Ancestors At Work
Michelle Higgs goes beyond Dick Van Dyke’s cheerful sweep in Mary Poppins to reveal the hard work and hazards of the trade
The hazards and hardships of life as a chimney sweep
Although chimneys started appearing on British buildings in around 1200, it was not until the 17th century, when it became common to burn coal instead of wood, that chimney sweeps were needed. Sea coal left layers of flammable creosote inside the flues, and it was essential to remove it.
By the 18th century, British domestic chimneys had become narrower to create a better draught; 9x14 inches was the standard size. There were frequently several flues in one chimney serving separate fireplaces. These narrow chimneys often had right-angled bends, making them impossible for an adult to sweep by hand. This led to the use of child apprentices, known as ‘climbing boys’, who were small enough to do the work (girls were used too, but much less often).
These ‘human brushes’, sometimes as young as four, were orphans apprenticed out by the parish or sold to a sweep by their impoverished parents; chimney sweeps also employed their own children.
The apprenticeship with a master chimney sweep took seven years. On completion, the former apprentice was known as a journeyman sweep until he had apprentices of his own. Master sweeps in the 1850s and 1860s would usually have started out as climbing boys.
Industrialisation and the
growth of towns and cities meant that sweeps were in high demand. Chimneys needed to be swept three or four times a year to keep them clear. Sweeps had to start work very early in the morning, at around 4am, before fires were lit. In the 1860s, they might be paid between 6d and 1s 6d per chimney swept; one climbing boy could sweep an average of four chimneys per day. However, the number of chimneys swept varied from day to day, and the work was always seasonal. In an efficient act of recycling, the sacks of collected soot were sold to market gardeners for fertiliser for about 9d a bushel.
It’s not known how many chimney sweeps there were in Britain, but in 1850 writer Henry Mayhew estimated that there were as many as 823 sweeps in London, including masters, singlehanded sweeps, journeymen and boys.
Tools Of The Trade
Early
Victorian sweeps had a reputation for mistreating apprentices, and for being ignorant and slovenly. However, some among their number wanted to make their trade more respectable as well as more humane. Many were active in their local branch of the Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys, which was founded in 1803 and campaigned for the use of machinery rather than children.
Although a chimney-sweeping machine was invented by George
Smart the same year, it was the improved apparatus created by Joseph Glass in 1828 that became the standard. It consisted of several flexible rods made of cane, which fitted into one another by means of screws. Fixed at the top of the connected rods was a brush made of whalebone spikes.
Thomas Clarke, a master sweep of Nottingham, was certainly convinced. The first report (1863) of the Children’s Employment Commission includes his endorsement: “Machines will do the work well, and are not dear. A common one with iron fittings may be had for 25s… There may be chimneys which cannot be swept by a machine but I have never seen one.” Unfortunately, householders often preferred their chimneys to be swept by boys, leading to some sweeps who relied on machines to complain that they had lost work.
Dangers Of The Job
Climbing boys were unpaid, underfed and ill-treated. They suffered from stunted growth and deformed joints, especially their knees and ankles, because of the position that they had to adopt to climb and descend the angled chimneys.
George Ruff, another master sweep of Nottingham, explained to the Children’s Employment Commission how climbing boys started off: “No one knows the cruelty which a boy has to undergo in learning. The flesh must be hardened. This is done
‘A master might encourage a child to keep going by lighting the fire in the grate’
by rubbing it, chiefly on the elbows and knees with the strongest brine… close by a hot fire. At first they will come back from their work with their arms and knees streaming with blood, and the knees looking as if the caps had been pulled off. Then they must be rubbed with brine again… In some boys I have found that the skin does not harden for years.”
It gets worse – climbing boys faced numerous life-threatening hazards, too. There was a real
danger of suffocation from soot; of getting stuck in a narrow flue; of being burned after descending the wrong flue above a lit fire; and of developing the ‘sooty cancer’, especially testicular cancer.
If a child got stuck or froze with terror, his master might encourage him to keep going by lighting the fire in the grate, or by sending up a more experienced boy to prick his feet with pins.
Legislation
In 1788, legislation was passed forbidding sweeps from taking boys under eight as apprentices, but this proved to be unenforceable. By 1834, a new law set the minimum age for apprenticeships at 10, and a maximum of six apprentices per sweep. Six years later, a new Act prohibited apprenticing boys under 16, and those under 21 from climbing chimneys. But none of these laws was enforced. The 1864 Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act, introduced by Lord Shaftesbury, also proved ineffective. Although climbing boys had mostly disappeared from large cities, the practice continued in the provinces, leading to many deaths over the decades.
Finally, in 1875, after the death of a climbing boy named George
Brewster in a flue at Fulbourn Asylum near Cambridge, a new Act required sweeps to be licensed, so police could properly enforce the 1840 and 1864 Acts.
By the 1890s, it was common for sweeps to ply their trade in pony-drawn carts decorated with painted sign boards, rather than walking the streets. After the end of child labour, their reputation improved and businesses were passed on from father to son. Today, with the popularity of wood-burners and multi-fuel stoves, chimney sweeping is still a highly skilled profession.