What was life like for poor children in Victorian England?
Awful for most of them, unless their parents worked for one of the kinder landowners or factory owners. Children worked from the age of about 6 years old as their parents needed their contribution. If there was no work or no wage-earner the family might go into the workhouse where they worked but had some food. Even the Bronte children, whose father was a clergyman, picked up TB as a result of poor conditions, probably at school, and died of the illness, which killed off many poor children, as did all types of illnesses and accidents which would now be cured. As many as a quarter of children may have died before they could reach five years old. Children in the country were often hungry and died of conditions associated with lack of food. Food riots were put down by soldiers and many starved in Ireland. Those in the towns were likely to be in worse living conditions and had to endure twelve to sixteen hours of work a day in factories. Job included picking up scrap from under moving mach
