word of the overseers. Thus boys of six were
apprenticed--for apprenticeship was almost universal--as boys of eight,
by their parents; while parish officers and magistrates consigned the
workhouse orphans, as a thing of course, to the starvation and tyranny
which they must have known were very often in store for them when
apprenticed to sweepers.
The following evidence was adduced before Parliament on the subject of
infant labour in this trade:--
Mr. John Cook, a master sweeper, then of Great Windmill-street and
Kentish-town, the first who persevered in the use of the machine years
before its use was compulsory, stated that it was common for parents in
the business to employ their own children, under the age of seven, in
climbing; and that as far as he knew, he himself was only between six
and seven when he “came to it;” and that almost all master sweepers had
got it in their bills that they kept “small boys for register-stoves,
and such like as that.”
Mr. T. Allen, another master sweeper, was between four and five when
articled to an uncle.
[Illustration: THE LONDON SWEEP
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
Mr. B. M. Forster, a private gentleman, a member of the “Committee
to promote the Superseding of Climbing Boys,” said, “Some are put to
the employment very young; one instance of which occurred to a
child in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch, who was put to the trade at
four and a quarter years, or thereabouts. The father of a child in
Whitechapel told me last week, that his son began climbing when he was
four years and eight months old. I have heard of some still younger,
but only from vague report.”
This sufficiently proves at what infantine years children were exposed
to toils of exceeding painfulness. The smaller and the more slenderly
formed the child, the more valuable was he for the sweeping of flues,
the interior of some of them, to be ascended and swept, being but seven
inches square.
I have mentioned the employment of female children in the very
unsuitable labour of climbing chimneys. The following is all the
information given on the subject.
Mr. Tooke was asked, “Have you ever heard of female children being
so employed?” and replied, “I have heard of cases at Hadley, Barnet,
Windsor, and Uxbridge; and I know a case at Witham, near Colchester, of
that sort.”
Mr. B. M. Foster said, “Another circumstance, which has not been
mentioned to the Committee, is, that there are several little girls
employed; there are two of the name of Morgan at Windsor, daughters
of the chimney-sweeper _who is employed to sweep the chimneys of
the Castle_; another instance at Uxbridge, and at Brighton, and at
Whitechapel (which was some years ago), and at Headley near Barnet, and
Witham in Essex, and elsewhere.” He then stated, on being asked, “Do
you not think that girls were employed from their physical form being
smaller and thinner than boys, and therefore could get up narrower
flues?” “The reason that I have understood was, because their parents
had not a sufficient number of boys to bring up to the business.” Mr.
Foster did not know the ages of these girls.
The inquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons, which led more
than any other to the prohibition of this infant and yet painful
labour in chimney-sweeping, was held in 1817, and they recommended the
“preventing the further use of climbing boys in sweeping of chimneys;”
a recommendation not carried into effect until 1832. The matter was
during the interval frequently agitated in Parliament, but there were
no later investigations by Committees.
I will adduce, specifically, the grievances, according to the Report
of 1817, of the climbing boys; but will first present the following
extract from the evidence of Mr. W. Tooke, a gentleman who, in
accordance with the Hon. Henry Grey Bennet, M.P., and others, exerted
himself on the behoof of the climbing boys. When he gave his evidence,
Mr. Tooke was the secretary to a society whose object was to supersede
the necessity of employing climbing boys. He said:--
“In the year 1800, the Society for Bettering the Condition of the
Poor took up the subject, but little or nothing appears to have been
done upon that occasion, except that the most respectable master
chimney-sweepers entered into an association and subscription for
promoting the cleanliness and health of the boys in their respective
services. The Institution of which I am treasurer, and which is now
existing, was formed in February, 1803. In consequence of an anonymous
advertisement, a large meeting was held at the London Coffee House,
and the Society was established; immediate steps were then taken
to ascertain the state of the trade; inspectors were appointed to
give an account of all the master chimney-sweepers within the bills
of mortality, their general character, their conduct towards their
apprentices, and the number of those apprentices. It was ascertained,
that the total number of master chimney-sweepers, within the bills
of mortality, might be estimated at 200, who had among them 500
apprentices; that not above 20 of those masters were reputable
tradesmen in easy circumstances, who appeared generally to conform to
the provisions of the Act; and which 20 had, upon an average, from
four to five apprentices each. We found about 90 of an inferior class
of master chimney-sweepers who averaged three apprentices each, and
who were extremely negligent both of the health, morals, and education
of those apprentices; and about 90, the remainder of the 200 masters,
were a class of chimney-sweepers recently journeymen, who took up the
trade because they had no other resource; they picked up boys as they
could, who lodged with themselves in huts, sheds, and cellars, in the
outskirts of the town, occasionally wandering into the villages round,
where they slept on soot-bags, and lived in the grossest filth.”
The grievances I have spoken of were thus summed up by the
Parliamentary Committee. After referring to the ill-usage and hardships
sustained by the climbing boys (the figures being now introduced for
the sake of distinctness) it is stated:--
“It is in evidence that (1) they are stolen from” [and sold by]
“their parents, and inveigled out of workhouses; (2) that in order to
conquer the natural repugnance of the infants to ascend the narrow and
dangerous chimneys to clean which their labour is required, blows are
used; that pins are forced into their feet by the boy that follows them
up the chimney, in order to compel them to ascend it, and that lighted
straw has been applied for that purpose; (3) that the children are
subject to sores and bruises, and wounds and burns on their thighs,
knees, and elbows; and that it will require many months before the
extremities of the elbows and knees become sufficiently hard to resist
the excoriations to which they are at first subject.”
1. With regard to the _stealing or kidnapping of children_--for there
was often a difficulty in procuring climbing boys--I find mention
in the evidence, as of a matter, but not a very frequent matter, of
notoriety. One stolen child was sold to a master sweeper for 8_l._
8_s._ Mr. G. Revely said:--
“I wish to state to the Committee that case in particular, because it
comes home to the better sort of persons in higher life. It seems that
the child, upon being asked various questions, had been taken away:
the child was questioned how he came into that situation; he said all
that he could recollect was (as I heard it told at that time) that he
and his sister, with another brother, were together somewhere, but he
could not tell where; but not being able to run so well as the other
two, he was caught by a woman and carried away and was sold, and came
afterwards into the hands of a chimney-sweeper. He was not afterwards
restored to his family, and the mystery was never unravelled; but he
was advertised, and a lady took charge of him.
“This child, in 1804, was forced up a chimney at Bridlington in
Yorkshire, by a big boy, the younger boy being apparently but four
years old. He fell and bruised his legs terribly against the grate.
The Misses Auckland of Boynton, who had heard of the child, and went
to see him, became interested by his manners, and they took him home
with them; the chimney-sweeper, who perhaps got alarmed, being glad to
part with him. Soon after he got to Boynton, the seat of Sir George
Strickland, a plate with something to eat was brought him; on seeing a
silver fork he was quite delighted, and said, ‘Papa had such forks as
those.’ He also said the carpet in the drawing-room was like papa’s;
the housekeeper showed him a silver watch, he asked what sort it
was--‘Papa’s was a gold watch;’ he then pressed the handle and said,
‘Papa’s watch rings, why does not yours?’ Sir George Strickland, on
being told this circumstance, showed him a gold repeater, the little
boy pressed the spring, and when it struck, he jumped about the room,
saying, ‘Papa’s watch rings so.’ At night, when he was going to bed,
he said he could not go to bed until he had said his prayers; he then
repeated the Lord’s Prayer, almost perfectly. The account he gave of
himself was that he was gathering flowers in his mamma’s garden, and
that the woman who sold him to the sweeper, came in and asked him if
he liked riding? He said, ‘Yes,’ and she told him he should ride with
her. She put him on a horse, after which they got into a vessel, and
the sails were put up, ‘and away we went.’ He had no recollection of
his name, or where he lived, and was too young to think his father
could have any other name than that of papa. He started whenever he
heard a servant in the family at Boynton called George, and looked as
if he expected to see somebody he knew; on inquiry, he said he had an
uncle George, whom he loved dearly. He says his mamma is dead, and
it is thought his father may be abroad. From many things he says, he
seems to have lived chiefly with an uncle and aunt, whom he invariably
says were called Mr. and Mrs. Flembrough. From various circumstances,
it is thought impossible he should be the child of the woman who sold
him, his manners being ‘very civilized,’ quite those of a child well
educated; his dialect is good, and that of the south of England.
This little boy, when first discovered, was conjectured to be about
four years old, and is described as having beautiful black eyes and
eye-lashes, a high nose, and a delicate soft skin.”
Mr. J. Harding, a master sweeper, had a fellow apprentice who had been
enticed away from his parents. “It is a case of common occurrence,”
he said, “for children stolen, to be employed in this way. Yes, and
children in particular are enticed out of workhouses: there are a great
many who come out of workhouses.”