A Day in the Life of a Victorian Chimney Boy

Welcome to Victorian England

New jobs

More people

Busy towns

People hadn’t really lived in towns before because most jobs were in the countryside. The new jobs came from factories. These new factories ran off coal!

Burning coal made the factories work.The smoke would rise through the big factories chimneys.

When coal burns chimneys get clogged with shoot and they need cleaning!

Children working wasn’t anything new for the Victorians-that was just the way life was. When factories sprang up children naturally worked there too. Chimney Boys would clean the dirty chimneys.

Chimney Boys would often work with an adult Chimney Sweep. It would be the child who had to do all the hard work though because only they could fit up the chimney.

A Sweep and his boy off to the factories.

What do you think the boy is thinking?

Coal wasn’t just used in factories. People burnt it on fires to keep warm, cook with heat water with.

Family chimneys

got clogged with shoot

too and also needed

cleaning.

Being a Chimney Boy was a dirty and dangerous job. Children would often get ill from breathing in all the

shoot or even injure themselves from falling. Unfortunately, many even died!

Eye infections

Breathing problems

Skin irritationBurns

Suffocation

Some people still have coal fires today. Thankfully, theses are modern coal fires and don’t need boys to clean them.

Do you like my fire?

It could do with a clean. Any volunteers...

Coal is much more expensive now and we use electricity

more.