UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM SCHOOL OF HISTORY AND ART HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
V13174 20 Credits
September, 1998

CHILDHOOD AND CHILDREN IN 19^TH CENTURY BRITAIN

Semester 1, Level 3

Convenor: Dr Colin Heywood

I INTRODUCTION: AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

What this course aims to do is to give you an insight into `history from below', looking at various aspects of childhood among working-class children in rural and urban society. This has always been a sensitive area, since the earliest critics of industrial society seized on the fate of `child martyrs' in the mills and slums of the new industrial centres. We concentrate on a number of key issues, notably ideas on childhood, relationships between children and their parents, child labour in agriculture and industry, children and the school system, child health, and moves to rescue children from the streets.

By the end of the course, you should:

* be aware of the nature of childhood in its historical perspective

* grasp key debates concerning the impact of industrialization and urbanization on child welfare during the nineteenth century

* be familiar with primary sources in this area of history

* have enhanced your ability to communicate verbally and in writing, and to work with other members of a group on problem-solving exercises.

II COURSE ASSESSMENT

You will be required to write two 2,000-word essay (40%), lead and contribute to seminars (25%), and write a 2-hour examination (35%) for this module.

III TEACHING METHODS

Teaching will revolve around a series of two-hour seminars or document workshops, complemented by individual consultations over assessed work.

Each seminar will be led by a team of two or three students. For instructions on how to run a seminar, see the departmental handout on the subject.

NB: - the presentation is your chance to demonstrate your knowledge of the topic, so be ambitious (i.e. simply running through the background does not give you much of a chance to shine).

- remember all members of the team need the opportunity to play a role

- your task is to facilitate discussion among all members of the group, rather than to be a 'teacher'.

- you should vary the format according to the needs of the topic

IV ESSAYS

Instructions:

1. You will need to write two essays, one on a historical problem, the other on a primary source.

2. You may write on any topic or any source: but please clear your title with me first.

3. Please hand in two copies of your essays: one will be returned to you with comments, the other will be kept for the External Examiner.

4. You will not be allowed to write an exam question on a topic already assessed in a term essay or in a Dissertation.

5. Essays handed in late will be penalized according to Arts Faculty Regulations, i.e. five percentage points per working day. If for some reason you need an extension, make sure you obtain written permission from me before the deadline. (An Extenuating Circumstances Form is available to make this easier).

5. Dates for handing in essays: - historical essay: Friday, 11 December 1998

- primary source essay: Wednesday, 13 January 1999

Essay Titles

Primary source essay:

There are no specific titles. Take any of the primary souces, and assess its strengths and weaknesses as evidence about various aspects of childhood.

Historical essays:

These are suggested titles only. If you wish to set your own, please feel free to do so - but clear it with me before you start writing.

1. To what extent was the eighteenth century a turning point for ideas on the nature of childhood?

2. How far do you agree with Linda Pollock in her assertion that continuities with the past are most in evidence when we examine relationships between parents and children during the nineteenth century?

3. Discuss the suggestion from Clark Nardinelli that 'under the conditions of the early industrial revolution, child labor may well have made children (and the family) better off'.

4. Assess the importance of humanitarian concern for child welfare in the origins of nineteenth-century factory legislation.

5. What was the impact of industrialization on child health in nineteenth-century England?

6. How far do agree with ‘social control’ models when they are applied to the history of the primary school system in nineteenth-century England?

7. Why did contemporaries view the streets as a source of danger and temptation for children in the nineteenth century, and how effective was their response to the problem?

How to contact me:

Office: LG B10

Telephone: Office: 15938

E-mail: Colin.Heywood@nottingham.ac.uk

IV READING LIST

Treat this list as a starting point: you may profitably look further afield....

SECTION A: GENERAL WORKS AND PRIMARY SOURCES

1. General Textbooks

Checkland, S G The Rise of Industrial Society in England, 1815-1885. London: Longman, 1964. HC255.C4

Royle, E Modern Britain: A Social History, 1750-1985. London: Arnold, 1987. HN385.R6

Thompson, F M L The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830-1900. London, 1988. Ch.4 on Childhood. DA 550.T4.

Thompson, F M L The Cambridge Social History of Britain. 3 vols, Cambridge: CUP, 1990. HN385.C2

Meacham, S A Life Apart: The English Working Class, 1890-1914. Thames and Hudson, 1977. HD8390.M4

2. Works on Children and Childhood

Cunningham, H Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500. London: Longman, 1995. LB1115.C8

Sommerville, J The Rise and Fall of Childhood. Beverly Hills, London, 1982.

LB1115.S6

James, A. & Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary

Prout, A.(eds) Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood. Falmer Press, 1990. Chaps.1-2. LB1116.C6

Hendrick, H. 'Children and Childhood', Refresh, 15 (Autumn 1992). Periodicals HC

Hendrick, H Children, Childhood and English Society, 1880-1990. Cambridge U.P., 1997. HV751.H4

Jordanova, L 'Children in History: Concepts of Nature and Society', in G. Scarre (ed), Children, Parents and Politics, Cambridge U.P., 1989, pp.3-24. Photocopy

Hopkins, E Childhood Transformed: Working-Class Children in Nineteenth-Century England. Manchester, 1994. LB1115.H6

Rose, L The Erosion of Childhood: Child Oppression in Britain, 1860-1918. London, 1991. HV751.R6

Walvin, J A Child's World: A Social History of English Childhood, 1800-1914. Harmondsworth, 1982. LB 115.W2

Cunningham, H The Children of the Poor. Oxford, 1991. LB 1115.C8

Hair, P E 'Children in Society, 1850-1980', in T. Barker and M. Drake (eds), Population and Society in Britain, 1850-1980', London, 1982, pp.34-61. HB3583.B2

Davin, A Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in London, 1870-1914. London: Rivers Oram Press, 1986. LB1115.D2

Rosen, M (ed.) The Penguin Book of Childhood. London, 1995. LB 1115.P4

Pinchbeck, I Children in English Society. Vol 2, London, 1973.

& Hewitt, M HV751.P4

Horn, P Children's Work and Welfare, 1780-1890. Cambridge U.P., 1995. HD6231.H6

Horn, P The Victorian Town Child. Sutton, 1997. LB1115.H6

Horn, P The Victorian Country Child. Roundwood Press, 1974. LA631.7.H6

Jordan, T E Victorian Childhood. State University of New York Press, 1987. (On Order).

3. Autobiographical Material (NB. Use this....)

Studies of:

Vincent, D Bread, Knowledge and Freedom - A Study of Nineteenth‑Century Working‑Class Autobiography, London, 1981. HD 8388.V4

Burnett, J Destiny Obscure: Autobiographies of Childhood, Education and Family from the 1820s to the 1920s. London, 1994. LX.B8

Pascal, R Design and Truth in Autobiography. Cambridge, MA, 1960. PN441.P2.

Landow, G P (ed) Approaches to Victorian Autobiography. Athens,Ohio, 1979. PR941.B4.L2

Sanders, V The Private Lives of Victorian Women: Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century England. London, 1989. PR788.A9

Gagnier, R Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain, 1832-1920. New York, 1991. PR 788.A9. Esp. chaps. 4-5. PR 788.A9

Collections of:

Strickland, I Voices of Children, 1700‑1914. Oxford, 1973 LX.S8

Thompson, T Edwardian Childhoods. London, 1981. LX.T4

Some examples of:

Arch, J The Autobiography of Joseph Arch. London, 1966. HD 6665.A73

Sturt, G A Small Boy in the Sixties. Cambridge U.P., 1932. PR6037.T95

Thompson, F Lark Rise to Candleford. Oxford U.P., 1954. DA670.09.T4

Brown, J A Memoir of Robert Blincoe. Derby, 1966. (Local History)

de 1022BRO

Burn, J D The Autobiography of a Beggar Boy. London, 1978. HD 8393.B85

Foley, A A Bolton Childhood. Manchester, 1973. LX.F6

Jasper, A S A Hoxton Childhood. London, 1969. LX.J2

Roberts, R A Ragged Schooling: Growing up in the Classic Slum. Manchester, 1987. HN 398.525

Shaw, C When I was a Child. Wakefield, 1969 (1903). HD8399.S82

Greenwood, W There Was a Time. Cape, 1967. PR6013.R455

4. Published Primary Material

Novels:

Dickens, C Hard Times. Penguin, 1995 (1854). PR4561

Trollope, F The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, The Factory Boy. London, 1840. PR5699.T3

Miscellaneous:

Carpenter, K (ed), British Labour struugles: Contemporary Pamphlets, 1727-1850. New York: Arno Press, 1972. HD 8389.B7

Especially useful in this collection:

Oastler, R Richard Oastler: King of the Factory Children: Six Pamphlets, 1835-61.

Horner, L On the Employment of Children in Factories and Other Works in the United Kingdom. 1840.

Gaskell, P Artisans and Machinery. (1836). London, 1968. HD2356.G7.G2

Dodd, W The Factory System Illustrated. (1842). London, 1968. HD2356.G7.D6

Fielden, J The Curse of the Factory System. Cass, 1969. HD2356.G7.F4

Faucher, L Manchester in 1844: Its Present Condition and Future Prospects. Cass, 1969. HC258.M26

Mayhew, H London Labour and the London Poor, vol.1. New York, 1968. HN385.M2

Ure, A The Philosophy of Manufactures. London, 1835. HD2356.G7.U7

Alfred [Kydd, S H G] The History of the Factory Movement. (1857). New York, 1966. HD2356.G7.K9

British Parliamentary Papers, reproduced by the Irish University Press. UK/P8, parliamentary publications.

SECTION B: SEMINAR TOPICS:

Divided into (i) general works drawn from Section A, above, and (ii) monographs on the various subjects.

1. Ideals of Childhood

i. Cunningham, Children, Introduction, pp.30-40; ch.3; Conclusion

Sommerville, Rise and Fall, ch.12

Hendrick, 'Children'

Prout & James, Constructing, chs.1-2.

ii. Ariès, P L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime. Paris, 1973.

Translated (but without the illustrations) as Centuries of Childhood. Harmondsworth, 1973. Especially parts I and III. HQ 503 A7

New paperback edition available: London: Pimlico, 1996.

Wilson, A `The Infancy of the History of Childhood: An Appraisal of Philippe Aries'. History and Theory, 19 (1980), 132‑53. PER D

Vann, R T 'The Youth of Centuries of Childhood', History and Theory, 21 (1982), 279-97. PER D

Bellingham, B 'The History of Childhood Since the "Invention of Childhood": Some Issues in the Eighties', Journal of Family History, 13 (1988), 347-58. PER HC

Plumb, J H 'The New World of Children in Eighteenth-Century England', Past and Present,67 (1975), PER D

Jordonova, L 'New Worlds for Children in the Eighteenth Century: Problems of Historical Interpretation', History of the Human Sciences, 3 (1990), 69-83. Photocopy.

Cunningham, H The Children of the Poor: Representations of Childhood since the Seventeenth Century. Blackwell, 1991. LB1115.C8

Coveney, P The Image of Childhood. Penguin, 1967. Ch.1. PR151.C5

Steedman, C 'Bodies, Figures and Physiology: Margaret McMillan and the Late Nineteenth-Century Remaking of Working-Class Childhood', in R. Cooter (ed.), In the Name of the Child (London, 1992), pp.19-44. HV690.C4

Cox, R Shaping Childhood: Themes of Uncertainty in the History of Adult-Child Relationships. London, 1996. LB1117.C6

Rousseau, J J Emile. Dent, 1992. LB511

(Check pictures used by Ariès, and Wordsworth's poetry)

2. Relationships between Children and their Parents

i. Cunningham, Children, Intro., ch.4.;

Hopkins, Childhood, ch.9;

Burnett, Destiny Obscure,pp.60‑65 & ff.

Davin Growing Up,

Hendrick, Children, ch.3

Vincent, Bread,

Walvin Child's World,

ii. Anderson, M Approaches to the History of the Family in Western Europe. London, 1980. pp. 39‑64. HQ 515 A6

De Mause, L B (ed.) The History of Childhood. London, 1974. Ch. by L.B. de M. LB1115.D4

Pollock, L Forgotten Children: Parent‑Child Relations from 1500 to 1900. Cambridge, 1983. Chs,1,2,4. Concentrate on the introductory and nineteenth-century material. LB1117.P6

Pollock, L A Lasting Relationship: Parents and Children over Three Centuries. Hanover and London, 1987. HQ 613.L2

Johansson, S R 'Centuries of Childhood/Centuries of Parents', Journal of Family History, 12 (1987), 343-65. PER HM

Thompson, P The Edwardians. 2nd. ed., Routledge, 1992. Ch.4. HN389.T4

Roberts, E A Woman's Place. Oxford, 1984. HQ.1593.R6

Ross, E Love and Toil: Motherhood in Outcast London, 1870-1918. Oxford U.P., 1993. HQ759.R6

Check the autobiographies

3. Children at work: in agriculture, the traditional trades and the factories

i. Hopkins, Childhood, chs.1-3.

Rose, Erosion, chs.3-4.

Davin Growing Up, part 3.

Horn, Children's Work, ch.2(i)

Hair, 'Children'

Jordan, Victorian Childhood, ch.4 (photocopy)

ii. On the land, and in small workshops:

Medick, H 'The Proto-Industrial Family Economy', Social History, 3 (1976), 291315. PER HC

Samuel, R Village Life and Labour. London, 1975. HD1534.S

Horn, P The Victorian Country Child. Kineton, 1974. Chs.5-6. LA 631.7.H6.

Horn, P 'Child Workers in the Pillow Lace and Straw Plait Trades of Victorian Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire', Historical Journal, 17 (1974), 779-96. Per D.

Cunningham, H 'The Employment and Unemployment of Children in England, c.1680‑1851', Past and Present, 126 (1990), 115‑50. Per D

Mingay, G E The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol.VI, '1750-1850'. Cambridge, 1989. Ch.7.

Levine, D Family Formation in Age of Nascent Capitalism. New York, 1977. Ch.2. E.Mid Coll: Lei 343.L4 LEV

Levine, D Reproducing Families. Cambridge U.P., 1987. Use index. HB3583.A3

Heward, C 'Growing Up in a Birmingham Community, 1861-1871', in J. Hurt (ed), Childhood, Youth and Education in the Late Nineteenth Century, History of Education Society, 1981, pp.31-48. LA631.7.C6

Try also British Parliamentary Papers, Agriculture, vol.12, Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, 1870. Irish University Press, 1969. UK/P8, parliamentary publications.

In the factories:

Hutt, W H 'The Factory System of the Early Nineteenth Century', in F. A. Hayeck (ed.), Capitalism and the Historians, London, 1954. Pp.160-88. HB 501. H2

Thompson, E P The Making of the English Working Class. Harmondsworth, 1968. Pp. 366‑84. HD 8389.T4

Nardinelli, C Child Labour and the Industrial Revolution. Bloomington, Ind., 1990. Ch.4. HD8433.A1.F7

Hartwell, R M 'Children as Slaves', in his The Industrial Revolution and Economic Growth. London, 1971. HC 254.5.H2

Nardinelli, C 'Corporal Punishment and Children's Wages in Nineteenth‑Century Britain', Explorations in Economic History, 19 (1982), 283‑95. Per HC

MacKinnon, M et al `The Case Against Productive Whipping', Explorations in Economic History, 21 (1984), 218-23 (rejoinder from Nardinelli, pp.224-28). PER HC

Bolin-Hort, P Work, Family and the State: Child Labour and the Organization of Production in the British Cotton Industry. Lund, 1989. Ch.2. HD6247.T42

Rose M B The Gregs of Quarry Bank Mill. Cambridge U.P., 1986. (On pauper apprentices). HD9881.9.G7.R6

4. Origins and Impact of Factory Legislation: Some New Views

i. Hopkins Childhood, ch.3.

Cunningham The Poor, ch.4.

Rose Erosion, ch.2.

Horn, Children's Work, chs.3-4.

ii. Standing, G 'State Policy and Child Labour', Development and Change, 13 (1982), 613-20. Photocopy.

Cunningham, H 'Combating Child Labour; The British Experience', in h. Cunningham and P. Viazzo (eds), Child Labour in Historical Perspective, 1800-1985. Unicef, 1996, pp.41-55. (On Order)

Cunningham, H C 'Child Labour in the Industrial Revolution', The Historian, Spring 1987, 3-8. PER D

Hutt, W H ‘The Factory System', as in Section 3.

Nardinelli, C 'Child Labor and the Factory Acts', Journal of Economic History, 40 (1980), 739‑55. Per HC

Nardinelli, C Child Labour, as in Section 3, chs.5-6.

Marvell, H 'Factory Regulation: A Reinterpretation of Early English Experience', Journal of Law and Economics, 20 (1977), 379-402. PER H

Bolin-Hort, P Work, Family and the State, as Section 3, ch.3.

Peacock, A E 'The Successful Prosecution of the Factory Acts, 1833-55', Economic History Review, 37 (1984), 197-210. PER HC

Gray, R 'The Languages of Factory Reform in Britain, c.1830-1860', in P. Joyce (ed), The Historical Meanings of Work (Cambridge, 1987), pp.143-79.

Gray, R The Factory Question and Industrial England, 1830-1860. Cambridge U.P., 1996. HD2356.G7.G7

Ward, J T The Factory Movement. London, 1962. (An old view)

Try also the British Parliamentary Papers, Industrial Revolution, Children's Employment, vols.1-15, 1816/17-1865/67. Irish University Press. UK/P8, parliamentary publications.

5. Children and Leisure

i. Hendrick, Children, ch.6

Hopkins, Childhood, ch.10

Walvin, A Child's World, chs.5 & 8

Davin, Growing Up, index 'play'

Burnett, Destiny Obscure,

Horn, Country Child, ch.9

Horn, Town Child, ch.7

Jordan, Victorian Childhood, ch.6 (photocopy)

ii Bailey, P Leisure and Class in Victorian Britain. Routledge, 1978. HM211.5.B2

Walvin, J 'Children's Pleasures', in J. K.Waltom and J.Walvin (eds), Leisure in Britain, 1780-1939, Manchester U.P., 1983. GV76.LEI

Opie, I & P Children's Games in Street and Playground. Oxford U.P., 1969. LB1137.O6

Avery, G Childhood's Pattern: A Study of the Heroes and Heroines of Children's Fiction. London, 1975. Z1037.A8

Dunae, P 'Penny Dreadfuls: Late Nineteenth-Century Boys' Literature and Crime', Victorian Studies, 22 (1979). PER A

Roberts, R The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century. Manchester U.P., 1971. HN398.S25

6. Child Health

i. Hendrick, Children, ch.4

Walvin, A Child's World, ch.1

Horn, Town Child, Ch.6

Rose, Childhood, ch.15

ii Hendrick, H Child Welfare in England, 1872-1989. Routledge, 1994. Part II. HV751.H4

Cruickshank, M Children and Industry: Child Health and Welfare in North-West Textile Towns during the Nineteenth Century. Manchester, 1981. HD6250.G7

Smith, F B The People's Health, 1830-1910. London, 1979. HV688.2.S5

Cooter, R (ed) In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880-1940. London, 1992. HV 690.C4.

Gilbert, B B The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain. London, 1966. Chap.3. HD7167.G4.

Lewis, J The Politics of Motherhood: Child and Maternal Welfare in England, 1900-39. London, 1980. HV688.G7.L4.

Dyhouse, C 'Working Class Mothers and Infant Mortality in England, 1895-1914', Journal of Social History, 12 (1978), 248-677. PER HC.

Steedman, C Childhood, Culture and Class in Britain: Margaret McMillan, 1860-1931. London, 1990. Chap.3. LB1160.S8

Floud, R et al Height, Health and History. Cambridge U.P., 1990. GT2853.G7.F10

7. Children and the School System

i. Hendrick Children, ch.5

Rose Erosion, chs.12-14, 17-20.

Hopkins Childhood, ch.5 & 8.

Vincent Autobiography, pp.94-107.

Davin Growing Up, part 2.

Horn Country Child, chs.2-4

Horn Town Child, ch.4

ii. Digby, A & Children, School and Society in Nineteenth‑Century England.

Searby, P London, 1981. LA 631.7.D4

Johnson, R. 'Notes on the Schooling of the English Working Class, 1750‑1850'. In R. Dale, G. Esland and M. MacDonald (eds), Schooling and Capitalism, London, 1976, pp.44‑54. LC 191.D2

Laqueur, T W 'Working‑Class Demand and the Growth of Elementary Education, 1750‑1850'. In L. Stone, Schooling and Society, Baltimore, 1976, LC 191.S8

Laqueur, T W Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working‑Class Culture, 1780‑1850. New Haven, Conn., 1976. Esp. chs 6‑7. LC 5056.G7.L2

Purvis, J Hard Lessons: The Lives and Education of Working‑Class Women in Nineteenth‑Century England, Cambridge, 1989. Ch. 4. LC 2052.P8

Humphries, S Hooligans or Rebels: An Oral History of Working‑Class Childhood and Youth, 1889‑1939, Oxford, 1981. Chs 2‑4. LC 5056.G7.H8

Stephens, W B Education, Literacy and Society, 1830-70: The Geography of Diversity in Provincial England. Manchester, 1987. LC156.G7.S8

Dyhouse, C Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. London, 1981

Hurt, J S Elementary Schooling and the Working Classes, 1860-1918. Routledge, 1979. Part Three. LA633.H8

8. Street Children - and the Bid to Save Them

i. Rose Erosion, chs.8-10.

Walvin Child's World, Chs. 0, 11, 13.

Cunningham The Poor, ch.5.

Cunningham Children, ch.6.

Hopkins Childhood, ch.7.

Davin Growing Up, ch.6.

Horn Town Child, ch.8

ii. Humphries, S Hooligans or Rebels? London, 1981. Ch.8. LC 5056.G7.H8

Rose, L Rogues and Vagabonds: Vagrant Underworld in Britain, 1815‑1985. London, 1988. Chs. 5 & 16. HV 4546.R6

Heywood, J S Children in Care. 3rd ed., London, 1978. Chs.3‑5. HV 887.G7.H4

Wagner, G Barnado. London, 1979. Greenfield Medical Library, WZ100.B2.30 WAG

Mayhew, H. London Labour and the London Poor. Vol.1. New York, 1968 (1861-2). Pp.466-85. HN385.M2

Carpenter, M Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes. London, 1968 (1851) LA 631.7.C2

September 1998