Childhood Transformed: Working-Class Children in Nineteenth-Century England

This book provides a study of the remarkable shift in nature of working-class childhood in the Victorian period from lives dominated by work to lives centred around school. The author argues that this change was accompanied by substantial improvements for many in the home environment, in health and nutrition and in leisure opportunities. The early chapters examine life at work in agriculture and industry, in the home and elsewhere, while later chapters discuss the coming of compulsory education, together with changes in the home and leisure activities. A separate section of the book is devoted to the treatment of deprived children, those in and out of the workhouse, on the streets, and also in prison, industrial schools and reformatories.