When was chimney sweeping banned

Sometimes the master would light a small fire in the grate to speed up the process or send another child up behind to jab the first with a spike. Many of these chimneys were only about 45cm wide. The creosote and soot destroyed their lungs. They rarely got paid, just provided with food and lodging, neither of which was substantial enough to allow a child to thrive. When one child died, well there were plenty more to take his place.

So death from falling, getting stuck and asphyxiation and exhaustion were common. Many Victorian writers tell us about the horrors faced by the child chimney sweeps and their masters. It must have been something many people observed and saw as a bad thing which makes the fact that after the chimney sweeps act nothing changed and there was not enough will to make something happen. Charles Kingsley in his novel, The Water Babies , tells us a story about the young chimney sweep Tom who escapes the horror of his work as a chimney sweep by becoming a water baby.

Earlier, in the late s, William Blake wrote poetic depictions of the lives of climbing boys which were published in two books of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

George Brewster, a year-old chimney sweep, became the last climbing boy in England to die on the job. In February of , his master, William Wyer, sent him into the Fulbourn Hospital chimneys, where he got stuck. A wall was pulled down in a desperate attempt to rescue him, but he died a short while after the rescue. In September of , a bill was pushed through which put a stop to the practice of using children as chimney sweeps.

Joseph Glass, an engineer from Bristol, England, invented the original brushes and rods used to clean chimneys; the design is still used today. Child chimney sweeps are remembered and honored every year in England in early May.

The date of the annual event coincides closely with May Day, the one day each year the climbing boys were off work, when they danced joyfully in the streets of England. Chimney Solutions, Inc.

The master sweep would scrub their knees to harden them; but before calluses formed, the children were usually seriously bloodied. There were many hazards associated with human chimney sweeps.

Children got stuck in the inch-wide chimneys; sometimes it was due to climbing technique and when children had to go up chimneys which had turns, they became lodged between tight corners and walls of soot. A second child would usually be sent into a chimney to rescue the first, and they would sometimes both die for various reasons.

On occasion, the walls of a home would have to be torn down to remove the child or children lodged in the flue. They received little food and usually slept in basements on top of the blackened bags used to collect soot. As a result of their work, the children often had lung problems, and their eyes would swell, becoming sore and inflamed.

Many children became disfigured or had stunted growth because they were placed in such unnatural positions before their bones were fully formed. The Life of a Chimney Sweeper. Prior to the middle of the 19th century chimney sweepers were boys small enough to climb up flues.

Life was predictably harsh for these young workers: lungs clogged with soot, eyes burning, and fires lit beneath them to encourage efficient cleaning. What did chimney sweeps use to clean chimneys? At this time, various cleaning devices were invented to aid the chimney sweep in cleaning and bushing the walls from one end of the chimney.

One method of chimney cleaning invented around this time used a heavy lead or iron ball and rope system used to clean the chimney from the top all the way down to the fireplace. Why did chimney sweeps get testicular cancer? Chimney sweeps' carcinoma is a squamous cell carcinoma of the skin of the scrotum. Warts caused by the irritation from soot particles, if not excised, developed into a scrotal cancer.

This then invaded the dartos, enlarged the testicle, and proceeded up the spermatic cord into the abdomen where it proved fatal. Why do chimney sweeps wear top hats? They were required to climb up the dirty chimney, wearing a hat that would brush the soot off the walls of the chimney, causing it to fall down onto the floor of the fireplace.

Sweeps also scraped the walls to get any stubborn creosote off the interior. How much did chimney sweeps get paid?