Tuesday 13 December 2011

Girls and Boys and Work

This feels illuminating: some 1851 census data quoted from 'A brief statistical sketch of the child labour market in mid-nineteenth-century London' (Continuity and Change 20 (2), 2005, 229–245) which shows the use of child labour (10-14 year olds) in London in 1851, for boys and girls. The first figure is the total in the 1851 census, the smaller figure is the percentage of children in that occupation, as opposed to adults (eg. 5.3% of female servants were aged 10-14). It reminds me again how many boys were 'messengers' of one kind or another in Victorian London, a major source of employment.

GIRLS 

Domestic servant (General) 6424 5.3
Milliner 1021 2.3
Domestic servant (Nurse) 666 8.6
Seamstress 564 2.7
Artificial-flower-maker 501 18.4
Silk manufacture 420 5.1
Shoemaker 344 4.8
Tailor 260 3.1
Brush, broom-amker 230 19.1
Others engaged about publications 222 7.8
Washerwoman 203 0.6
Domestic servant (Inn servant) 157 2.8
Other paper workers 145 11.8
Domestic servant (Housemaid) 138 1.1
Other workers, dealers in silk 117 8.2
Cap-maker 107 8.4
Others providing dress 107 4.3
Others dealing in wood furniture 76 7.8
Embroiderer 76 5.4
Employed about messages 75 28.6

BOYS

Messenger, porter, not govt. 10472 31.7
Domestic Servant, General 958 4.7
Shoemaker 932 3.0
Labourer 833 1.7
Printer 498 4.8
Commercial clerk 477 2.9
Butcher 414 4.3
Tailor 403 1.8
Silk Manufacture 340 4.5
Carpenter, Joiner 270 1.2
Domestic servant (Inn servant) 266 3.3
Paper-stainer 248 17.2
Baker 240 2.1
Others dealing in drinks, stimulants 238 5.0
Plasterer 231 5.3
Law Clerk 229 4.0
Painter, plumber, glazier 200 1.3
Draper 194 2.6
Ropemaker 168 11.4
Grocer 163 2.1

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