Description:In the 1830s John Cadbury led a campaign in Birmingham against the employment of climbing boys. He called a meeting of all the sweeps in the town and tried to convince them to use machines instead. He bought a number of machines himself, and gathered a petition of some of the town’s most influential men to testify how well they worked. Unfortunately his campaign did not end the suffering of climbing boys in Birmingham.
Campaigners succeeded in persuading Parliament to pass various acts to regulate or stop the employment of climbing boys but most were ignored or poorly enforced. The practice of sending children up chimneys was finally stopped in 1875.
Bennett was born in Birmingham on 5th November 1816 and was set to work as a climbing boy when he was very young. In this extract he describes his experiences.
‘My mother married again and I was put under a master sweep, whom I served for very nearly seven years. The sufferings I endured then, and subsequently, I would not again repeat for any amount of wealth. I was forced up chimnies in a state of complete nudity, sometimes two or three times a day, and my bed for those ten years consisted of straw and soot-bags.’