Now before someone makes the observation that it is unfair to judge the past by present standards I fully acknowledge that they did things differently.
And merely citing odd examples out of context is not good history because in isolation such examples tell us very little.
But I don’t think that prevents us from exploring the degree to which the young or at least some of the young were ill treated, abused exploited or exposed to things we regard as inappropriate.
So while parents were no less loving or protective of their own they still set their own to work at any early age which in many cases given the harsh economic system and subsistence farming gave them no alternative. Moreover many lived in communities which saw nothing wrong with the use of child slaves.
In the 19th century we sent them down the mines, made them crawl underneath moving machinery in the textile factories and watched them work in the fields in all weathers.
Despite the efforts of the early labour movement and progressive members of the establishment there remained real opposition to a change in the system and when the first legislation was finally passed restricting the use of child labour it was restricted to the textile factories and was not supported by a rigorous system of inspection.
Later still it was not till nearly the end of the century that serious efforts were made to stop young children hawking in the streets of our cities.
And not till 1901 was it made illegal to sell alcohol to children under the age of 14 and even then it did not apply if the container was in a corked or sealed container. Earlier in the century according to Annemarie McAllister in “The lives and souls of the children”: The Band of Hope in the North West* “A select committee reported that in public houses in Manchester ‘on a single Sunday in 1854 there were 212,243 visits to drink shops and 22,132 of these were made by children, some of whom went to drink on their own account – some to fetch drink.’”
Much the same is evidenced in the engraving Sunday Afternoon in a Gin Palace from the Graphic in 1879 by Charles Green. Here amongst a collection of drinkers of all classes are two children one of whom is drinking gin and another about to be served. It is an image as Annemarie McAllister points out that could be seen over a hundred years earlier in Hogarth’s Gin Lane which features children drinking from small glasses.
And gin in a way supplies the context. It was a real problem and was commented upon by many social observers of the period. In Manchester while the population had doubled “the consumption of gin and whiskey has quadrupled.......... Drunkenness has infused itself into the bosom of society. Habit has conquered shame, and that which formerly drew a blush from the men, is now regarded as a daily habit by women and children. ” **
The result across the country was an explosion in the number of beer shops. In Manchester just ten years after the Beer Act there were 812 beer shops compared to 502 pubs which rose to 920 in 1843 as against 624 pubs and 31 inns and hotels. *** Ten years later there were 1572 beer shops compared to 484 pubs.
The full enormity of this provision can be gauged from taking just four streets in the densely packed warren which ran behind Great Ancoats Street. In these four streets could be found 90 pubs, taverns and beer shops in the years 1841-50.
And here in Chorlton we had our own fair share, some of which lasted for most of the century while others opened and closed almost overnight. Most I suspect were not the attractive bright palaces that pubs were to become but as best small rooms in private houses and at worst just a place to buy beer in a jug to take home.
But their potential for social damage led some to advocate temperance and it is this that is explored in some detail in the article and much is made of the movement’s attempts to draw young people in. So as well “as aiming to reclaim any young drinkers, such organizations acted on the premise that children provided blank sheets for the temperance message on the principle that ‘if they never use intoxicating drinks, they never will know the want of them’.”*****
And that is about where we started.
Pictures; from The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, Trollope, Frances, 1844, and Victorian Pub, from the exhibition at Salford Museum
*McAllister Annemarie, “The lives and souls of the children”: The Band of Hope in the North West, in Growing Up in the North West, 1850s-1950s, Manchester Region History Review Volume 22 2011
** Faucher, Lean, Manchester 1844 Its Present Conditions and Future Prospects, 1844 Abel Heywood 1969 Frank Cass pages 48-49
*** Ibid Faucher, page 48
**** Eric J. Hewitt A History of Policing in Manchester 1979
***** Gun Street and Henry Street ran parallel behind Great Ancoats Street and crossed Blossom Street and Jersey Street Piggot & Slater’s Directory 1841, Slater’s Directory 1850
***** ibid McAllister Annemarie page 4
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