The Deadly Secret Of The Victorian Child Factory Workers | Historic Britain | Absolute History

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  • Опубліковано 25 сер 2022
  • At Quarry Bank, Alan learns about the people behind Britain’s Industrial Revolution, uncovering the true stories and accidents of the child workers. Oz Clarke climbs the battlements of Dunster Castle and historian Dan Jones joins an archaeological dig on the South Coast.
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    #AbsoluteHistory

КОМЕНТАРІ • 124

  • @Nidhoggrr
    @Nidhoggrr Рік тому +70

    Seeing as how kids as young as 5-6 served in the active duty army and navy up to and during this period, this isn't surprising as to them it was just an evolution of putting kids to work.
    It is interesting to note that even after all this time and our meteoric tech difference..... The 12+ hour day is still very prevalent even in first world countries, we've even one upped Victorian age with the "rotating shift" concept. Why just work a 12+ hour day when you could do it at night too every 1-2 weeks? It guarantees your body will NEVER be able to rest properly because your waking/sleeping cycle is never the same.

    • @tymanung6382
      @tymanung6382 Рік тому +12

      When workers organizations are weak
      or non existence, this is the result. Through 19th + 20th c, industrial workers
      around yhe world fought for gradually
      shorter labor time, for 14. 12, 10. 8,
      and 35 hours/week//40 hours pay
      (France. and W, later unified Germany,
      in late 1900s till? or still? early 2000s.)
      Workers in alleged advanced countries
      are being pushed back to historical
      labor time, as they are forced to retreat to late 18 or early 1900s.

    • @bcaye
      @bcaye Рік тому +2

      I have worked 12 hour shifts for most of my 37 years as a health care provider. Admittedly, it's almost always been nights, and I am naturally a night person. Working 3 in a row makes it easier, because a 2-2-3 schedule guarantees you never have spare time. I have had problems with getting enough sleep, but that's insomnia not related to my schedule, I have it even on my days off.

    • @guymorris6596
      @guymorris6596 Рік тому +3

      I saw online a studio photograph of a young drummer boy, eight years old, in a Union army unit during the War Between The States. The global elite romanticized the bloody and deadly act of war in all countries throughout history.

    • @ranjapi693
      @ranjapi693 Рік тому

      I have 4 Shift System which means you Go 2 early 2 late and 2 night Shift days. 6 days or sometimes 7 days in a row a La 8 hours.. the good Thing is, no place for overtime because you got 4 systems Like that in a wheel so machinery never Stands still. But you have to be able to cope with the Different working days.

    • @sr2291
      @sr2291 Рік тому

      How come we never see pics if them serving in the Army?

  • @alexandranedelcucovers694
    @alexandranedelcucovers694 Рік тому +21

    Seeing and hearing the contents of the letter at 18:57, I am stunned by how someone in that period of time with little access to education and so poor that they couldn't provide for their two daughters could speak and write so beautifully, both content-wise and language-wise. Wow, it really puts things in perspective.

    • @kimnguyen-lw7oj
      @kimnguyen-lw7oj Рік тому +7

      he most likely asked someone to write the letter for him; just how it is nowaday

    • @steveinskeep6127
      @steveinskeep6127 Рік тому

      @@kimnguyen-lw7oj you are assuming facts not in evidence. Anymore than Hmung are not amicable to honest living

  • @10AntsTapDancing
    @10AntsTapDancing Рік тому +7

    Most people, while being horrified by the nightmare of working in a cotton mill forget that working on a farm, as 90% of the population did before the industrial revolution, also required 12 hr plus days of back breaking work in all kinds of awful weather had it's own set of injuries and illnesses. I for one, having Irish heritage, am grateful that I live in the 21st century and will never suffer the way my ancestors did. Fascinating look at the past though.

  • @antoinevoss5087
    @antoinevoss5087 Рік тому +8

    1700 's textile Mills in Manchester, England and child labor became foundational for what became English Poor Laws at the turn of the 20th century . During my undergraduate training at Virginia Union University as a Social Work major with a concentration in child welfare we became well versed in how the social environment influenced behavior . Unbeknown to me at the time , we did not connect that phenomenon to how European culture treated each other, but how it's world view applied to non Europeans .

  • @samaccardi
    @samaccardi Рік тому +5

    Every time I hear John Culshaw speak, especially in voice over, I'm reminded of his narration for bits on Horrible Histories. I love it!

  • @MymilanitalyBlogspot
    @MymilanitalyBlogspot Рік тому +14

    Wish I had known of that museum when I was there decades ago. Did follow the similar guided tour in Manchester's technological museum. It was an intensely fascinating and horrifying eye-opener. Hopefully, one never takes fabric or the industrialists' lives of luxury for granted, again. The info only needs to be integrated with the purposeful destruction and literal maiming - in the name of industrialists' profit - that was done in India to destroy the fabric production cottage industry, there, so that Indian cotton, transported to Manchester, could be turned into fabric shipped back to India to be sold.

  • @WhatsCookingTime
    @WhatsCookingTime Рік тому +12

    The kids in the Mills . I'm from Lowell Massachusetts the Manchester of New England in fact our city was based on stolen technology and planning from Manchester. Same s*** over here. it's like watching night and day young kids working machines running around. Young women living in boarding houses. They had it better than the kids. The children worked on the very dangerous horrific conditions. Its strange to think just not even 100 years ago things were so horrible. We have very similar museum here in fact the city is now a national historical Park

  • @EsteffersonTorres
    @EsteffersonTorres Рік тому +3

    This video brings back memories of playing the AC Syndicate sidequests to free children from labour in factories. As if the mission wasn't sad enough, the game even plays a very sad melody to make it even sadder.

  • @ZeoViolet
    @ZeoViolet Рік тому +4

    I used to have vague thoughts as a kid that "cotton pickin'" was just a random phrase, maybe had something to to with the cotton gin mentioned in a Schoolhouse Rock video. Now while I hadn't said it in years either way (language and slang evolve after all), I was surprised to discover, as an adult, it actually went back to _slaves picking cotton._ Yeah. Promised myself I'd never say it again after that.

  • @christinebutler7630
    @christinebutler7630 Рік тому +55

    In the American south, kids worked in the mills well past WWII. Child labor and compulsory education laws existed, but were more or less ignored until the 1970s.

    • @fabledfantasty7343
      @fabledfantasty7343 Рік тому +1

      Not just in the south, but all over the US & is still happening, due to human trafficking!

    • @matildamarmaduke1096
      @matildamarmaduke1096 Рік тому +6

      That's crazy I moved south in 79 with my family and was amazed people didn't know how to read.nor write.

    • @j.b.4340
      @j.b.4340 Рік тому +1

      Mills in the south? Sugar mills maybe. The jobs for children were in agriculture. My grandmother picked cotton, as a child. When the fields were flooded, they loaded it into pirogues.

    • @mariedockery1126
      @mariedockery1126 Рік тому +5

      @@j.b.4340 uh...there were plenty of mills in the south...and no not sugar mills

    • @christinebutler7630
      @christinebutler7630 Рік тому +4

      @J.B., take a look at the history of cotton and textile mills, and furniture factories, in North Carolina. Kannapolis, home of Cannon linens. Winston-Salem, home of Hanes underwear and hosiery. Not to mention cigarette factories. I'm right around 60, and most of the women of my age that are not of the upper crust (Junior League material, bankers' wives) were out of school and in the mills somewhere between 12-15 years old. Nearly all married somewhere between 14-17. And these women were all born between 1960-1980.

  • @audisnewbeginning8616
    @audisnewbeginning8616 Рік тому +11

    This is the veiled reality still today in the U.S and so many other countries. Complain and guess what you're on the street..No shelter, food, or assistance.

    • @Mod0308
      @Mod0308 Рік тому

      We literally have a welfare system

  • @ps603
    @ps603 Рік тому +2

    I worked on 26 looms at a time when I was 17..It was hot & dirty work. I also worked in the spinning room. Another hot & dirty job, but the money was good..I didn't see any Jacquard looms. Those came later & were so fast that you only need to run eight at a time. In the USA..I was amazed that the looms looked basically the same many years later..

  • @blackmonday738
    @blackmonday738 Рік тому +4

    Boy they work anyone!! Grandparents sick and in there 90's, u hear YR WORKING!!! Sad.

  • @joanhuffman2166
    @joanhuffman2166 Рік тому +2

    I once read that prior to 1800 more that 95% of the human race lived on less than the equivalent of $1.90 per day. That's a level of poverty that we really don't understand. Child labor in the Industrial revolution is always presented as something new and horrible. The truth is that child labor was the rule and just as horrible before the industrial revolution.

  • @nikkis4827
    @nikkis4827 Рік тому

    Thanks for all the amazing work! Hope the channel features more of Asian history!

  • @dianejamison6444
    @dianejamison6444 Рік тому

    Absolutely fantastic thank you ❤

  • @gabbilolz
    @gabbilolz Рік тому +6

    This is very sad and think too of slave children working in the cotton fields long hours without rest or even food or water and helping in kitchens dangerous and to in later migrant children working long hours but they did at least get paid.

  • @alexthefan68
    @alexthefan68 Рік тому +2

    There are parts of the world were children still live this reality and worse

  • @amalkardaly1652
    @amalkardaly1652 8 місяців тому

    INCREDIBLE DOCUMENTARIES.. AS ALWAYS

  • @AnnaAnna-uc2ff
    @AnnaAnna-uc2ff Рік тому +2

    Thanks.

  • @corgisrule21
    @corgisrule21 Рік тому +13

    A documentary about child factory workers that doesn’t talk much about child factory workers…interesting, but not what I signed up for ☺️❤️

  • @lucindahumphries4702
    @lucindahumphries4702 Рік тому

    My grandma went to work in a cotton mill in a small town in North Caroline when she was 9 years old. One day the people from the government came to inspect and they sent all the workers home until they became 12. So grandma went back to work at 12 and never went to school.

  • @christyluvs80sXo
    @christyluvs80sXo Рік тому +1

    I loved the show but the amount of ads was teetering on ridiculous.

  • @cynthiatolman326
    @cynthiatolman326 Рік тому

    A wonder children weren't charged for shutting down the line when they were hurt, but I guess losing an arm or hand they couldn't pay it back anyway.

  • @CatalinaSabella
    @CatalinaSabella Рік тому

    35:26 You can't go wrong with the incomparable historian Paul Busby of Tredegar House and of my favorite podcast on UA-cam: Little Knowledge Podcast... oh Evan Morgan, what a character he was.... too bad he didn't have an accountant to keep him in line...

  • @dianadelahaye7660
    @dianadelahaye7660 Рік тому

    I have visited the mills in Lowel,MA. In the USA. Very similar .

    • @WhatsCookingTime
      @WhatsCookingTime Рік тому +1

      I'm from Lowell. It's almost a mirror image. I met a woman I've been on a few dates with who's actually from there lives in the Lowell area now and can't believe the similarity.

  • @LordZordid
    @LordZordid Рік тому

    15:22 I bet each one of these guys could lift a cow over their head.

  • @roahnosh
    @roahnosh Рік тому +1

    Ancient building inside major cities: Oh le'ts destroy it and build a high rise building
    Ancient building in the outskirt of the city: Let's preserve it for future generations

  • @garygone5234
    @garygone5234 Рік тому +2

    I especially enjoyed the tour of the apprentice house with the young lovely tour guide. ; )

  • @hey_thatsmyname
    @hey_thatsmyname Рік тому

    Why won't the promo code work from the description? Anyone who has successfully used it, tell me what I'm doing wrong!

  • @petermontoya1796
    @petermontoya1796 Рік тому

    Wait a minute, 40 grand for a weekend of parties ?? That's what I spend a week on vodka and I don't have any parties !!

  • @ursula.m8265
    @ursula.m8265 Рік тому

    The series The Mill is very good and is about all that.

  • @sstarklite2181
    @sstarklite2181 Рік тому +22

    When most people say “virtual/virtually slavery”, are they saying it was “almost slavery” or it was “actual slavery”? Seems to me like they don’t think it was/is slavery.
    Please stop using the word VIRTUAL, everyone!

    • @janaeandre6460
      @janaeandre6460 Рік тому +16

      They mean almost slavery. Because you get paid, but so little that you have greater risks than gains.
      But a definition of virtually, not virtual, is nearly; almost

    • @sarahcarroll8206
      @sarahcarroll8206 Рік тому +6

      @@janaeandre6460 the children weren't paid though, as it says in the video. They were fed and housed, but not paid. It wasn't "virtual slavery," it was literal slavery.

    • @WhatsCookingTime
      @WhatsCookingTime Рік тому +3

      You're not understanding virtual means almost exactly as slavery. In that sense it wasn't lifetime but the fact that the indenture created conditions it was just like it

    • @WhatsCookingTime
      @WhatsCookingTime Рік тому +3

      Nothing wrong with the word it's exactly describing the conditions were if you have the United States I suggest you read up on indenture

    • @susanneandersen3417
      @susanneandersen3417 Рік тому +3

      I guess the children were free to leave if they didn't want to do it and that is what makes it not actual slavery.
      But other than that I completely agree with you.

  • @lovey9286
    @lovey9286 Рік тому +1

    There is no way that place gets 547 visitors a day. He said it gets visited by over 200,000 visitors a year. That's 547 a day.

    • @JK_Clark
      @JK_Clark Рік тому +3

      So is it 547 visitors a day or 547 visitors a day? 🤪

    • @rainforme1850
      @rainforme1850 Рік тому

      That doesn’t make sense

    • @evirareid1500
      @evirareid1500 Рік тому

      If they have like 10 groups of 50 people maybe....im usre some seasons are very busy

    • @MegaSmk
      @MegaSmk Рік тому

      oh dear, do you really need this explained, or have you worked it out for yourself in the meantime?

  • @johnw3078
    @johnw3078 Рік тому

    Lol I can hardly get my teenage kids to clean thier plates after eating.....i would hate to watch them in a factory.

  • @sr2291
    @sr2291 Рік тому

    To think these were our ancestors lives as children. Child labor.

  • @commonsense1907
    @commonsense1907 Рік тому

    Great video! Interesting how it was mentioned that Mother Nature was not controllable like the employees. Yet today some want to base the power grid on solar and wind. Contingent on the time of day or in other words, the whims of Mother Nature.

    • @childofcascadia
      @childofcascadia 9 місяців тому

      I grew up in a place where very steep mountains turns to desert. And because of that, the wind screams constantly, rain or shine from the cold wetter mountain air hitting the warmer dry desert air. Theres windfarms all over. They are constantly going.
      In the desert theres solar farms because theres less than 30 fully cloudy days a year. They are constantly going.
      It works. My entire state runs on solar, wind, and hydropower. And we have enough surplus power to sell it to other states
      Tell me you have no idea how this stuff works without saying it. You dont put solar panels in cloudy areas, you dont put windfarms in places where its not windy.

    • @commonsense1907
      @commonsense1907 9 місяців тому

      I know how stuff works. I've lost track how many times I drive by wind turbines not turning. We go days here with no Sun or weeks with snow covered solar panels. Thousands of acres to generate a few hundred megawatts assuming the Sun is out or wind blowing. Hydropower makes sense assuming there is adequate water supplies, and fall lines.

  • @cherylT321
    @cherylT321 Рік тому

    It was supposed to be all about Victorian children but it wasn’t!

  • @KarmasAbutch
    @KarmasAbutch 8 місяців тому

    7 was the age my Gran was put in the mill.

  • @cynicalcitizen8315
    @cynicalcitizen8315 Рік тому +1

    The industrial revolution brought the world forward. That's what everyone cared about.
    The horrors of the age were forgotten or glossed over. THAT is a grave mistake.

  • @Phukugoooglification
    @Phukugoooglification Рік тому +1

    9:48 Sounds like she was about to say they boy was only 5 then pauses and says 12.
    ua-cam.com/video/5xhetN45pqs/v-deo.html

  • @MsAlien911
    @MsAlien911 Рік тому +1

    "wine expert and historian"
    Translated.... Drunk and reads old books.

  • @cbhlde
    @cbhlde Рік тому +5

    I am so glad that now this happens somewhere else for our goods. :)

  • @theduder2617
    @theduder2617 Рік тому +1

    14:23
    Child slaves. Nothing at all to be proud of. Powered factories were going to be a reality anyway, the abused children need not apply. Quarry Bank can sugar coat that dung all it desires, it is forever linked to slave labor of children.
    The same as all other locations and societies which did/do the same or worse to children. Quickest way to become my enemy is to harm a child. As a result, I admit my view here is a bit... narrow.
    Meaning, I know what was meant by the aforementioned pride discussed in the video, but I can not help but to always call out and speak out against all forms of child abuse.

  • @carltonyoung732
    @carltonyoung732 Рік тому

    Why did they use children? Where there not enough adults? Did they design the machines on purpose to need children to service them? Thanks.

    • @WhatsCookingTime
      @WhatsCookingTime Рік тому +1

      I can't speak for Manchester England but I can speak for Lowell Massachusetts where I'm from which was modeled on Manchester. It was mostly originally New England middle girls women in their teens and twenties the kids were employed for smaller things for example they would be climbing all over the machines with no shoes on completely dangerous certain items needed to be to be handled with small fingers etc this pictures you can see online or at the museum and you see these little children not more than 10 standing on these looms easily risking dismemberment. But that was what they did back then

  • @nobody6546
    @nobody6546 Рік тому

    PS- You Folks HAVETO do a FeW Episodes on these Machines : WHO Imagined/ Experimented on/ Designed & then Forged & Manufactured All the Various Machines made during the “ Industrial “ Era. 👴🏼NoBody.

  • @BadWordsAreMyLoveLanguage
    @BadWordsAreMyLoveLanguage Рік тому +1

    Gee...what a “totally-not-staged” best find. 🙄Please stop assuming your audience is stupid. It’s downright insulting.

  • @motocross_cooper
    @motocross_cooper Рік тому +2

    NO, That’s wrong! It was NOT *”Profits before Safety”.* The truth is: *”THAT SURVIVAL” WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN “SAFETY”!*
    And the simple (and yes Sad) truth of life in those times. Is that with their level of technology (i.e. lack of technology), A factory like this one: Just was NOT and could not be efficient and/or productive enough, For it to be 100% staffed by Adults and produce enough product and remain economically viable. Seemingly small things (to us today), Such as “halting production for a few minutes” So that an adult could crawl underneath the machinery to clean off the dust and excess material etc. Along with the extra wages for the Adults that would’ve taken the place and do the work that was done by the children workers. Those few changes, Could be the difference between the factory making ends meet *OR NOT!* And the difference between: Producing enough textile to cover their operating costs *OR NOT!*
    So, Just those 2 small, simple changes in how a textile factory like that one operated…… *WOULD LOWER THE AMOUNT OF PRODUCT THEY WERE ABLE TO PRODUCE, WHICH INTURN WOULD MEANS THE COST OF OPERATING TO HIGH. AND IF A FACTORY IS NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE (i.e. Not profitable to operate). WELL, THEN IT WOULD EVENTUALLY GO BANKRUPT AND CLOSE DOWN. WHICH WOULD MEAN **-ALL THE WORKERS-** BOTH THE ADULT WORKERS AND THE CHILDREN WORKERS, WOULD “NOT HAVE ANY JOB AT ALL” LEAVING THEM ALL HOMELESS, DESTITUTE AND STARVING!*
    *(p.s. My point is: Yes, It was harsh and tragic in those era’s. But, Even those horrifically terrible jobs were a net benefit to the people working the job. Because, Otherwise they would most likely have had NOTHING and NO WAGES and NO PROSPECTS FOR PROVIDING THEMSELVES FOOD AND SHELTER. Or in other words: A shitty, dangerous and low paying job. Was infinitely better than starving to death and/ or freezing to death).*

    • @GuyWithInternet.
      @GuyWithInternet. 2 місяці тому

      “Survival is more important than safety” genuinely sounds like something right out of big brother right along “freedom is slavery”

  • @nobody6546
    @nobody6546 Рік тому

    👍👍👍 Always GREAT! ( and people Whine about the Price of 🧻!!). 👴🏼NoBody.

  • @josh656
    @josh656 Рік тому

    I thought the graphic said Textile Milf Accidents.

  • @JV-ko6ov
    @JV-ko6ov Рік тому

    lol

  • @fritz3388
    @fritz3388 8 місяців тому

    Who was better off then? The industrial factory child slaves working for food and lodging only, or the more or less kidnapped children that were sent to Americas New England states. Where this poor children were auctioned off as was the custom in this Puritan lands. This real underage children were abused as slaves for field work, slaves as house servants, slave girl child whores, of course all in the name of Jesus Christ and his grace and blessings pureed out on the British Puritans. How come I have never heard of such pervert treatment of children from German history, we are supposed to be the bad guys right? The king of Saxon Hanover build a heated palace like prisons for his people that sinned criminally and got on the wrong way, and tried his best to better this people, in about the 18.-19. Century.

  • @montanagal6958
    @montanagal6958 Рік тому +2

    Is the deadly secret that China behaves this way today and we look the other way and buy the stuff?

    • @WhatsCookingTime
      @WhatsCookingTime Рік тому

      That's because of us politicians they've made it so hard for people to manufacture in this country that we are forced to buy a lot of things from outside the United States

  • @fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718

    5:00 meh, only "dark" by today's candy-assed standards. Don't make a mistake or be clumsy on the job then you probably won't die on the job. Even in the 1980's I worked on a farm at 10, which included sometimes driving a tractor when my feet could comfortably reach the pedals. A couple of years later I was trusted enough to help grandpa remove tree stumps with dynamite (retired coal miner, so he had a lot he took home from work stored in the barn). Yeah, that may sound more like 1880 but most of my relatives still live like that for the most part (ie remote so even water access is only from a local well, area I grew up in didn't get electricity until 1938 or county water access until 1985, the extent of plumbing were buckets, a well, a stove if you wanted hot water, and an outhouse to take a shit).

  • @SnakeBush
    @SnakeBush Рік тому +4

    Bring back child slavery

  • @sandozpop6017
    @sandozpop6017 Рік тому

    Let's show the "coloureds" and the Marxists how Europe stood up, how budgets and alms can be distributed today.

  • @TidoTee
    @TidoTee Рік тому +1

    Laser surgery is available for Dan Jones to get those hideous tattoos removed.

    • @ithoughtyouknew7036
      @ithoughtyouknew7036 Рік тому +5

      What an odd comment and unexpected. His tattoos are fading due to being old peices. Which make the one are look kinda ugly. Tattoos often are just an expression of personality. I imagine on the one arm, nobody can tell what the peice is. It's faded, dark and huge. But, painful removal is not for everyone if tattoos are there thing.

    • @GiraffeLoverJen
      @GiraffeLoverJen Рік тому +1

      Wow, that's rude! Parts of the design are older. That's what happens with tattoos, they fade and blur. He might really like the tattoos or they might have meaning to him, so he might not want them removed. Or maybe he just doesn't care how they look now and they don't bother him. Laser removal is incredibly painful, expensive and takes many sessions and will leaving scarring. And if you look at close up photos of his tattoos, they don't look as bad.