From powder-monkeys to newsboys, climbing boys to pages, what are some other jobs that kids used to do back in the days? Join us once more as we go through the job-listings available to young children throughout history…

Tweenies

Since time immemorial, children have had jobs in domestic service.

One of those jobs was that of the “Tweenie”.

“Tweeny” or “Tweenie” came from the job’s actual title: a Between Maid.

A between maid was the maid or servant-girl who worked down in the servants’ quarters of a large household, passing messages and orders around between the butler and the housekeeper, or the housekeeper and the cook, or between the cook and the butler, or between the under-butler and the butler…you get the idea. She also had to move between the pantry and the kitchen, between the kitchen and the servants’ hall, for setting and clearing awy the dining table, or to help serve meals, and so on.

Having to constantly move from one part of the house to the other to pass messages, fetch, carry, move, watch something or follow various orders, usually between one senior servant and another, it’s little wonder that the girls became known as “Tweenies”.

The “tweenie” died out in the early 1900s when grand houses with large staff started becoming obsolete, but in their heyday, a tweenie was almost always a young girl, between the ages of 10-15.

The Hallboy

If the poor tweenie ever felt lonely in her job, then she at least had companionship from another youth in the same position: The hallboy.

The hallboy was the lowest-paid and lowest-ranking male servant in a grand household. And he was almost always one of the youngest. Unlike the pageboy, the hallboy could only ever dream of dressing up in a smart uniform, and swanning about upstairs answering summons to deliver letters, collect parcels, fold the newspapers and deliver the master’s telegrams.

The hallboy did all the unenviable grunt-work in the house. In fact, he did so much work that he didn’t even get his own room! The name “hallboy” comes from the fact that he worked (and sometimes even slept!) in the servants’ hall, the dining-room or common-room where servants hung out for their meals or relaxed during their off-time.

Other servants – the butler, cook, housekeeper, valet, etc, all got their own rooms. Hallboys were lucky enough to get a bed! Not that they used it much – hours were long and the work was never-ending.

The stove needs more coal? Get the hallboy to do it.

The study fireplace needs more wood? Get the hallboy to do it.

The trash needs emptying in the kitchen? Hallboy.

The boots and shoes need cleaning up? Hallboy.

Polishing the brassware? Cleaning the windows? Sweeping the floors of the servants’ quarters? Fill the lamps? Trim the wicks? Replace the candles? Hallboy, hallboy, hallboy.

It was an exhausting and thankless occupation, but compared with some of the other jobs that kids did back in the 1800s, it was at least relatively safe and clean. If they showed aptitude, some hallboys might one day become footmen, and then butlers or valets, earning more money, and gaining more trust and privileges from the family which they served. Hallboys, like Tweenies, died out in the 1900s when wealthy families with huge private staffs started to dwindle.

The Coal Hurriers

In my previous posting about the jobs that children have done throughout history, one of the most dangerous I mentioned was that of the climbing boys, or the child chimney-sweeps which scrambled up inside chimney-flues to sweep and knock down the ash and soot that had clogged up the insides of chimneys.

Well – at the other end of the chain was another boy!

Coal hurriers were children – some as young as three or four years old! – who used to drag, push, and pull carts or sleds of hacked-off coal from the coalface to the mouth of a mine-tunnel…for up to twelve hours a day. Full carts or sleds out, and empty ones back in. Back and forth, over and over, in near pitch-blackness, covered in dust and breathing in fumes. And just like their adult-counterparts, these children were in constant danger of things like fires, coal-dust explosions, suffocation from gas-leaks, drowning if they dug below the water-table and the pumps failed – and the most feared fate of all: A cave-in.

Just like their brethren, the climbing boys, the hurriers worked in amazingly filthy environments. The sweat, the dust, the grime, the heat, the jagged rocks and coal-seams all made working in the mines extremely dangerous and unpleasant. So, like the climbing boys – the hurriers had a solution for that – and it was the same one the climbing boys had – work butt-naked!

Sending kids down the mines remained a common practice right up until 1842 in the UK, when the practice was finally outlawed.

Sweated Tailor

Sweated tailors were the poor (usually immigrant) tailors who worked in making clothing for the poor and working-classes. The places where they worked is where we get the term ‘sweatshop’ from today. Back in the 1800s, they were given piecework jobs to do by big clothing factories, and it was often the job, not only of the tailor, but of his wife, and yes – his kids – to turn out the orders.

Piecework is very simple: The more pieces you make, the more money you earn. This meant that you could be working for hours and hours and hours! Factories often sent out massive piecework orders or quotas which had to be fulfilled. These factories recycled clothing and cloth which had been thrown out or discarded in some other way (like off-cuts from the more fashionable tailoring houses in Saville Row!), and the fabric was shredded, washed, sorted, and then respun into new cloth.

This cloth was called “shoddy” and was used to make clothes for the lower-classes – clothes cut and sewn by the sweated tailors and their children.

Ever heard the term “Shoddy”, meaning something cheap, poorly-made, something of no real quality, and which just falls apart? This is where it comes from – cheap, secondhand cloth, used to make cheap, secondhand clothes.

Being a pieceworker was one of the safer jobs that kids used to do, but the work was fiddly, long, boring and tedious. That said, tailors were among the better-paid pieceworkers – with their earnings, they could save up a few pennies or shillings after each work-order and eventually buy a sewing-machine which would speed up their output. The real drudgery with piecework came from things like toy-making, or making fake flowers, or other pointless fripperies which were sold dirt cheap anyway – the kinds of jobs which took no skill at all. Tailors at least, had the pride of knowing that they were skilled labourers who did specialised work. But it was still hard.

Piecework for children started dying out in the later 1800s, when the education acts came in. The first of these was the 1870 Education Act, which said that schooling was now compulsory for all kids between the ages of 5 – 13.

Closing Remarks

So, were these all the jobs done by kids in the past? Certainly not. But they are some of the most memorable, notorious, and infamous ones. There were loads of others, from match-sellers to cotton-mill boys and girls, to the telegraph boys who pedaled around on their bicycles delivering messages. When it came to labouring jobs of almost every description, children (usually, but not always boys) were expected to work alongside men – for the same hours, doing similar work, but for half the pay.

In many cases, it took generations and decades of effort to end the practice of child labour – in the developed world, at least. some of the children who grew up as child-labourers became social reformers and campaginers in the 1900s, and fought for the right of children not to be exploited and abused. To give you an idea of how long this took – in the UK, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to…Animals – the RSPCA – was founded in 1824.

By comparison, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was not founded until…1884.

Want to Know More?

Much of the information used in these postings came from:

“The Children Who Built Victorian Britain”
“SERVANTS: The True Story of Life below Stairs”
“The Worst Jobs in History”.

All excellent documentary film series, and well worth watching.