A Christmas Carol in Context A Christmas Carol in Context
Industrialisation Work
• The Victorian era was a great age of invention. The • The growth of factories meant that there were
Industrial Revolution was in full swing by the time plenty of jobs for ordinary people.
A Christmas Carol was published in 1843. • However, they weren’t paid much and worked extremely long hours
• The growth of large factories in cities meant that people flocked from 12-14 hours per day in a factory with only a lunch break.
the countryside into urban areas in search of work and a better life. • Having a job, even a relatively easy job such as Bob Cratchit
• London’s population went from one million to six million between has, did not guarantee that you could live well.
1800 and 1900. • There were lots of other jobs in towns and cities, such as collecting
• Labour was cheap, which meant more goods cigar ends to sell to re-use, collecting dog poo which was sold to the
could be sold at a lower price. tanneries, going through the sewers for anything that could be sold
and in London, becoming a ‘mud lark’, which meant spending your
• Mechanisation, especially in textile manufacture, also days at the edge of the river Thames looking through the rubbish the
enabled cloth and other products to be sold cheaper river had deposited to see if there was anything valuable to sell.
in Britain than anywhere else in the world.
• Transport links were improved with the building of We can see the results of this scavenging in ‘A Christmas Carol’
canals and the invention of the steam train. when the spirit of the future shows Scrooge a man in a shop:
• This was a time of unprecedented growth, for towns • ‘…where iron, old rags, bottles, bones and greasy offal were bought.
and cities and for the country’s economy. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains,
hinges, files, scales, weights and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that
• Britain changed from a largely agricultural few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of
economy to a manufacturing economy. unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat and sepulchres of bones.’
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A Christmas Carol in Context A Christmas Carol in Context
Living Conditions for Working People
• Large parts of towns and cities would have been overcrowded, often
with 20 people or more from several different families living in
Victorian Children four rooms.
• Infant mortality was common, so although families had lots • There was no running water, electricity, gas or inside toilets.
of children, many of them would not survive until adulthood. • There would often be one or two outside toilets per street.
In 1840, a third of children died before their fifth birthday.
• Water was from a water pump, but even so it was often contaminated.
• There was no state education, so many children
were not taught how to read or write. • There were no sewers as such, so effluent would run down the middle
of the street and eventually make its way into the nearest river.
• Huge numbers of children were sent to work, from as
young as five or six. They would work in factories or doing • Warmth would come from the kitchen range or open fires.
street jobs like road sweeping which is brushing the road • The floors would be stone downstairs and floor boards upstairs.
so that the wealthy can cross without getting dirty.
• If you had a bath, it would be a tin bath which was filled with
• In London alone there were estimated to be 30,000 children hot water heated on the range. Often the whole family would
who lived on the street with no-one looking after them. use the same bath water, getting in one after the other.
• Street crime was rife. • Food would be bread, butter, tea, vegetables and
occasionally meat as it was relatively expensive.
• Many working people had no space or equipment to cook
and had to make do with one pot and an open fire.
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A Christmas Carol in Context A Christmas Carol in Context
The Poor Law of 1834
Health
• Each parish had to look after its own poor. Money or
• With overcrowding and open sewers, it is no wonder that health clothing and food was given out to the poor, or if they were
among working people particularly, but Victorians generally, was desperate, poor people could go into the workhouse.
not good.
• If you were in debt, you were put in ‘debtor’s prison.’
• Cholera was widespread with large numbers of people dying
• In 1834 the law changed so that money and clothing could no longer
from it every year. This was because of contaminated water,
be given out. The poor had to go into the workhouse or receive
but no-one at the time realised this was the problem.
no help.
• Victorians thought that bad smells , or ‘miasma’ were responsible
• Parishes banded together in ‘unions’ to build workhouses if they had
for spreading diseases. They did not know about germs or bacteria.
none. This is what Scrooge means when he says:
• Even the wealthy did not escape. The children of rich parents ‘“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still
still succumbed to diseases like rubella, mumps and measles. in operation?”’
• Employers had no responsibility to keep their workers safe • And:
and even the green dye in wallpaper (arsenic) was a deadly ‘“The Treadmill and Poor Law are in full vigour then?” said Scrooge.’
poison that could kill the people who worked with it.
• Workhouses deliberately kept conditions worse than the lowest paid
• It didn’t do the people who had it in their houses much good either! independent labourer would experience, to ‘encourage’ the poor
to work.
• For mental illness, people tended to be locked away in ‘mental
asylums’. A famous London one was ‘Bedlam’ which was • The treadmill was a giant wheel which workhouse men or
actually called ‘Bethlehem’. We hear Scrooge mention it ‘… prisoners pushed round and round with their feet all day.
talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.’ This was to keep them occupied and too tired to revolt.
• Men could have their wives locked away in such • There were riots in the north, protesting about the new poor law,
places just to get them out of the way. which condemned the poor to a life of misery, separated from
their family.
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A Christmas Carol in Context A Christmas Carol in Context
Reading
• A three volume novel could cost upwards of 31s and
Education
6d (or over £100) in the early Victorian era. This
• In the early 19th century, illiteracy was common among the working put books out of the reach of most people.
class as education was not publicly funded and free education was • The development of mechanisation and steam power
only provided by churches, with the emphasis on religious teaching. meant it was possible to mass produce books cheaply,
• Nevertheless, most people would have access to someone who could which allowed them to be distributed via the railway and
read (although not necessarily write) and families would gather to sold to the working class people of Victorian Britain.
hear the latest installment of the weekly ‘penny dreadful’ serialised • The working people would rarely enter a bookshop and so
stories. Newspapers were often read aloud in the pub and so most ‘hawkers’ or travelling salesmen, took the books to where they
people had some knowledge and contact with texts of the time. gathered. Dickens was one of the first authors to take advantage
• From 1833, the English parliament began providing money to of this, publishing his novels in monthly installments which
build schools for poor children. The Forster Elementary Education were cheap to buy and small enough to pass around.
Act of 1870 meant that children were now required to go to • Other technological advances added to the popularity of reading.
school between the ages of 5 and 10 and by 1899, the school Electric and gas light meant it was easier to read after dark. Train
leaving age was raised to 12. Many of these children would work journeys, which promised a smooth ride and lighted carriage, were
for half a day in a factory and spend the other half at school. a perfect time to read and publisher Routledge started a ‘Railway
Library’ with books that were portable and priced at just a
shilling each.
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