original ) (raw )Work, it might be argued, is one of the great overlooked subjects of British fiction, always in the background, always necessary, sometimes fervently desired, at other times roundly disdained, frequently a source of tension and unhappiness, but rarely conceptualized, deconstructed or otherwise considered as one of the key influences on our inner lives. Naturally, there are good reasons for this: one of them is sheer heredity. Victorian novelists were habitually uninterested in what their characters were doing for a living. When money turns up in a Dickens novel it tends to fall out of the air into the hero’s lap: the processes by which it is earned are entirely beyond his scope, together with any real knowledge of what happens on a shop-floor or in barristers’ chambers. — D. J. Taylor, “Worker bees,” Times Literary Supplement (18 & 25 December 2015): 3
When it is considered that most of the objects of desire and even the means of subsistence are the product of labor, it is evident that the means of insuring labor must be provided for as the foundation of all. — James Mill, Essay on Government
General [*** = no material linked to this heading] The Hidden World of the Victorian Working Classes Working-Class Attitudes: Stoicism and Acceptance Working Class Literature, a Bibliography Child Labor (sitemap) From Labor to Value: Marx, Ruskin, and the Critique of Capitalism “Extraordinarily Lop-sided in its effects” — Mechanization & Victorian Work The Lack of Social Security in Victorian England Bankruptcy in Victorian England — Threat or Myth? Injured and Maimed at the Factory — Some Readings “Escaping self-sufficiency into the cash economy” — the Improvement of the Worker's Lot by the Industrial Revolution Frank Brangwyn's depictions of work (12 images) Professions the Law Judges *** Solicitors and Barristers the Clergy Representations of Anglican and Dissenting Clergy in Victorian Literature Construction: Clerk of the Works Civil Engineers Mechanical Engineers *** School teachers *** Physicians *** Skilled Labor — Craftsman The Hierarchies of Victorian Workers: Craftsman, Semi-skilled Factory Operatives, and Laborers Victorian Wages for Skilled and Unskilled Labor: The Example of Construction Workers on the Thames Embankment The Prince of Victorian Manual Workers: The Skilled Craftsman ArtisansBlacksmiths Work in the Slate Quarries of North Wales Pottery Workers at Minton’s Iron and Steel Workers in South Wales Semi-Skilled Labor Miners “Possibly the most murderous mining conditions in the world” — working conditions in Cornish copper & tin mines Textile Mill Workers Robbed of “twenty-five years of existence” — The Trades of Sheffield and their dangers to worker's health Welsh Dairies in Victorian London How bad was the life of the urban worker in Victorian Britain? Brickmaking Agricultural Labor Sitemap Agricultural Workers (article from the 1874 Cornhill Magazine) "From Hand Labour to Machine Work in agriculture": Work and New technologies in the Victorian Era (1904) Harvesting Corn Country Occupations: Sawyers, Cider-Makers, Copse-Cutters, Hurdle-Makers, and Heath-Turf Cutters Polling the Willow and Osier Cutting — work for men Osier Peeling — work for men, women, and children The working conditions of shepherd boys Unskilled Labor London street peddlars and their cries Costermongers Railway porters and pundits The Victorian Navvy Victorian Navvies — Their Nationality, Religion, Social Position, and Relation to the Armed Services A Navvy's Glossary Navvy Smith's Photograph Albums, 1. Navvies at Work [Butty Gangs, Working for Fixed Wages, and Ruskinian Economics](smith/2.html>Navvy Smith's Photograph Albums, 2. Activities of the Navvy Mission Construction workers: <a href=) Girls and Women at Work in Victorian Mines, Quarries, and Brickworks London Nightmen (cesspool-sewermen) Tosher's and Rat Catchers Crossing Sweepers *** A Review of Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's Selected Edition of Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor Gender and Work Victorian Women, Class, and Occupation Victorian Working Women: Sweated Labor Needlewomen: Dressmakers, Milliners, and Slop-workers A Washerwoman's Daughter Governnesses The Figure of the Governess, based on Ronald Pearsall's Night's Black Angels The Victorian Governess Novel The Governess and Class Prejudice Punch and Brontë on Training the Ideal Governess The Victorian Governess: A Bibliography Servants Domestic Service, The "Mute and Forgotten" Occupation What Kind of Staff Would a Victorian Household Have? "Maid in England" — the life of the Victorian domestic servant (Public Record Office exhibition)"On the Side of the Maids " --an 1874 account of a maid's hard life Kinds: Butlers, Maids, Cooks, Coachman, Gamekeepers, Gardeners Child Labor Introduction What caused an increase in child labour during Victorian times? Mines Criminal classes burglars *** mudlarks *** smash and grab *** Some Recent Publications Gooch, Joshua. The Victorian Novel, Service Work, and the Nineteenth-Century Economy. Palgrave, 2015.
Last modified 23 February 2022
Three London pedlars by Gustave Doré