What was a Victorian classroom like?
There were maps and perhaps pictures on the wall. There would be a globe for geography lessons, and an abacus to help with sums. Children sat in rows and the teacher sat at a desk facing the class. At the start of the Victorian age, most teachers were men, but later many women trained as teachers.
Children wrote on slates with chalk. They wiped the slate clean, by spitting on it and rubbing with their coat sleeve or their finger! Slates could be used over and over. For writing on paper, children used a pen with a metal nib, dipped into an ink well.
Boys from rich families were sent away to boarding school. Some 'public schools', like Eton and Harrow, set high standards.
Other schools were awful places, run to make profits for the owners. Boys in these bad schools were half-starved, ill-treated, and taught very little.
Girls sent away to be trained as governesses were not much better off, as you can learn from reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
Girls and young boys were taught at home by a male tutor or a female governess. The first good girls' schools were started in Victorian times, such as the North London Collegiate School (1850).
Discipline in schools was often strict. Children were beaten for even minor wrongdoings, with a cane, on the hand or bottom. A teacher could also punish a child by making them stand in the corner wearing a 'dunce's cap'. Another, very boring, punishment was writing 'lines'. This meant writing out the same sentence (such as 'Schooldays are the happiest days of my life' 100 times or more.
Girls and boys learned together in primary schools, but were separated in secondary schools. Both boys and girls learned reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling and drill (PE).
Boys learned technology: woodwork, maths and technical drawing, to help with work in factories, workshops or the army when they grew up.
Girls had lessons in cooking and sewing, to prepare them for housework and motherhood.
Children were often taught by copying and repeating what the teacher told them. Lessons included teaching in right and wrong, and the Christian religion.
During the 19th century, factory-made toys, including tin toys and clockwork toys, went on sale. Rich children had more toys to choose from: train sets, toy soldiers, rocking horses, dolls and doll's houses, tea-sets and toy shops with toy fruit, vegetables, meat, hats and medicines. Other popular toys were alphabet bricks, sailing boats, jigsaw puzzles and Noah's Arks. In many homes, children were not allowed toys on Sundays - except Noah's Ark, because that was in the bible.
Most Victorian toys were made of wood, paper or metal. There were no plastic toys. Poor children usually played with home-made toys. A clothes peg might be turned into a doll, and a lump of wood become a toy boat. A piece of rope could be used for skipping, and rags stuffed with sawdust might become a ball or an animal to cuddle. As a treat, families sometimes bought cheap factory-made toys from a 'penny stall' in the market.
The Victorians were keen on outdoor games, such as football. The first FA Cup Final was played in 1872. Schools encouraged team games to 'build character'. The Victorians made up rules for many games we still play. An example is badminton, which developed from a old game called battledore and shuttlecock. If they did not have a proper football, poor children kicked around a blown-up pig's bladder, from the butcher's shop.
Indoors, children played board games such as Snakes and Ladders (which became a popular toyshop game towards the end of the 19th century), Ludo and Draughts, and also card games. A popular card game was Happy Families, introduced in the middle of the Victorian period. There were also pencil and paper games, such as Noughts and Crosses, which we still play today. Children played table games, such as Tiddlywinks, a new craze in the 1890s, and Shove Halfpenny and Bagatelle. At parties, children played traditional 'ring' games like Oranges and Lemons and Kiss in the Ring. In quiet moments, they pasted pictures into Scrapbooks.
At weekends, families might go to the park, and listen to a band. Crowds would gather round the bandstand to enjoy the music. Zoos were popular too. Children rode on elephants and camels, and watched the lions being fed. At Easter, there was Maypole dancing and a May Queen was chosen, and paraded through the streets. Poor children looked forward to treats such as day trips and picnics. These were often run by youth organizations such as the Band of Hope and the Boys' Brigade.
The Victorians loved theatre, and most towns had at least one theatre ormusic hall. At Christmas, lucky children were taken to the pantomime. This was often a lavish show with exciting special effects (lights, smoke, loud bangs, live animals). Poor children who could not afford a theatre seat might get a job in the pantomime as 'juvenile dancers' or 'crowds'. Children paid a penny to get into the cheap music halls, and came out whistling the latest popular song.
Railways changed people's lives. Families went to the seaside for the day by train. People who could afford it took a week's summer holiday. Seaside towns such as Blackpool and Margate became popular resorts. Trippers and holidaymakers enjoyed things we still enjoy at the seaside today: ice cream, fish and chips, riding on donkeys, paddling and making sandcastles on the beach. In old photos you'll notice most people are wearing ordinary clothes, with trousers and skirts rolled up to keep dry.
Funfairs and circuses travelled around the country. Funfairs had roundabouts (worked by steam engines), slides and swings, coconut shies, shooting galleries and sideshows with strongmen, fire-eaters, jugglers and fortune-tellers. Circuses put on shows in big tents, and often paraded into the town on arrival with the clowns, elephants, horses and camels. Children laughed at Punch and Judy, a one-man travelling puppet show.
Britain was the first country in the world to have lots of factories. Factory machines made all kinds of things. Machines did jobs, such as spinning, previously been done by families at home.
Factories were noisy. People had to shout above the rattle and hiss of machinery. They breathed air full of dust, oil and soot. Iron and steel works got so hot that workers dripped with sweat. Flames and sparks lit up the sky darkened by smoke from factory chimneys.
Cotton mills were factories where cotton was spun into thread. In woollen mills, wool was spun in a similar way. Weaving machines turned the thread into textiles, such as cloth and carpets. In Victorian Britain, the cotton and wool industries employed thousands of workers, mostly in the north of England.
Mill workers lived in small houses close to the factories.
Factory owners employed children because they were cheap, did not complain, had nimble fingers, and could crawl about under machines.
Small girls worked in mills as 'piecers'. They mended broken threads. 'Scavengers' crawled beneath clattering machines to pick up scraps of cotton. They risked getting caught in the machinery, losing hair or arms. Yet most mill-owners thought factory work was easy. At first, there were no laws to protect working children.
People called reformers, such as Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885), argued in Parliament for laws to stop child-work. Inspectors, called Commissioners, went into factories and mines. They talked to working children to find out the facts. These are three of the new laws passed by Parliament.
1841 Mines Act - No child under the age of 10 to work underground in a coal mine.
1847 Ten Hour Act - No child to work more than 10 hours in a day.
1874 Factory Act - No child under the age of 10 to be employed in a factory Fun Facts
Victorians were excited by new machines like James Nasmyth's steam hammer (1842). It could bend iron bars, but also crack an egg resting on a wine glass!
Most of the energy we use today comes in the form of electricity or oil. In Victorian times, energy came from water-power (waterwheels), from horses and above all from burning coal. Coal was as important to Victorians as oil is to us today. Steam engines burned coal. Steam engines drove factory machines, locomotives pulling trains and steamships. All this coal had to be dug from coal mines. Britain had a lot of coal, deep in rocks beneath the ground. .
Most coal was dug from deep mines. A long vertical shaft was dug down from the surface. Leading off from it were side tunnels. Miners rode in a lift, worked by a steam engine. In the tunnels, they hacked at the coal with picks and shovels. Coal mines were dark, dirty and dangerous. The only light came from candles and oil lamps. Gas in the mine could choke miners, or explode. Tunnels could flood or collapse. Accidents killed many miners.
Coal mines were owned by the person on whose land they were dug. The mine owners sold their coal to the factories. Some mine owners were very rich, but they paid miners low wages. They did not care about health and safety, so at first they let small children and women work underground.
In 1842, Parliament stopped women and children under 10 years old from working underground. In 1860 the age limit for boy-miners was raised to 12, and in 1900 to 13.
Some children pushed trucks of coal along mine tunnels. They were called 'putters'.
'Trappers' opened and shut wooden doors to let air through the tunnels. A trapper boy sat in the dark, with just a small candle, and no-one to talk to.
Some children started work at 2 in the morning and stayed below ground for 18 hours. Children working on the surface, sorting coal, at least saw daylight and breathed fresh air.
Fun Facts
Some miners took canary birds in cages down the mine. If it breathed in dangerous gas, the canary passed out (fainted), and the miners hurried to safety.
Although many children worked in Victorian times, they still had time to play.
Outdoors, most Victorian children played in the street or in the fields and woods. Not many families had gardens big enough to play in, and there were no children's playgrounds. Rich families had playrooms ornurseries, but poorer children played wherever they could find space. With ten or more children often crammed into one or two rooms, play-space for poor families was a luxury. Playing outside was the usual escape.
In street games, children shared toys like hoops, marbles and skipping ropes, with friends in the street, or in the school playground. They played chasing games such as tag and played catch with balls. If they hadn't got a proper ball, they made balls from old rags, and bats from pieces of wood. They also played hopscotch. Victorian children were able to play out in the street as there was less traffic than today. There were no cars until the 1880s. They crowded around street musicians, wheeling a barrel organ, which played tunes when the handle was turned.
Sometimes barrel organ players had a monkey with them.
Victorian children were often given books with improving moral lessons, about characters with names like Lazy Lawrence and Simple Susan. A favourite story was Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies about a badly treated chimney-boy. There were lots of books written specially for children, such as Treasure Island (about pirates) by R L Stevenson and Black Beauty (about a horse) by Anna Sewell. Perhaps the most famous Victorian children's book is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) written by Lewis Carroll.
Children played outdoor chasing games such as tag (which had lots of other names, such as touch or tig), and others like Tom Tiddler's Ground, where one player (Tom) tries to catch anyone trespassing on his or her ground, shown by a line. They also played a version of musical chairs, using cushions or old rags to sit on. At Easter, children played 'Egg-Shackling'. In this game, everyone put an egg with their name on in a basket or sieve, which was shaken until the eggs broke. The last egg left unbroken won.
Fun Facts
At country fairs, people chased a soaped pig. The pig was rubbed all over with soap (or grease), to make it slippery. Whoever caught it took the pig home.
Playing in the park (1883). A 'nanny' or children's nurse watches as children enjoy the fun. Can you see the policeman too?
Two factory-boys comfort one another. Can you see the small child crawling under the machine? How might this 1840 picture have made people feel about child-labour?
Fun Facts
Victorians were excited by new machines like James Nasmyth's steam hammer (1842). It could bend iron bars, but also crack an egg resting on a wine glass!
The area of the Midlands in England, around Birmingham, was so smoky from iron works and factories that people called it 'The Black Country'.
By the 1830s one steam spinning machine could work more than 2,000 threads at the same time.
Standing for so long at a machine affected growing children's bones. It made some boys 'knock-kneed'.
Mill-worker children ate in the mill - porridge with onions for breakfast and oatcakes with milk for dinner. They had to eat standing up.
Sometimes hot boiled potatoes were dished out. Boys held out their shirt-fronts to catch the potatoes; girls used their aprons.
Fun Facts
Children were scared of getting sick, and scared too of some of the 'cures'. For whooping cough, one cure was to swallow a spider in butter!
Victorian children were usually dressed like miniature adults. Boy babies often wore skirts - later a boy might wear a sailor suit.
Children would run to meet the hokey-pokey man. He sold ice cream from a small hand cart or barrow
Some poor children wore second-hand boots or shoes, nicknamed 'translators'.
One Victorian slang word for 'children' was 'chavy'.
For parties, lots of little Victorian girls wore red cloaks - perhaps because Little Red Riding Hood was a favourite nursery story.
Many women had lots of babies. Birth control was not widespread, and few couples used any means of contraception. Child-bearing could be dangerous, and many women died in childbirth. Many babies also died, from childhood diseases. Queen Victoria had nine children. Her children were called Edward, Alfred, Arthur, Leopold, Victoria, Alice, Helena, Louise and Beatrice. The royal family became a model for other families.
Many poor children lived in tiny country cottages or in city slums. There was no money for toys, nowhere to play except alleys and yards. Many children had to work, while others were too sick and hungry to play. Yet most poor children still managed to make some fun. They played with whatever they could find, perhaps dancing to the music of a hurdy-gurdy man, paddling in a stream, or climbing trees and lamp-posts.
Rich families had large houses, with a special room for children called the nursery. This was often at the top of the house. In the nursery younger children ate, played and slept. They were looked after by a woman called a nanny. She took them for walks in the park or to the zoo. Some rich children saw their parents only in the morning and evening, and were looked after mostly by their nanny and by other servants. Most Victorians thought children should be 'seen and not heard'.
The person who looked after the children was called a nanny
Victorians made their own entertainment at home. They had no radio or TV. They enjoyed singing, and a rich family would sing around the piano, while poorer families enjoyed tunes on a pipe or a fiddle. Families played card games and board games, and acted out charades. At birthday parties, a special treat was a magic lantern show. An oil or gas lamp sent a beam of light through a glass lens and onto a screen, to show enlarged images, perhaps of wild animals or a story told in pictures.
Fun Facts
Children were scared of getting sick, and scared too of some of the 'cures'. For whooping cough, one cure was to swallow a spider in butter!
Victorian children were usually dressed like miniature adults. Boy babies often wore skirts - later a boy might wear a sailor suit.
Children would run to meet the hokey-pokey man. He sold ice cream from a small hand cart or barrow
Some poor children wore second-hand boots or shoes, nicknamed 'translators'.
One Victorian slang word for 'children' was 'chavy'.
For parties, lots of little Victorian girls wore red cloaks - perhaps because Little Red Riding Hood was a favourite nursery story.
This photo shows street musicians in the 1870s.
An 'organ-grinder'. His barrel organ played tunes when he turned the handle. His pet monkey amused children, and also collected pennies in a hat or box.
Street life in Whitechapel, East London, 1872. Children play in the gutter. The man on the left, washing a dish, is an Asian seaman, from a ship in London's docks.
Part of a report on child labour (1842). The picture shows children pushing a tub of coal. Such reports helped persuade most people that it was wrong for children to work in mines.
A girl pulls a tub of coal (1842). She is wearing a harness around her waist, to pull the heavy tub. The tunnel roof is supported by wooden 'pit-props'.
Coal mining was an important industry. Hetton Colliery, near Sunderland, (pictured) had one of the world's first private steam railways, opened in 1822.
A Noah's Ark, from the 1830s. The ark and the animals are made from wood.
An advertisement (1881) for a doll's house. 'Shilling toys' were fairly cheap. (12 pennies made 1 shilling, in Victorian money).
This alphabet/spelling game (1850) had letters that stacked inside the box.
Fun Facts
Children were scared of getting sick, and scared too of some of the 'cures'. For whooping cough, one cure was to swallow a spider in butter!
Victorian children did money sums (in pounds, shillings and pence). They knew about measures we no longer use such as poles, perches, rods, chains and furlongs.
Victorian children were usually dressed like miniature adults. Boy babies often wore skirts - later a boy might wear a sailor suit.
Children would run to meet the hokey-pokey man. He sold ice cream from a small hand cart or barrow.
Some poor children wore second-hand boots or shoes, nicknamed 'translators'.
One Victorian slang word for 'children' was 'chavy'.
For parties, lots of little Victorian girls wore red cloaks - perhaps because Little Red Riding Hood was a favourite nursery story
Children sat at desks in rows facing the teacher. How does this room compare with your classroom?
A girls' classroom. The girls have stopped work for the photo to be taken.
This 1872 picture shows a class in school. One pupil is standing in the corner, wearing a 'dunce's cap' as a punishment. Perhaps he got a sum or a spelling wrong!
P.E. for girls of the North London Collegiate School (1882). They're not wearing P.E. kit, are they?
A governess teaches children at home. The lesson is interrupted by the family's maidservant.
A tinsmith or 'tinker' mended pots and pans, and made household utensils from tin. This picture, from a children's book, shows his children helping.
Work in a cotton mill. This man has a small boy assistant, to fetch and carry, and learn the skills of the trade.
A woman 'sells' her son to a chimney-sweep. He will work as a 'climbing-boy' cleaning chimneys.
Many children worked in backstreet 'sweat-shops'. This picture shows children and adults stitching clothes for a tailor.
Fun Facts
The average wage in the 1850s was about 15 shillings (75p) a week. Many children got just 5 shillings (25p) a week, or less.
If a Victorian child had bumps on his head and a pointed chin, people said he or she would probably grow up to be thief!
Poor people often ate poor food. They had to buy cheap tea with blackberry leaves added, sugar mixed with sand, and milk thickened with powdered chalk! Meat once a week was a treat.
There were millions of horses in Victorian Britain - horse-drawn vehicles jammed the streets, like cars and trucks today.
In 1841 Thomas Cook ran an excursion train from Leicester to Loughborough to take people to a meeting. It was the first 'Cook's Tour'.
Girl flower-sellers also sold oranges (when the fruit was available,not all-year- round like today) Oranges kept fresh longer than flowers.
Building a sandcastle (1880). Victorians liked pictures that showed happy, healthy children. Not all Victorian children were so lucky.
All the fun of the fair. This is a steam-driven roundabout at the fair on Hampstead Heath in London.
Buying ice cream. This photo was taken in 1884.
Girls paddling at Yarmouth in 1892. Seaside holidays became popular, thanks to the new railways.
This photo shows holidaymakers on the beach at Hythe, in Kent. Can you spot the bathing machines?
A ride on an elephant at London Zoo. Seeing live 'wild animals' at the zoo was a thrill for children.
A music hall show at London's Empire Theatre (1898). Seven acrobats perform a balancing feat, with the help of two horses.
Fun Facts
In 1837 London's biggest-ever fair was held for Queen Victoria's coronation. One of the attractions was a puppet 'peep-show', a box you peered into to watch moving puppets. The most popular scene was the funeral of Victoria's uncle, King William IV!
Fairground shows often featured 'bearded ladies', 'living skeletons' 'giants' and oddities such as the 'pig-faced woman' - which was a tame bear wearing a dress and a bonnet!
In the rat pit, people watched dogs chase and kill rats. London had more than 40 rat-pits, supplied with rats by the city rat-catchers.
At the start of the 19th century very few children went to school. Most poor children worked. If they went to school, their families lost the money they earned.
There were some good schools, for example, grammar schools and public schools. Only richer families could afford to pay the school fees, though some schools gave free places to poor boys. Girls did not go to school when the Victorian age began. Some were taught at home, but most girls got little education.
'Dame' schools were usually run by one woman. The 'dame' often did her best, but she was a child-minder not a trained teacher. Often quite poor herself, she took as many children as she could cram into her house. Poor parents working hard to earn a living paid her a few pennies a week to look after their children, and perhaps teach them the alphabet or how to sew. Most of the time, the children amused themselves and did not learn very much.
Sunday schools were run by churches, to teach children about the Christian faith. Journalist Robert Raikes started the first Sunday School for poor children in Gloucester in 1780.
Ragged Schools were schools for poor children. One of the first was started in Portsmouth by a shoe-mender named John Pounds. Older children helped to teach younger ones. Ragged Schools were often in one room of a house, or in an old barn. From 1833 factory owners were supposed to provide at least 2 hours education every day for child-workers, but not many children actually got lessons.
Reformers campaigned for new laws to improve working conditions for children and give children the opportunity for schooling. In 1870 Parliament said there had to be a school in every town and village. 'School Boards' of local people built and ran the new schools. Families paid a few pennies a week to send their children, though not all children went to school. In the 1860s a farmer might pay 6 pence (6d) a week for each child. A labourer (who earned less) only paid 2d per child.
By 1880, the law said that all children aged 5 to 10 must go to primary school, so every child would receive at least a basic education.
Fun Facts
Victorian teachers kept a list of 'object lessons' - things to talk about, with picture cards to show. The objects were a mixed lot, such as The Lion, The Spring, A Basket, Coal, The Horse.
After 1891 all schooling was free for primary age children. School log books noted that 'No fees charged this week'. School attendances went up.
Victorians liked stories with a moral, such as one about Naughty Nellie who played with matches - and burned her hair off. Or Bad Billy who stole a knife - and cut off his finger.
Schools had rules, like these from a Sussex school in 1875. 'All children are expected to come to school clean, tidy and simply dressed. Rough behaviour, fighting, throwing stones or using bad language are strictly forbidden.'
In country districts, many children took time off school to pick potatoes in the autumn.
It wasn't all work though. Sometimes children were given the day off if a circus came to the district.
At this London 'ragged school' for poor boys, the boys did carpentry and other work. 'Book-learning' (reading, writing and arithmetic) was an extra.
Harrow School in 1862. At public schools like Harrow, sport was an important part of the boys' education.
This painting of a 'dame school' shows children in a garden. Do you think all dame schools were as nice as this one looks?
Ragged truants captured
A school board meeting in 1871. School boards were set up to run local schools in towns around the country.
Children at a London 'ragged school' in 1853. Poor parents paid a few pennies a week to send children to 'ragged schools'.
The Victorian age in British history is named after Queen Victoria, who was Britain's queen from 1837 until 1901.
What was life like for Victorian children? There were big differences in homes, schools, toys and entertainments. No TV, no computers, no central heating, no cars (until the last few years of Victoria's reign). No air travel - unless you went up in a balloon! Many children went to work, not to school. Welcome to the Victorian world. It's time to find out how children (your great-great-great-grandparents perhaps!) lived more than a hundred years ago.
Britain ruled the British Empire. Victoria was Empress of India as well as Queen of Britain, Canada (the biggest country in the Empire) and small countries such as Jamaica. Trade with the Empire helped make Britain rich. Some British children emigrated with their families to new homes in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. Children were taught about the Empire in school.
In Victorian classrooms, children could easily find the countries of the Empire on a map because they were coloured pink or red.
TheIndustrial Revolution changed Britain from a land of small towns, villages and farms into a land of cities, large towns and factories. The population grew from 16 million in 1801 to over 41 million by 1901. Cities grew fast, as people moved from the countryside to work in factories.
Men, women and children worked in factories, and in coal mines. Factory and mine owners became rich, but most factory and mine workers were poor. They were paid low wages, and lived in unhealthy, overcrowded slums.
A Victorian slum. A picture of the Seven Dials district of London in 1872. What do you think it was like to live there?
Off to a new life. Families emigrating from Britain to Canada wait to go on the ship that will take them across the Atlantic Ocean.
Victorian London was the world's biggest city. This is Fleet Street in 1894.Horses had not yet been replaced by cars.
Hungry street-children are given bread and a hot drink by volunteer charity workers. Notice their ragged clothes. The women helping are better-dressed.
Swainson Birley Cotton Mill (with countryside) 1834
This map of the British Empire was used as advertising by a firm that made biscuits.
