With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, in addition to the economic growth of the state as a whole and Birmingham in particular, the exploitation of the labour force intensified sharply. A particularly painful aspect of this process was child labour in Birmingham during the Industrial Revolution. It was the youngest citizens who were involved in production in the early stages of industrialisation. The reason for this was simple — children were paid significantly less. And this was despite the fact that they were just as productive as adults, although much more vulnerable.
It is a well-known fact that minors were exploited from the age of four: Birmingham children worked in factories and even in mines for long hours in dangerous, unsanitary, and sometimes deadly conditions. For example, in coal mines, children had to crawl through tunnels that were too narrow and low for adults. In addition, they worked as delivery boys, street cleaners, shoe shiners, or sold matches, flowers, and other cheap goods. Read about the exploitation of child labour in the “City of a Thousand Trades” and its consequences for health and life at birmingham1.one.
The British Industrial Revolution
Many teenagers were forced to work in extremely poor conditions for significantly lower pay than older workers — usually 10–20% of an adult man’s wage. Beatings and exhausting working hours were commonplace: some miners and porters worked from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. Many of them developed lung cancer and other serious illnesses. Death before the age of 25 was a common outcome among child labourers.
The Industrial Revolution, which began in the late 18th century and accelerated in the 19th century, is often portrayed as a magnificent technological adventure: steam engines, factories, railways, mass production. But behind this modernisation lay a much darker reality. In cities such as Birmingham, one of the main industrial centres of Victorian England, progress was largely based on the brutal exploitation of wage labourers, very often involving the backbreaking labour of the youngest among them.
The city was not Manchester — the kingdom of cotton — or Liverpool — a giant port. It was a centre of workshops, small factories and metallurgical enterprises. Buttons, pins, locks, light weapons, copper parts and glassware were produced here. This fragmented economy was sustained by a multitude of small employers and a cheap, flexible and silent workforce consisting primarily of children.
“Children’s” professions
At the age of six or seven, boys and girls became part of the global production process. Many worked in metal workshops, manufacturing nails, buttons or pins, in glass factories or as assistants in foundries. Their duties consisted of repetitive tasks: operating bellows, carrying hot parts, polishing, sorting, cleaning machines, or collecting metal waste. The work required little training but considerable physical endurance.
The working day often exceeded ten to twelve hours, six days a week. In some workshops, the shift began at dawn and ended after dark. Breaks were rare and short. The air was saturated with dust, toxic fumes and metal particles. Burns, cuts and pinches were commonplace. Teenagers worked barefoot or in old, worn-out shoes, without any protection, in constant noise.
Their pay matched their status. A child from an industrial neighbourhood often earned between two and four shillings a week — sometimes less. This was only a fraction of an adult’s salary, but the amount was vital for the child or the whole family. In working-class families, every penny counted. The earnings of the youngest children made up a significant part of the budget, so even caring parents had to accept this reality out of necessity. Such employment was not seen as abuse, but as a means of survival.
Living conditions of working-class families
Housing in the Derrytown, Digbeth, and Aston areas was overcrowded. Families huddled together in one or two rooms, often without running water or sewage systems. Dampness and cold contributed to the spread of disease. The diet remained primitive: bread, potatoes, oatmeal, and occasionally a little lard. Fresh meat was a luxury. As a result, many children arrived at the factories already weakened by malnutrition.
Combined with hard physical labour, this severely undermined their health. Medical reports from the 19th century record widespread cases of tuberculosis, rickets, lung diseases and skin infections. In glass factories and metallurgical workshops, lead and toxins caused chronic damage. Injuries often left people disabled for life.
Medical care remained primitive. Poor families turned to clinics, charities or, later, voluntary city hospitals, including Birmingham General. But for many, a doctor was an unaffordable luxury. Even sick children continued to work due to a lack of alternatives.
The struggle to improve the situation of children
Some influential residents of the city, realising the scale of the tragedy, tried to help the families. For example, reformer Joseph Chamberlain, the future mayor of Birmingham, worked actively in the second half of the 19th century to improve urban conditions, advocating hygiene and access to education.
Despite this, inspectors recorded widespread use of minors in small businesses. Testimonies describe boys working in the production of chains and nails and girls sitting for hours bent over polishing tables.
At the national level, Parliament gradually intervened. The Factory Act of 1833 restricted the age and duration of child labour, and was followed by acts in 1844, 1867 and 1878. However, due to the numerous family workshops, the city often avoided real control. Inspections were rare, violations were regular, and penalties were weak.
As a result, infant mortality in the industrial centre of England, as well as throughout the country, remained quite high among children. In the mid-19th century, in working-class neighbourhoods, one in four children did not live to see their fifth birthday. Those who survived started working at a very early age, plunging into a world of constant fatigue and instability. Education, although it gradually became compulsory from the 1870s onwards, took a back seat to the urgent needs of families.
Who is to blame?
It would be simplistic to blame only parents or employers. The economic model itself encouraged exploitation. Competition between workshops forced them to minimise costs. Minors were an obedient and cheap labour force. For families, refusing such employment often meant falling into poverty.
Subsequently, educational reforms, rising adult wages, and pressure from social movements slowly reduced child labour. But in this city, as in many others, the transition was long and uneven. Modern industrial prosperity still relies on these invisible generations.
So, the history of industrialisation is not just a story about machines and entrepreneurs. It is also a chronicle of exhausted children, burnt hands, weak lungs and shattered dreams. In Birmingham — the unassuming capital of metal and ingenuity — progress came at a huge human cost, too often paid by the youngest.
Sources:
- https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/50139/explore_and_discover/1609/life_for_children_in_victorian_britain/3
- https://blog.bham.ac.uk/legalherstory/2018/03/21/birmingham-women-and-the-factory-acts/
- https://www.herts.ac.uk/uhpress/books-content/the-industrious-child-worker
- https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/uk/2–2216/
- https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-worldhistory/chapter/25–6–4-child-labor/