The chimney-sweepers of the present day are distinguished from those of
old by the use of machines instead of climbing boys, for the purpose of
removing the soot from the flues of houses.
The chimney-sweeping machines were first used in this country in the
year 1803. They were the invention of Mr. Smart, a carpenter, residing
at the foot of Westminster-bridge, Surrey. On the earlier trials of the
machine (which was similar to that used at present, and which I shall
shortly describe), it was pronounced successful in 99 cases out of 100,
according to some accounts, but failing where sharp angles occurred in
the flue, which arrested its progress.
“Means have been suggested,” said Mr. Tooke, formerly mentioned, in his
evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, “for obviating
that difficulty by fixed apparatus at the top of the flue with a
jack-chain and pulley, by which a brush could be worked up and down,
or it could be done as is customary abroad, as I have repeatedly seen
it at Petersburgh, and heard of its being done universally on the
Continent, by letting down a bullet with a brush attached to it from
the top; but to obviate the inconvenience, which is considerable,
from persons going upon the roof of a house, Mr. John White, junior,
an eminent surveyor, has suggested the expediency of putting iron
shutters or registers to each flue, in the roof or cockloft of each
house; by opening which, and working the machine upwards and downwards,
or letting down the bullet, which is the most compendious manner,
the chimney will be most effectually cleansed; and, by its aperture
at bottom being kept well closed, it would be done with the least
possible dirt and inconvenience to the family.”
[Illustration: ONE OF THE FEW REMAINING CLIMBING SWEEPS.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
The society for the supersedence of the labour of climbing boys
promoted the adoption of the machines by all the means in their
power, presenting the new instrument gratuitously to several master
sweepers who were too poor to purchase it. Experiments were made
and duly published as to the effectual manner in which the chimneys
at Guildhall, the Mansion House, the then new Custom House, Dulwich
College, and in other public edifices, had been cleansed by the
machine. But these statements seem to have produced little effect.
People thought, perhaps, that the mechanical means which might very
well cleanse the chimneys of large public buildings--and it was said
that the chimneys of the Custom House were built with a view to the
use of the machine--might not be so serviceable for the same purposes
in small private dwellings. Experiments continued to be made, often in
the presence of architects, of the more respectable sweepers, and of
ladies and gentlemen who took a philanthropic interest in the question,
between the years 1803 and 1817, but with little influence upon the
general public, for in 1817 Mr. Smart supposed that there were but 50
or 60 machines in general use in the metropolis, and those, it appeared
from the evidence of several master sweepers, were used chiefly in
gentlemen’s houses, many of those gentlemen having to be authoritative
with their servants, who, if not controlled, always preferred the
services of the climbing boys. Most servants had perquisites from the
master sweepers, in the largest and most profitable ways of business,
and they seemed to fear the loss of those perquisites if any change
took place.
The opposition in Parliament, and in the general indifference of
the people, to the efforts of “the friends of the climbing boy” to
supersede his painful labours by the use of machinery, was formidable
enough, but that of the servants appears to have been more formidable
still. Mr. Smart showed this in his explanations to the Committee.
The whole result of his experience was that servants set their faces
against the introduction of the machine, grumbling if there were not
even the appearance of dirt on the furniture after its use. “The first
winter I went out with this machine,” said Mr. Smart, “I went to Mr.
Burke’s in Token-house Yard, who was a friend of mine, with a man to
sweep the chimneys, and after waiting above an hour in a cold morning,
the housekeeper came down quite in a rage, that we should presume to
ring the bell or knock at the door; and when we got admittance, she
swore she wished the machine and the inventor at the devil; she did
not know me. We swept all the chimneys, and when we had done I asked
her what objection she had to it now; she said, a very serious one,
that if there was a thing by which a servant could get any emolument,
some d----d invention was sure to take it away from them, for that she
received perquisites.”
This avowal of Mr. Burke’s housekeeper, as brusque as it was honest, is
typical of the feelings of the whole class of servants.
The opposition in Parliament, as I have intimated, continued. One noble
lord informed the House of Peers that he had been indisposed of late
and had sought the aid of calomel, the curative influence of which had
pervaded every portion of his frame; and that it as far surpassed the
less searching powers of other medicines, as the brush of the climbing
boy in cleansing every nook and corner of the chimney, surpassed all
the power of the machinery, which left the soot unpurged from those
nooks and corners.
The House of Commons, however, had expressed its conviction that as
long as master chimney-sweepers were permitted to employ climbing
boys, the natural result of that permission would be the continuance
of those miseries which the Legislature had sought, but which it had
failed, to put an end to; and they therefore recommended that the use
of climbing boys should be prohibited altogether; and that the age at
which the apprenticeship should commence should be extended from eight
to fourteen, putting this trade upon the same footing as others which
took apprentices at that age.
This resolution became law in 1829. The employment of climbing boys in
any manner in the interior of chimneys was prohibited under penalties
of fine and imprisonment; and it was enacted that the new measure
should be carried into effect in three years, so giving the master
sweepers that period of time to complete their arrangements. During the
course of the experiments and inquiry, the sweepers, as a body, seem to
have thrown no obstacles, or very few and slight obstacles, in the way
of the “Committee to promote the Superseding of the Labour of Climbing
Boys;” while the most respectable of the class, or the majority of the
respectable, aided the efforts of the Committee.
This manifestation of public feeling probably modified the opposition
of the sweepers, and unquestionably influenced the votes of members
of Parliament. The change in the operations of the chimney-sweeping
business took place in 1832, as quietly and unnoticedly as if it were
no change at all.
The machine now in use differs little from that invented by Mr. Smart,
the first introduced, but lighter materials are now used in its
manufacture. It has not been found necessary, however, to complicate
its use with the jack-chain and pulley, and bullet with a brush
attached, and the iron shutters or registers in the roof or cockloft,
of which Mr. Tooke spoke.
The machine is formed of a series of hollow rods, made of a supple
cane, bending and not breaking in any sinuosity of the flues. This
cane is made of the same material as gentlemen’s walking-sticks. The
first machines were made of wood, and were liable to be broken; and
to enable the sweeps on such occasions to recover the broken part, a
strong line ran from bottom to top through the centre of the sticks,
which were bored for the purpose, and strung on this cord. The cane
machine, however, speedily and effectually superseded these imperfect
instruments; and there are now none of them to be met with. To the
top tube of the machine is attached the “brush,” called technically
“the head,” of elastic whalebone spikes, which “give” and bend, in
accordance with the up or down motion communicated by the man working
the machine, so sweeping what was described to me as “both ways,” up
and down.
Some of these rods, which fit into one another by means of brass
screws, are 4 feet 6 inches long, and diminish in diameter to suit
their adjustment. Some rods are but 3 feet 6 inches long, and 4 feet is
the full average length; while the average price at the machine maker’s
is 2_s._ 6_d._ a rod, if bought separately. The head costs 10_s._,
on an average, if bought separately. It is seldom that a machine is
required to number beyond 17 rods (extending 68 feet), and the better
class of sweepers are generally provided with 17 rods. The cost of the
entire machine, for every kind of chimney-work, when purchased new, as
a whole, is, when of good quality, from 30_s._ to 5_l._, according to
the number of rods, duplicate rods, &c. Mr. Smart stated, in 1817, that
the average price of one of his machines was then 2_l._ 3_s._
The sweepers who labour chiefly in the poorer localities--and several
told me how indifferent many people in those parts were as to their
chimneys being swept at all--rarely use a machine to extend beyond 40
feet, or one composed of 10 or 11 rods; but some of the inferior class
of sweepers buy of those in a superior way of trade worn machines, at
from a third to a half of the prime cost. These machines they trim up
themselves. One portion of the work, however, they cannot repair or
renew--the broken or worn-out brass screws of the rods, which they call
the “ferules.” These, when new, are 1_s._ each. There were, when the
machine-work was novel, I was informed, street-artizans who went about
repairing these screws or ferules; but their work did not please the
chimney-sweepers, and this street-trade did not last above a year or
two.
The rods of the machine, when carefully attended to, last a long time.
One man told me that he was still working some rods which he had worked
since 1842 (nine years), with occasional renewal of the ferules. The
head is either injured or worn down in about two years; if not well
made at first, in a year. The diameter of this head or brush is, on the
average, 18 inches. One of my informants had himself swept a chimney
of 80 feet, and one of his fellow-workers had said that he once swept
a chimney of 120 feet high; in both cases by means of the machine.
My informant, however, thought such a feat as the 120-feet sweep was
hardly possible, as only one man’s strength can be applied to the
machine; and he was of opinion that no man’s muscular powers would be
sufficient to work a machine at a height of 120 feet. The labour is
sometimes very severe; “enough,” one strongly-built man told me, “to
make your arms, head, and heart ache.”
The old-fashioned chimneys are generally 12 by 14 inches in their
dimensions in the interior; and for the thorough sweeping of such
chimneys--the opinion of all the sweepers I saw according on the
subject--a head (it is rarely called brush in the trade) of 18 inches
diameter is insufficient, yet they are seldom used larger. One
intelligent master sweeper, speaking from his own knowledge, told
me that in the neighbourhood where he worked numbers of houses had
been built since the introduction of the machines, and the chimneys
were only 9 inches square, as regards the interior; the smaller
flues are sometimes but 7. These 9-inch chimneys, he told me, were
frequent in “scamped” houses, houses got up at the lowest possible
rate by speculating builders. This was done because the brickwork
of the chimneys costs more than the other portions of the masonry,
and so the smaller the dimensions of the chimneys the less the cost
of the edifice. The machines are sometimes as much crippled in this
circumscribed space as they are found of insufficient dimensions in
the old-fashioned chimneys; and so the “scamped” chimney, unless by a
master having many “heads,” is not so cleanly swept as it might be.
Chimneys not built in this manner are now usually 9 inches by 14.
In cleansing a chimney with the machine the sweep stands by, or rather
in, the fire-place, having first attached a sort of curtain to the
mantle to confine the soot to one spot, the operator standing inside
this curtain. He first introduces the “head,” attached to its proper
rod, into the chimney, “driving” it forward, then screws on the next
rod, and so on, until the head has been driven to the top of the
chimney. The soot which has fallen upon the hearth, within the curtain,
is collected into a sack or sacks, and is carried away on the men’s
backs, and occasionally in carts. The whalebone spikes of the head are
made to extend in every direction, so that when it is moved no part
of the chimney, if the surface be even, escapes contact with these
spikes, if the work be carefully done, as indeed it generally is; for
the cleaner the chimney is swept of course the greater amount of soot
adds to the profit of the sweeper. One man told me that he thought
he had seen in some old big chimneys, a long time unswept, more soot
brought down by the machine than, under similar circumstances as to the
time the chimney had remained uncleansed, would have been done by the
climbing boy.
All the master sweepers I saw concurred in the opinion that the
machine was _not_ in all respects so effective a sweeper as the
climbing boy, as it does not reach the recesses, nooks, crannies, or
holes in the chimney, where the soot remains little disturbed by the
present process. This want is felt the most in the cleansing of the
old-fashioned chimneys, especially in the country.
Mr. Cook, in 1817, stated to the Committee that the cleansing of a
chimney by a boy or by a machine occupied the same space of time; but I
find the general opinion of the sweepers now to be that it is only the
small and straight chimneys which can be swept with as great celerity
by a machine as by a climber; in all others the lad was quicker by
about 5 minutes in 30, or in that proportion.
I heard sweepers represent that the passing of the Act of Parliament
not only deprived them in many instances of the unexpired term of a
boy’s apprenticeship in his services as a climber, but “threw open
the business to any one.” The business, however, it seems, was always
“open to any one.” There was no art nor mystery in it, as regarded
the functions of the master; any one could send a boy up a chimney,
and collect and carry away the soot he brought down, quite as readily
and far more easily than he can work a machine. Nevertheless, men
under the old system could hardly (and some say they were forbidden
to) embark in this trade unless they had been apprenticed to it; for
they were at a loss how to possess themselves of climbing boys, and
how to make a connection. When the machines were introduced, however,
a good many persons who were able to “raise the price” of one started
in the line on their own account. These men have been called by the
old hands “leeks” or “green ’uns,” to distinguish them from the
regularly-trained men, who pride themselves not a little on the fact
of their having served seven or eight years, “duly and truly,” as they
never fail to express it. This increase of fresh hands tended to lower
the earnings of the class; and some masters, who were described to
me as formerly very “comfortable,” and some, comparatively speaking,
rich, were considerably reduced by it. The number of “leeks” in 1832
I heard stated, with the exaggeration to which I have been accustomed
when uninformed men, ignorant of the relative value of numbers, have
expressed their opinions, as 1000!
The several classes in the chimney-sweeping trade may be arranged as
follows:--
The _Master Chimney-Sweepers_, called sometimes “Governors” by the
journeymen, are divisible into three kinds:--
The “large” or “high masters,” who employ from 2 to 10 men and 2 boys,
and keep sometimes 2 horses and a cart, not particularly for the
conveyance of the soot, but to go into the country to a gentleman’s
house to fulfil orders.
The “small” or “low masters,” who employ, on an average, two men, and
sometimes but one man and a boy, without either horse or cart.
The “single-handed master-men,” who employ neither men nor boys, but do
all the work themselves.
Of these three classes of masters there are two subdivisions.
The “leeks” or “green-uns,” that is to say, those who have not
regularly served their time to the trade.
The “knullers” or “queriers,” that is to say, those who solicit custom
in an irregular manner, by knocking at the doors of houses and such
like.
Of the competition of capitalists in this trade there are, I am told,
no instances. “We have our own stations,” one master sweeper said, “and
if I contract to sweep a genelman’s house, here in Pancras, for 25_s._
a year, or 10_s._, or anythink, my nearest neighbour, as has men and
machines fit, is in Marrybun; and it wouldn’t pay to send his men a
mile and a half, or on to two mile, and work at what I can--let alone
less. No, sir, I’ve known bisness nigh 20 year, and there’s nothink in
the way of that underworking. The poor creeturs as keeps theirselves
with a machine, and nothing to give them a lift beyond it, _they’d_
undertake work at any figure, but nobody employs or can trust to them,
but on chance.” The contracts, I am told, for a year’s chimney-sweeping
in any mansion are on the same terms with one master as with another.
As regards the _Journeymen Chimney-Sweepers_ there are also three
kinds:--
The “foreman” or “first journeyman” sweeper, who accompanies the men to
their work, superintends their labours, and receives the money, when
paid immediately after sweeping.
The “journeyman” sweeper, whose duty it is to work the machine, and
(where no under-journeyman, or boy, is kept) to carry the machine and
take home the soot.
The “under-journeyman” or “boy,” who has to carry the machine, take
home the soot, and work the machine up the lower-class flues.
There are, besides these, some 20 climbing men, who ascend such flues
as the machines cannot cleanse effectually, and, it must, I regret to
say, be added, some 20 to 30 climbing boys, mostly under eleven years
of age, who are still used for the same purpose “on the sly.” Many of
the masters, indeed, lament the change to machine-sweeping, saying that
their children, who are now useless, would, in “the good old times,”
have been worth a pound a week to them. It is in the suburbs that these
climbing children are mostly employed.
The _hours of labour_ are from the earliest morning till about midday,
and sometimes later.
There are _no Houses of Call_, trade societies, or regulations among
these operatives, but there are low public-houses to which they resort,
and where they can always be heard of.
When a chimney-sweeper is out of work he merely inquires of others in
the same line of business, who, if they know of any one that wants a
journeyman, direct their brother sweeper to call and see the master;
but though the chimney-sweepers have no trade societies, some of the
better class belong to sick, and others to burial, funds. The lower
class of sweepers, however, seem to have no resource in sickness, or in
their utmost need, but the parish. There are sweepers, I am told, in
every workhouse in London.