Did child labour exist in the Victorian Era? The question was raised after a builder recently discovered some ancient tiles featuring small handprints. The man, who works for the Touchstone construction company in Surrey, was assigned to the work of stripping brick tiles from the roof of an old building. In the backside of each piece, he could spot a handprint, which looked quite smaller than that of an adult.
The construction worker recorded the process on camera and the video was later shared on the official Instagram handle of his company, Touchstone Surrey.
The caption of the post read, “Kids hand prints on these old Victorian roof tiles. From before child labour was abolished.”
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The handprints imprinted on the back of the tiles could be seen in the video. The builder while doing his work was heard saying, “Stripping this old Victorian tile roof and we’ve found that all the tiles have got little kids’ handprints. From back in the Victorian days they used to, kids used to make these.”
To measure the handprints and give a sense of scale, the man placed his palm on them. The handprints were certainly smaller than the builder’s. He assumed that the children were “no more than seven years old.” Almost every worker might be from the same age group as the tiles had similar-sized handprints on them.
After surfacing on the internet, the Instagram post was able to create much buzz, leaving viewers baffled and shocked. One of them said the handprints could be of grown men as “back then (in the Victorian Era), men’s hands and feet were much smaller.” Another user wrote, “I thought it was about to be a cute ‘oh the kids who lived here 150 years ago made a print’ but no, just child labour.”
One viewer feels “these titles should be framed as an art installation of labour history.” Expressing his concern about the child labour issue, a person commented, “Child labour is still going on. Victorian days were not that long ago.”
As per British history, the period between 1820 and 1914 is recognised as the Victorian Era. However, it’s not the same as Queen Victoria’s reign. During this period, the British Empire witnessed massive economic growth as the country used to produce much of the world’s iron, coal, steel and textiles. On the other hand, Britain abolished the employment of children under 14 years old through the Children and Young Persons Act in 1933.
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