Agricultural History Review, Volume 59 Part 1 (2011), p. 140

This is a concise and accessible account of the working and living conditions experienced by children of the labouring poor in nineteenth-century Hertfordshire. It is based upon a range of primary sources. Children are defined as those aged 17 years and under. The introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the changing perception of childhood in the nineteenth century, alongside information on the economic and social history of Hertfordshire in general. The main body of the book is then divided into six chapters each focusing on occupations that employed children: agriculture, straw plaiting, silk throwing, paper making, brick making and chimney sweeping. All of these chapters begin with some general background on the origins, history and location of these industries in the county before exploring the types of processes children were employed in, the working conditions that prevailed and how these changed over time. Economic change is shown to have a major (downward) impact on the demand for child labour over the course of the century. State intervention also emerges as a key theme. By the late nineteenth century, hours of work were restricted by law and compulsory elementary education introduced formal learning. The latter created tension between employers, parents and government officials, and the battleground over the traditional straw-plaiting schools, whose focus was on work, and state education in the 1870s is well drawn in chapter 3.

Other less well-known facets of child labour also come to light – the pauper apprentices recruited from London workhouses to work in the Hertfordshire silk mills, the link with Dickens through his account of the St Albans brickfields in Bleak House, and the death of chimney sweep James Dye and the ramifications of that case. The book draws widely on a range of contemporary reports and illustrations. It reproduces interesting extracts from local newspapers, Parliamentary Papers and school log books in an attempt to illuminate the world of work. These are pertinent and well-chosen, although sometimes used rather uncritically. An analysis of how the voices of child workers interviewed by parliamentary commissioners in the 1840s and 1860s were selected and reproduced would have been useful. Use of farm account books might have revealed more detailed information on wage levels in agriculture. The book also draws upon the Hertfordshire census figures to provide an idea of the level of child employment in the different industries, but more could have been made of how reliable (or not) these are, and how they can be used to reveal regional patterns of employment and the familial and household circumstances of child workers. These criticisms are perhaps unfair ones to make of a book that is aimed at a general readership. It is well produced and illustrated and is a good example of local history well done.