Restoration Period

The Restoration Period (1660-1700)

The Restoration period began in 1660, when Charles II was restored to the throne, and it was marked by an advance in colonization, the Great Plague that struck in 1665, by the birth of the Whig and Tory parties and other manifestations of anti-Catholicism. It was also period of increasing prosperity and global trade for Britain. Literacy was expanded to the middle class. The greatest contribution of the Restoration period to literature was the reopening of theatres, which led to a revival of the drama.

England became steadily richer during this period, owing to the boom in trade and commerce. By the late 1600s, trade had become an important part of England’s economy. Merchants’ status also improved because people saw how much trade contributed to the country’s wealth.

Near the end of the Restoration period, it was estimated that about 50% of the population could afford to eat meat every day, which meant that half the population was either wealthy or reasonably well-off.

The Children:

The poor in the Restoration Period relied on poor relief. Overseers were appointed by each parish to either give work or help to the poor. Pauper’s children were sent to employers for apprenticeship.

In well-off families, children were sent to a petty school. However, only boys were allowed to go to grammar school, while upper class girls were taught by tutors. Life in grammar schools was hard, as corporal punishment was regularly employed. A birch rod was often used to punish naughty boys, with the boy’s classmates holding him down for the duration of the punishment.

Boarding school for girls were founded in many towns, however, it focused more on girls learning “accomplishments” such as needlework and music, than academic subjects.



Literature in the Restoration Period:
The moral laxity and corruption that pervaded the social life was a major theme in many literary works. Literature was marked by a break from the Renaissance and the past in general, literature focused on the here and the now. Poetry in general was formal and intellectual, with form taking precedence over subject matter. Restoration pushed the modern prose into being. John Dryden, for instance was a lead writer in both modern prose and poetry. His prefaces and works such as Essay on Dramatic Poetry made him a leader of the modern prose.

Literature in the Restoration focused on etiquette and social status, and there was very little written about children in the Restoration period.

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The Industrial Revolution’s Effect On Literature

The Industrial Revolution’s Effect On Literature

Charles Dickens’ novel, Hard Times for These Times was written in response to the Industrial Revolution. One of themes of the novel is the mechanization of human beings, written as a warning to the overzealous embrace of new technology, and how it might effectively turn humans into machines by stunting the development of emotions and imagination. Hard Times also portrayed a very valid image of the wastelands that the working class have to live in during the Industrial Revolution. Protest poems such as Caroline Norton’s A Voice from the Factories (1863) and Thomas Hood’s Song of the Shirt (1843) were also written to highlight the suffering of the working class. Elizabeth Browning created Cry of the Children as a way of expressing her anger at the reports of the Children Employment Commission of 1842.


Poet William Wordsworth on the other hand, wrote about where the introspective artist might belong in a “Mechanical Age”. In Preface to the Second Edition of ‘Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth went on to say that as technology moves closer to being at the center of a culture, the mind is reduced “to a state of almost savage torpor”.

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Children in the 18th Century

The Industrial Revolution


The Industrial Revolution (1760-1850) of Britain changed human life, mostly by changing methods of manufacturing, the way people made a living, and the products available to them.

Manufacturing, business and wage labors skyrocketed and technology changed from hand-powered tools to steam-powered machinery.

Agriculture experienced a revolution all on its own. Enclosure, crop rotations and new breeds of plants created through scientific breeding increased productivity without the necessary increase in farmhands.

This allowed more people to leave farms and work in factories instead.

The Industrial Revolution affected every aspect of human life, from standards of living to class. The population of Britain was able to consistently expand due to greater agricultural productivity. There was an increase in GNP and per-capita income. However, the standards of living for the working class did not reflect the country’s booming economy. To cut back on costs, wages were kept low and people were forced to live in decrepit houses on or near the factories where they work in.

The Children:
During the late eighteenth and early nineteeth centuries, Great Britain was one of the first countries to industrialize. Back then, the bulk of the working force consisted of children and although children of poor and working-class families had worked for centuries before industrialization. Most experts agree that the reason for the mass employment of children was that they were more plentiful in supply than the adults. Children were also cheaper to employ than adults, and easier to discipline. There was also the idea that children were little more than “little adults” and needed to contribute to the family income.

The combination of dangerous working conditions and long hours meant that children were worked as hard as any adult, but without laws to protect them.

Children were sold into apprenticeships, either as farm hands, servants or workers in a factory. If they were sold into a farm, boys looked after the draught animals, cattle and sheep while girls milked the cows and cared for the chickens. Children who worked in homes were apprentices, chimney sweeps, domestic servants, or assistants in the family business.

Instead of wages, children would get training instead.

Indeed, child labor in the Industrial Revolution has become the backbone of both the textile and the mining industry. Freuenberger, Mather and Nardinelli calculated that while only 4.5% of the cotton workers were under 10, 54.5% were under the age of 19 - confirmation that the employment of children and youths was pervasive in cotton textile factories. Children and youth also comprised a relatively large proportion of the work forces in coal and metal mines in Britain. In 1842, the proportion of the work forces that were children and youth in coal and metal mines ranged from 19 to 40%.

Industry & Age Cohort

Industry & Age Cohort	1851	1861	1871	1881
Mining Males under 15	37,300	45,100	43,100	30,400
Females under 15	1,400	500	900	500
Males 15-20	50,100	65,300	74,900	87,300
Females over 15	5,400	4,900	5,300	5,700
Total under 15 as % of work force	13%	12%	10%	6%
Textiles and Dyeing Males under 15	93,800	80,700	78,500	58,900
Females under 15	147,700	115,700	119,800	82,600
Males 15-20	92,600	92,600	90,500	93,200
Females over 15	780,900	739,300	729,700	699,900
Total under 15 as % of work force	15%	19%	14%	11%

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A child who worked in industry in the late 1800s











Here are several passages written by the children and people of the Industrial Revolution, these will give us a good, if not accurate idea of what life was like for children in the era.

"The smallest child in the factories were scavengers……they go under the machine, while it is going……….it is very dangerous when they first come, but they become used to it." Charles Aberdeen worked in a Manchester cotton factory, written in 1832.

"The task first allotted to Robert Blincoe was to pick up the loose cotton, that fell upon the floor. Apparently nothing could be easier……..although he was much terrified by the whirling motion and noise of the machinery and the dust with which he was half suffocated………he soon felt sick and was constantly stooping; his back ached. Blincoe took the liberty to sit down. But this he soon found was strictly forbidden in cotton mills. His overlooker, Mr. Smith, told him he must keep on his legs. This he did for six and a half hours without a break." John Brown, a reporter for "The Lion". Written in 1828.

"We went to the mill at five in the morning. We worked until dinner time and then to nine or ten at night; on Saturday it could be till eleven and often till twelve at night. We were sent to clean the machinery on the Sunday." Man interviewed in 1849 who had worked in a mill as a child.

"In the evening I walked to Cromford and saw the children coming from their work. These children had been at work from 6 o’clock in the morning and it was now 7 o’clock in the evening." Joseph Farington, 22nd August 1801 (diary entry)

"I began work at the mill in Bradford when I was nine years old……we began at six in the morning and worked until nine at night. When business was brisk, we began at five and worked until ten in the evening." Hannah Brown, interviewed in 1832.


"Very often the children are woken at four in the morning. The children are carried on the backs of the older children asleep to the mill, and they see no more of their parents till they go home at night and are sent to bed." Richard Oastler, interviewed in 1832.

"I have seen my master, Luke Taylor, with a horse whip standing outside the mill when the children have come too late.........he lashed them all the way to the mill." John Fairbrother, an overlooker, interviewed in 1819.

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Impact:
Child labor laws were passed in order to prevent the situations that were forced onto the children of the Industrial Revolution. The first step towards this was the Factory Act, which was passed in 1833. The Factory Act stated that children 9 to 13 years of age were only allowed to work 8 hours a day while 14 to 18 years of age could not work more than 12 hours a day. Children under 9 were not allowed to work at all.

The Factory Act also stated that children should attend school for a minimum of two hours.

In later years, activists and sympathizers would push the laws protecting children even further and create the Children’s Bureau in 1912.

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The Medieval Period IV: References

D. References

                All images in the medieval period section are from the links immediately after them, except when indicated. Copyrights remain with their respective authors.

·         Ariès, P. (1962). L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'ancien régime (tr. as Centuries of Childhood). Paris.

·         Oosterwijk, S. (1999) The Medieval Child: an Unknown Phenomenon?. The ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. Retrieved from http://www.the-orb.net/non_spec/ missteps/ch6.html. (October 14, 2013)

·         Orme, N. (2005). Childhood in Medieval England, c.500-1500. University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved from http://www.representingchildhood.pitt.edu/medieval_child.htm (October 14, 2013)

The Medieval Period III: Children In British Literature

C. Children In British Literature

Even though children were held in relatively higher regard in British society (historically speaking) during the medieval period, it was only during the 1400s that they began to figure prominently in British literature.

This led to a theory by French historian Philippe Aries on medieval indifference regarding childhood. According to Aries, children were considered irrelevant, even expendable, during the middle ages. Aries says that this explains their lack of presence in British literature before the 1400s.


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Another example that he gave was that of the account of Edward I’s reaction when both his five-year old son John and his father King Henry III died. Edward I was said to have grieved more for the latter than the former because “the loss of a child is easier to bear as one may have many more children, but that the loss of a father is irremediable”.

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However, further research has proven that Edward I’s anecdote was the exception to the rule.

Even though children didn’t specifically feature in early British literature, they were featured somewhat in the numerous “origin stories” of heroes and heroines in romances and saints in catechetical stories. These stories described how these characters were born and brought up.

After 1400s, children’s literature began to flourish. Most of these written works were manuals, especially about table manners, right conduct, and practical skills such as hunting, among others.

Stories for children also began to increase by this period, especially a comic tale in verse called The Friar and the Boy (author unknown). However, the specific literary market for children was not yet in full swing back then.
Most adolescent children at the time preferred to read adult fiction such as romances, the works of Chaucer, and ballads of Robin Hood.

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It was during later periods that British writers will write specifically about children. However, the medieval period laid the groundwork for the changing conception of society about children.

The Medieval Period II: Legislative Definition of Childhood (12th Century)

B. Legislative Definition of Childhood (12th Century)

Most of the laws Britain has today had their foundations built during the 12^th century. The middle medieval period was a time of robust lawmaking, which was led by the Church. It was during this period that childhood was properly defined for legislative purposes.

The medieval concept of childhood was adapted from classical philosophy, which (although it may be stating the obvious) says that children have different rights and responsibilities than adults.

This was a step in the right direction to our present concept of childhood.

It was during the medieval period that laws especially considering children were promulgated. The typical medieval definition of childhood considered the boundary between itself and childhood - puberty. For boys, it was usually set at 14 years old, while it was 12 for girls.

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On the positive side, this was the precursor of modern childhood legislation. On the other hand, this meant that childhood ended early. Childhood practically ended at puberty.

By twelve years old, a girl is expected to be married and able to run a household, while a fourteen year old boy is expected to be a squire.

(However, it is important to consider that this is due to the relatively short life spans of medieval people – thus, the “adjusted” timeline.)

The Church began this change, by regarding children under puberty to lack the maturity to understand the adult world. Thus, they were considered to be incapable of committing sins.

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In the same light, medieval civil society began a similar concept of the age of legal responsibility. When children go past the age of puberty, they were stripped of the exemptions that the law gave them as children, and were put under the same expectations of responsibility and culpability.

In modern times, this has evolved to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has specific provisions protecting children. Individual countries and states also have created laws for children which can be traced to originate from the original interpretations made in medieval Britain.

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The Medieval Period I: High Child Mortality Rates

I. Medieval Period

The British concept of children began its unique inception during the medieval period.

However, this evolution is not without its complications.

A. High Child Mortality Rates

                Medieval life was hard. It was particularly hard for children. In fact, the death rate for children during the period was, by modern standards, high (see below).

This meant that children were more valued by adults. Medieval society recognized the frailty of their children’s lives, and treated them with higher regard.

The Church figured prominently in the numerous “miracle reports” and other documents that survived, which are evidence of the efforts of medieval parents to find cures for their usually sick children.

Accounts of grief-stricken parents who failed in their efforts are also illustrative of the relationship that society had with children.

Child mortality rate during the medieval period
[Data source: Orme, N. (2005)]

Introduction

The perception of childhood has changed throughout British history. These changes were especially first manifest during the medieval period and the 18th century.

In this blog, we want to answer the following questions:

·        What key events in British and world history had an impact on the changes in the perception of childhood?

·        Were there any significant changes in British society’s values and beliefs that influenced these changes?

·        Are there any developments in the perception of children that are still evident/ being practiced/ being used today?

·        Which British writers were greatly interested on the subject?

·        In which British literary works does childhood play an important role?

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