Child labour – A Study from Charles Dickens’ and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Writings
Mr. J. Martin prabahar,
Guest Lecturer in English,
Sethupathi Govt. Arts college,
Ramnad.
There are many factors cause for the child labour
such as Industrial Revolution, Poor economical background of parents, lack of
education in parents, poor economic policy of government and so on. The key
reason for drawing children in Industries was to attain high benefits by
sucking his work for meager wages. Poor children have always started work as
soon as their parents could find employment for them. But in much of
pre-industrial Britain had never confested with children in
employment.Industrialisation made major changes in society. The new factories
and mines searched for workers who could do all works for minimum salary.This
paved the way for surge in child labour – presenting a new kind of problem that
Victorian society had to tackle.
Historical Reports stated that the average age for
children started work in early 19th-century Britain was 10 years old, but that
this varied widely between regions. In industrial areas, children at the age of
eight began their employment.The Works commonly allotted to them was as
piercers, standing at the spinning machines repairing breaks in the thread. A
few started as scavengers, crawling beneath the machinery to clear the dirt,
dust or anything else that might disturb the mechanism. In the mines, children
usually started by minding the trap doors, picking out coals at the pit mouth,
or by carrying picks for the miners. Getting job in the country was the rarity,
so rural children tended to start work at 10 and a half years old. Most
probably the work allotted to them was bird-scaring,
sowing crops and driving horses. In towns, most boys entered as errand boys or
chimney sweeps. Employers hired the child knowing the age restrictions to
employ the children. The average age for starting work was 11 and a half years
old. But the age gets varied according to the work he engaged. All children
laboured for very low pay, and performed the task that was dirty and dangerous,
and usually working long hours as well.
The ubiquitous employment of very young children in factories and
mines became a traditional practice, and was something that some contemporaries
found distasteful. It caused a series of Parliamentary enquiries into the
working conditions of children in mines and factories. Elizabeth Barrett
Browning and Charles Dickens expressed their shock over the reporting and
reflected their responses in their works like ‘The Cry of the Children’
and A Christmas Carol. Child workers appeared in several other
Dickens novels, most memorably in the form of Oliver Twist, with his narrow
escape as the apprentice of MrGamfield the chimney-sweep, and in David
Copperfield. David Copperfield is mouthpiece of Dickens’s own experiences of
starting work at Warren’s Blacking factory at the age of 12 following his
father’s imprisonment for debt. Charles Kingsley’s Water Babies focused
on the sufferings of the nation’s chimney sweeps and a host more ephemeral
novels, such as Frances Trollope's The Life and Adventures of Michael
Armstrong, the Factory Boy and Charlotte Elizabeth’s,Helen
Fleetwood also took up the plight of child workers to the middle-class
reader.
Besides most contemporarians turned their attention to child workers
and gave voice to them. And of course, the situation of child workers entered
the political heart of the nation when reformers such as John Fielden and Lord
Ashley, the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, voiced for them in Parliament.
Protests
from public and politiciansriped the fruit for two important legislation – the
Factory Act (1833) and the Mines Act (1842). The Factory Act prohibited the
employment of children younger than nine years of age and limited the hours
that children between nine and 13 could work. The Mines Act raised the starting
age of colliery workers to 10 years. In effect, these two Acts brought the
industrial districts into line with the rest of the country and brought an end
to the systematic employment of young children.
Raising the age for employing children was an important step
forward for child welfare, but it did not improve the working conditions in the
Industries and other workhouses. The sufferings borne by the child was remained
intact. These laws could not stopped the employer from giving mistreatment or
slave treatment of children in their industries or mines. In the 1850s the
liberal MP, Geroge Edwards, shared his boyhood experiences. He states, “ His
employer never missed an opportunity to thrash me”. This he ‘no exception to
the rule, all poor boys in those days were badly treated.
Parents often knew that their children’s abuse, undue poverty
coerced them to tolerate their children sufferings. For example, Roger
Langdondescribed how he was ill-treated by the drunken ploughman under whom he
worked. He informed his parents, but as ‘every other place in the parish was
filled and my parents could not afford to keep me in idleness’ he carried on
working for the man. Forefront problem of the society was constant abuse of young
and vulnerable workers proved a more difficult problem rather than removing
small children from the factories.
During the victoria’s regime, the reformation bloomed in
children’s life. The Factory Act of 1878 strictly prohibited work before the
age of 10 and applied to all trades. It was supported/strengthened by the
Education Act of 1880, which introduced compulsory schooling up to the age of
10. Subsequent amendments raised the school-leaving age to 12. Children who
attained the standards in reading, writing, and arithmetic skills before the
age of 12 are exempted from this act. By
the end of Victoria's reign, almost all children were in school up to the age
of 12. This helped to ensure that a marked improvement in child welfare
occurred between the beginning and end of Victoria's reign.
Works Cited
George Edwards, From
Crow-Scaring to Westminster: an Autobiography with a foreword by the Rt. Hon. Lord Ailwyn of Honingham,
introduction by W R Smith. London: Labour Publishing,
1922, Print.
Roger Langdon, The
Life of Roger Langdon, Told by Himself .London: Elliot Stock, 1909, Print.
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