Children from wealthy families:

Wealthy children lived in large homes with their parents. Very wealthy families had a home in the city and in the countryside.

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Wealthy children had maids and nannies to care for them. Their parents believed that for most of the time, 'Children should be seen but not heard' 

v  A Victorian nursery was not a playschool, but a room in the top of the house where the children lived, played and slept. 

Wealthy children would be taught at home by a private tutor; boys would go off to 'public' school when they were about eight; girls stayed home to learn to sew and how to look after a home.

 
 Wealthy children had many toys. Wooden horses, models of Noah's Ark and dolls houses were very popular. Children could not play with their toys on Sundays, because they had to go to church. They could play with a Noah's Ark because it was connected to the Bible. 

 Wealthy children would learn to play the piano and sing.   

 Wealthy children would go on holiday to the seaside. They really like Punch and Judy shows.

  Children working in factories or on the railway 

  Children had to work to help get money for their families. Some started work when they were five: they were small enough to crawl under and into machines to clean them. Country children might work in the fields picking stones or scaring birds from crops.

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In factories, children would often get injured or killed. They sometime got their hair caught in machines.  

v  Factory owners employed children because they did not have to pay them as much. 

Children who worked could not go to school. Sometimes they might go to Sunday School.

 

Children working in mines. 

Many children worked in mines where it was pitch dark, sometimes for eighteen hours a day. There might be a candle, but this might cause explosions because of dangerous gases in the mines.

  It was very dangerous. Roofs sometimes fell in and there would be explosions. The coal dust would get into children's lungs and cause diseases and death. 

  Children's jobs included pulling carts, opening trap doors to let trucks go through and carrying coal.
Carrying coal was often done by older children, mainly girls. 

  These children just worked and slept. They had no time to play. 

 Poor children usually only had one set of clothes, which would soon be dirty and ragged. 

                    Sometimes, these children might be lucky enough to go to Sunday School. 

  Children working as chimney sweeps. 

Children who became chimney sweeps had parents who were either very poor or who did not care. Some were even stolen from their parents or sold by their parents.

  Small boys were used because they were small enough to climb through the narrow bends in chimneys. 

    If a boy was afraid, the master might beat him or even light a fire under him. 

    Chimney sweep boys would not have any education. 

In the 1870s, Lord Shaftesbury helped bring about a law which stopped children being used as chimney sweeps.

  Street children.

 At least children who worked in mines, factories and up chimneys had somewhere to live, a little food and  wages. But Street children did not have any of these.
 

v  Street children tried to earn money by selling matches, flowers or lace, or by sweeping mud and horse dung from streets so that people could cross without stepping in it. 

v  Street children often had to steal to survive, like the Artful Dodger in 'Oliver Twist'. 

Street children would not be able to go to school.
 

  Children in the workhouse. 

  Children of poor families might end up in the workhouse. 

 In the workhouse, men, women and children were separated, so children might not see their parents at all. 

  Children would do work in the workhouse in return for their food. 

                    Children in workhouses might be lucky enough to have lessons.