1. What were "climbing boys"?
Climbing boys (sometimes girls) were technically called chimney sweeps' apprentices, and were apprenticed to a master sweep, who, being an adult, was too large to fit into a chimney or flue to clean it. They were usually arouond 5-10 years old. Some sweeps were paid by the parish to teach orphans or paupers the chimney sweeping craft. It was this aspect of child labour that Parliament first focussed on when it finally began to deal with the scandal.
2. What did Lord Shaftesbury do?
A social reformer, known as the "Poor Man's Earl", Shaftesbry used his postion to campaign for better working conditions, to reform to lunacy laws, to advance education and to limit child labour. He was also an early supporter of the Zionist movement and the YMCA and a leading figure in the evangelical movement in the Church of England.
3. Read about the lttle climbing boy in The water babies
The water babies is an 1862 novel by Charles Kingsley. The novel is often credited with being the catalyst for the passing of the Chimney Sweeper's Act of 1864. It focusses on Tom, a climbing boy who is apprenticed to a Mr Grimes but who becomes a "water baby". Illiterate and perpetually dirty, Tom ‘cried half his time, and laughed the other half. He cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and his elbows sore ... and when his master beat him ... and when he had not enough to eat ... and he laughed when he was tossing halfpennies with the other boys ... or bowling stones at the horses’ legs as they trotted by, which was excellent fun.’
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