Regarding child labour on the mines: I found some evidence of this in
the mines of Gwennap. The Gwennap Guardians of the Poor feared that if
the New Poor Law (1834) abolished outdoor relief and the families of
those unable to cope were placed in the Workhouse, the children would
lose the preference they had of obtaining work as the offspring of
deceased or crippled miners. These children would therefore be unable
to assist in the welfare of the family which would then become the
problem of the parish which could not afford to keep large numbers of
paupers without raising the rates. In other words, the Guardians
tacitly supported child labour.
With the implementation of the New Poor Law Act, widows were relieved
by the parish solely through monetary payments (prior to this payments
had been monetary and in kind), but found that the loss of outdoor
relief in the form of bread bore heavily on them and therefore sent
their children to the local mines in search of work, hoping to pass
them off as much older than they were. Child labour thus continued and
was magnified in some cases. It was only after the 1870 Education Act
that the worst abuses of child labour were curtailed.
Dr Sharron P Schwartz
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