Young Workers of the Industrial Age by Sue Wilkes is a book set on the lives of children and young adult workers during the industrial age, and the eventual push to make things safe and eventually make it more important for children to get an education.

While today's youth is lucky by historical standards that allow for them to make school and an education their priority before heading into the workforce, history knows that it was not always the case. Children for hundreds of years were used for labor for their families and also in many cases to bring an income into support their households. However, once the industrial age came into place, things became considerably more dangerous and harder on children. Whether working with dangerous machines that could maim or kill or working long hours for little pay and sometimes none at all, children were hardly a consideration for the companies and people they worked for. Some were lucky to be apprenticed at a young age in a trade, but even then, that did not guarantee they would be well treated.

Eventually, the rights of children to an education and safety in the workforce became a prevalent concern, and the road to ensuring these things for children was a long an arduous one.

This is a book is a must read for anyone who is curious about the plight of children in the industrial age and the lengths the world went to offer a better life for children of today.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Pen & Sword for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Young Workers of the Industrial Age by Sue Wilkes is sub-titled Child Labour in the 18th and 19th Centuries and that is a precise description of it, although the book has more to say about the C19th than the C18th. Wilkes has researched most industries that employed children or young people (which, in practice, means pretty much all industries of the period) and shares her findings in a highly readable text. She explains how children were employed in the industry, e.g. in brick-making, children would sift coal-dust; knead clay with their hands and feet; carry the clay to the moulder and then from the moulder to the drying area and then to the kiln. They looked after the kiln and emptied it when the bricks were baked. It was estimated that one 12-year-old girl moved 36 tons of bricks in a working day.

Although, from our privileged viewpoint in the 2020s, we can easily profess ourselves appalled at what happened, Wilkes shows us child labour through various perspectives. The only form of social support for the poor was the workhouse or orphanage and Wilkes gives us many heart-rending examples of overseers sending young inmates many miles away to be used as cheap labour. Parents were tempted to push children into employment as soon as they could, in order to add something to the family’s income. Schools charged fees and the income from two or three (or, ideally, eight or nine) children was much more attractive than paying for them to attend school.

Employers who only employed adult workers would have a much higher wage-bill than those who exploited children. If their prices were higher than competitors, they would lose sales and go out of business. That means the whole workforce – adults and children – would be out of work and might starve to death. Was it better to have starving children or dead ones?

The middle- and upper-classes might frown upon child labour and express a view that “It shouldn’t be allowed” but those same people would demand goods and services at the lowest price and fastest delivery possible. If a lady wanted a hat for next week, she wouldn’t consider the long hours that the milliner’s staff would have to work to make it.

Politicians weighed up the prospect of British goods, ethically produced, being undercut by foreign goods made cheaper by child labour; and the impact upon the balance of payments. Many politicians were also employers and refused to enact legislation that would might hit their pockets.

This is an excellent book. Although it’s crowded with mentions of Acts of Parliament; with names of heroes and villains (and the children); and with statistics, it is never too dry. The changing focus upon one industry, then another, keeps the reader’s attention. This is not a comfortable subject – one’s heart bleeds when reading the tales of exploitation and cruelty – but it is a must-read for anyone interested in social- or labour-history.

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From education I remember learning about children in workhouses and what type of work they did but this book gave me a much more detailed and interesting account of the truth of child workers during this time.

This book is an account of the working conditions and lives that inspired such works as “Oliver Twist” and “Hard Times.” But before you shy away, know that the subject matter is grim in places but this is a highly readable account and a surprising page turner. It charts a shift in attitudes from working children being a national asset, to the recognition that the hours and conditions were largely inhumane.
“Paupers were a distinct race amongst human beings.” William Cobbett
In the 1770s, the options for the destitute were grim. In one London parish, over a 12month period, not a single child admitted to the workhouse survived – estimated at 1,000 deaths. Indeed, to avoid extreme poverty parents were complicit in sending their children out for work from as young as two or three years old. They were a bit like livestock, an adult farming their brood out to factories could bring in a wage that saved the family from starvation. And this attitude was applauded. Daniel Defoe took it as a matter of pride that Britain in the 1770s had a burgeoning child workforce; they were considered a source of national prosperity.
In reality, many children were treated appallingly. The case is cited, as punishment, of children made to hang by their fingertips from a rail above moving machinery. You would think the clamour to get such malevolent cruelty ended would be universal. But no. For the few people in a position of power who cared enough to try and change things – they encountered opposition from the children’s parents (they didn’t want to lose a wage), factory owners (they didn’t want to be undercut by less scrupulous owners), and fellow MPs (it would damage the economy.)
So is this a dismal read? No! The content is shocking at times but the author’s style is highly readable. It is a detailed, factual account of how small victories over the decades led to change. A true account of evolution rather than revolution. I can heartily recommend it. My one small criticism is that I wish the slightly later decades (1880s & 90s) were covered in more detail. Prior to this time the home was considered sacrosanct and the law had little power to prosecute child cruelty by relatives. These were the decades when that changed and I would like to know more – but fair enough, this isn’t ‘child labour’ as such, so perhaps unfair to ask.
An ARC supplied in return for an honest and unbiased review.

This is an excellent book on the topic perfect for KS 3 or even adult readers. I am a history buff and am thus naturally drawn to this book. This book will be particularly good for my KS3 students, not just because of the information in it but also the writing style. KS3 students badly need to make the transition from writing fiction to more advanced and formal essays. This book provides a great example for them to pick up the appropriate vocabulary and sentence structures required in writing essays.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pen & Sword for an ARC of this book.

What did children do in the past? Many things, of course, just as they do today. But, more than we imagine, children worked. Often for long hours, in unsanitary, even dangerous conditions, with brutal overseers and pitiful wages. These were not merely the children of the poorest, who were often, due to tragedy or parental negligence, the sole family breadwinners.

As Wilkes demonstrates, many British children ‘went out’ to perform paid labor because the rapid growth of industrial capitalism undermined traditional family economies. Artisans and farmers alike had historically relied on the help of all family members for the collective good. Children had always worked, in short, and some parents could be as harsh as some factory overseers. In some ways, the Industrial Revolution only shifted the location out of the home while also changing the nature of work, from personal to mechanical. But it is doubtful that most of these children working in the home, in small domestic workshops, in pubs and stores, and on farms, suffered anywhere near the conditions of the early factories, mills and mines.

Wilkes has amassed some impressive evidence to suggest the dual objectives of those in power. Employers argued about the moral value of work and the skills learned on the factory floor, but these arguments did not apply to their own children. Unions wanted to protect children and get them out of factories, but much of their platform had to do with the unfair competition that low paid child workers meant for adult men. Working children were also fussed over by middle class reformers, who nonetheless benefited from the non-union cheap labour children provided. All told, the protective legislation of the late Victorian and early twentieth century years only applied minimal guidelines about ages and locations of work, and were easily worked around, thanks to the desperation of many working class parents for whom a child’s wage could make a difference between poverty and outright destitution.

This is the second edition of a book originally published in 2011, under the title The Children History Forgot, which was probably dropped because of the change in publishers. Yet that characterization reverberates, aptly, through this second edition. Well-written and highly readable, this is not simply a sad story about the past and children’s place in it, important as that is. It’s also a reminder that we shouldn’t be too smug. Maybe our children can go to school and play instead of working for wages. But for many children, the whole idea of such a childhood is still out of reach, even in the 21st century.

Very insightful with a great deal of detail on relevant laws of the time, as well as moving case studies of individual experiences. The author did a wonderful job of making this engaging and easy to read while also imparting deep research. A great addition to the social history of the period.