Poor people could work in mines, in mills and factories, or in workhouses. Whole families would sometimes have to work so they’d all have enough money to buy food.
Where did rich Victorians work?
Rich Victorian men had jobs such as doctors, lawyers, bankers and factory owners. Until near the end of the Victorian era, parents had to pay to send their children to school.
Where did poor Victorian children work?
Children worked on farms, in homes as servants, and in factories. Children provided a variety of skills and would do jobs that were as varied as needing to be small and work as a scavenger in a cotton mill to having to push heavy coal trucks along tunnels in coal mines. There were so many different jobs!
Where did poor people live in Victorian times?
A poor Victorian family would have lived in a very small house with only a couple of rooms on each floor. The very poorest families had to make do with even less – some houses were home to two, three or even four families. The houses would share toilets and water, which they could get from a pump or a well.
Where are the Victorian poor sent if they do not work?
The Victorian Workhouse was an institution that was intended to provide work and shelter for poverty stricken people who had no means to support themselves.
How much did poor Victorians get paid?
A servant might earn as little as £10 per annum, but would have all of his or her living expenses covered and would be employed for the entire year whereas an agricultural labourer was at the mercy of the seasons and of the weather.
What was it like being poor in the Victorian times?
For the first half of the 19th century the rural and urban poor had much in common: unsanitary and overcrowded housing, low wages, poor diet, insecure employment and the dreaded effects of sickness and old age. By 1851 the census showed the urban population was larger than that of the rural areas.
What jobs did the poor do in workhouses?
Some Poor Law authorities hoped to run workhouses at a profit by utilising the free labour of their inmates. Most were employed on tasks such as breaking stones, crushing bones to produce fertiliser, or picking oakum using a large metal nail known as a spike.
What did poor Victorian children do in their spare time?
Although rich Victorian children would have had plenty of toys in their nurseries, children from poorer families would have had very few. They were often hand-made and children would share toys like marbles, whip and tops, skipping ropes and dolls with their brothers and sisters and friends.
Did poor Victorians go to school?
Victorian children lived very different lives to children today. Poor children often had to work to earn money for their family. As a result, many could not go to school.
Why were the workhouses so unpopular?
Although most people did not have to go to the workhouse, it was always threatening if a worker became unemployed, sick or old. Increasingly, workhouses contained only orphans, the old, the sick and the insane. Not surprisingly the new Poor Law was very unpopular.
Who was the lowest class in Victorian Britain?
The Victorians liked to have their social classes clearly defined. The working class was divided into three layers, the lowest being ‘working men‘ or labourers, then the ‘intelligent artisan’, and above him the ‘educated working man’.
What was known as the poor house?
Poorhouses were tax-supported residential institutions to which people were required to go if they could not support themselves. They were started as a method of providing a less expensive (to the taxpayers) alternative to what we would now days call “welfare” – what was called “outdoor relief” in those days.
How long did people stay in workhouses?
They were often only allowed to stay at the workhouse for a night or two before being sent on their way early the following morning.
What was life like in workhouses?
Families in a Workhouse
People were crammed into as small a space as possible, with most people having to share beds. This meant that diseases, such as ringworm, spread easily. Children had lessons in reading, writing, maths and religion for three hours a day. However, teachers were often cruel.
Why were conditions in workhouses so awful?
In these facilities, poor people ate thrifty, unpalatable food, slept in crowded, often unsanitary conditions, and were put to work breaking stones, crushing bones, spinning cloth or doing domestic labor, among other jobs.
Did maids have days off?
Servants were usually (but not always) given a break to rest in the evenings, but this did not apply when there were large parties or midnight celebrations. This custom later evolved into having a half day off (or a whole for the lucky few) per week.
Did servants ever get a day off?
By the 1880s, servants were given a half-day off on Sundays, starting after lunch (and only if all their chores for that morning had been completed), and they were usually given one day off each month, starting after breakfast, and again, their chores all had to be finished first.
Did poor Victorians have pets?
Even poor working-class families would capture wild birds like blackbirds, linnets and thrushes to keep as pets, often hanging the cages outside their windows and feeding them scraps, while aspirational middle-class families would buy more expensive pets, such as pedigree dogs, to signal their higher wealth and status.
Did rich and poor go to school in Victorian times?
At the start of the Victorian era, very few children actually attended school. Children from rich families would be educated at home by a governess (a female teacher).
What were poor Victorian schools like?
Poor children went to free charity schools or ‘Dame’ schools (so called because they were run by women) for young children. They also went to Sunday Schools which were run by churches. There they learnt bible stories and were taught to read a little.