The Children Who Built Victorian Britain Part 1. Primary History - Victorian Britain. Primary History - Victorian Britain - Children at Work. Child labour in Victorian England. Queen Victoria and Victorians. History explorer: Life in the Victorian workhouse "Dr Samantha Shave and Charlotte Hodgman visit Weaver Hall Museum in Cheshire, a former workhouse and place of last resort for the destitute…" (historyextra.com) From tartan to tippling: the A to Z of things two queens have in common "On Wednesday the Queen takes the mantle of Britain’s longest-serving monarch from her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria, and here we compare their reigns. " (theguardian.com) Queen Victoria archive goes online - 22 April 2012 "Rarely seen documents chronicling the life and reign of Queen Victoria have been made public on a new website marking this year's Diamond Jubilee. The Royal Family released its archive of letters, journals, painting and photographs for the launch.
The website has nine sections tracing the life of Victoria as a princess to her own Jubilee celebrations in 1897... " (BBC) Children & Cotton - Learning Zone for Social Studies & Citizenship. Pauper Apprentices & Half-timers In the 1790s, there were hundreds of child workers at New Lanark. David Dale built the village and he needed lots of workers for his new mills. At the same time, he knew of pauper children who had little chance in life. Mr Dale brought these children to live and work at New Lanark. They were called Pauper Apprentices. A pauper was someone who was very, very poor, and an apprentice is a trainee or learner. This practice of employing apprentices was very common in mills. This tells us about the living conditions of the pauper apprentices at New Lanark Child apprentices would usually work a period of probation and then they would be bound to the mill by signing or marking an X [if they couldn't write] on an apprentice indenture.
In many mills in towns and cities, apprentices were treated very badly and were forced to live in terrible conditions. "We went to our work at 6 in the morning without anything at all to eat or fire to warm us.