In his tenth novel, Charles Dickens assessed the social and economic pressures of Victorian society. The times were harsh, especially for children struggling to survive and make their way through life. This brief essay discusses some of the abuses of children during Victorian times.
Industrialization in the Victorian era created urban growth and a large influx of industrial workers that further divided English society into recognizable classes that emerged as the capitalists or new middle class and the working class. Both are represented in the characters and plot developments in Hard Times. About one-third of Queen Victoria’s subjects were under fifteen years old (Dubar, n.d.). Dickens was repulsed by the poverty and squalor around him and hoped his writings would raise awareness and bring needed social reforms, especially relief for unsanitary living conditions and the brutal treatment and neglect of children in workhouses (Makati, 2008, pp. 1, 3, 83-86). Public sentiment resisted cries to protect neglected and abused children. It took most of the nineteenth century to secure favorable attitudes to pass legislation to protect the lives of children (Gubar, n.d.).
Children as young as five or six years old (in the early nineteenth century) worked for low wages in conditions that were physically, emotionally and morally harmful. They were cheap laborers that ensured the success of industrialization growth. Children worked primarily in textile mills and coal mines, girls as nurses or maids in wealthy households and rural children on farms or in cottage industries (Gubar, n.d.). Children with their families were trapped by workhouse provisions enacted in 1834 that replaced a more open but troubled public relief program. Under the new laws, the family was housed in the same workhouse facility in which they worked and received little help for their needs. They worked 12-16 hours six days each week in harsh conditions (e.g., poor lighting, extreme heat or cold, lack of protective clothing and ineffective ventilation). There were dangerous working conditions and injuries caused by “accidents, mutilations and poisonous chemicals” like coal mine dust and smoke (Makati, 2008, pp. 22, 23, 66-69, 88-89, 92).
Urban overpopulation produced poor, overcrowded and dangerous living conditions. Adequate and safe family housing was scarce and often too expensive and too far from work. Often workhouse “inmates” wore the only clothes they received when arriving, despite the need for protective clothing in harsh English winters; most children were shoeless with ragged clothes. Bread and gruel were their usual meals. These factors caused children to be malnourished and more susceptible to diseases and chronic infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Many children also endured discrimination, deprivation and physical abuse (e.g., starvation, flogging and harsh treatment and confinement for offenses) (Makati, 2008, pp. 26, 69-70, 72, 75-78).
Industrialization caused the rich and poor to become more isolated than before with the working classes (or “Hands” in Hard Times) subjugated to capitalists. Children from wealthy families were pampered and often bored in an affectionless household (Victorian children in Victorian times). Most child laborers were orphans or from poor families and received little or no education except for skills needed to learn their trade or run their machines. They were exploited and treated cruelly – chained, often belted, naked, crawling on their hands and knees (Makati, 2008, p. 23, 88-89, 96-100).
As a child, Dickens was deprived of educational opportunities and after working in a blacking factory suffered some of the same conditions depicted in his stories (Gubar, n.d.). He was an active champion of the disadvantaged and oppressed and worked diligently to call public attention to their plight and the implementation of social reforms in England to improve the fate of the poor, women and children in Victorian society. Child labor laws in the 1860s and after restricted abuse but often came too late to safe all the children and families affected (Makati, 2008, pp. 4, 23, 79).
References
Dubar, M. (n.d.). The Victorian child, c. 1837-1901. Retrieved
Makati, P. (2008). A critical study of Charles Dickens' representation of the socially
Disadvantaged (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Fort Hare (East London Campus), London. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/6091837/A_Critical_Study_of_Charles_Dickens_Representation_of_the_Socially_Disadvantaged
Victorian children in Victorian times. (2016). Retrieved
