Children at Work
What was it like to work in the mills?
Children started working in mills from the age of 5 or 6 and usually started out as a 'scavenger' or 'piecer'.
The job of scavenger involved crawling under machinery to pick up loose scraps of cotton or wool. It was a very dangerous job as the children had to crawl under the machinery while it was working. Children got crushed by machinery, lost fingers or limbs, or lost their hair after getting it tangled in the machinery.
A piecer had to watch over power looms and tie any loose threads that got broken by the machinery.
Children were not allowed to stop working, often even to eat, and were expected to work a whole shift without sitting down once. Shifts often lasted over 12 hours, and standing up for that length of time left children with rickets (bowed legs), fallen arches (flat feet) and bad backs, which made standing and walking painful.
Download an Activity Sheet comparing historic and contemporary material about Child Labour (click on Worksheets link below).
Learning article provided by:
Huddersfield Local Studies Library |
Page Comments
