When the technician arrives at your home, he will put a drop cloth around the chimney area and position lights so he can see into the chimney. The vacuum is used to remove particles and dust from the chimney. While it is operating, the chimney cleaner will use a stiff brush to clean off the fireplace walls.

A typical chimney sweep and inspection can take 45 minutes to an hour. Rooftop Chimney Sweeps blocks off a 2 hour time slot just in case something comes up that causes the service to take longer to properly complete.

Chimney inspections often reveal hidden problems with a chimney structure that could be potentially hazardous. Mechanical sweeping of chimneys not only removes layers of creosote from the chimney surface, it removes the resulting loose soot and creosote from the chimney, fireplace, or wood stove.

Chimney Sweeping Respiratory Hazards. Soot and smoke inhalation can cause respiratory distress, illnesses, and infection can be a result of soot inhalation. Skin Irritation. Physical contact with creosote can cause rash, other skin issues, and infection.

From 1773, master chimney sweeps regularly kept anywhere from 2 to 20 children, depending on how many they could use for their business. For each child, the master sweep was paid 3-4 pounds by the government when the apprenticeship agreement was signed.

The living conditions of the chimney sweeps offered them no relief. They were usually barely fed and slept in basements, covering themselves with the filthy soot sacks they worked with. The boys rarely bathed and were frequently sickly.

The sweep “swept” the king to safety from a runaway carriage. The grateful king invited his rescuer to the upcoming wedding of his daughter and officially declared all chimney sweeps to be lucky. To this day, it’s considered good luck to invite a sweep to your wedding or other special occasion.

As part of that training, you could complete a Level 2 Certificate in Chimney Sweeping or Level 2 Diploma in Chimney Engineering. Experience in construction or engineering may be helpful, although not essential to do these courses.

Due to a lack of proper ventilation, coal dust was very thick in the air. Considering that Victorian Children would work from 12 to 18 hours a day it is easy to see how respiratory problems could arise.

Wyer was found guilty of manslaughter. More importantly, Brewster’s death became part of an aggressive campaign. A bill was pushed through Parliament in September 1875 which put an end to the practice of using children as human chimney sweeps in England.

They lived mainly on bread, gruel and broth (made from boiling up bones). Not surprisingly, the children of the slums were undernourished, anaemic, rickety and very short.

The 7 Worst Jobs In Victorian London

• Jack Black, rat catcher. Source: Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1851).
• Chimney sweeps. Source: The National Cancer Institute.
• The Fleet Sewer.
• Picking Oakum in the workhouse.

The pay was pitifully low. A woman might make one shirt in a long day, sewing by hand in poor light – she had to buy her own candles – and she would be lucky to earn six shillings for a dozen.

Did you know?

• At the beginning of the Victorian era in 1837, most people would have used candles and oil or gas lamps to light their homes and streets.
• Poor people could work in mines, in mills and factories, or in workhouses.
• Children in poor families would have jobs that were best done by people who weren’t very tall.

Queen Victoria

Women and kids didn’t celebrate their birthdays until much, much later. Birthdays really took off in the Victorian era, which was from about the 1830’s to the start of the 20th Century. During this time, wealthy families threw extravagant birthdays for their children, complete with a ball, cake, and lots of gifts.

19th century

While slavery was abolished in the British Empire on 1 August 1834, only children under the age of six were freed immediately under the terms of the 1833 Emancipation Act. All other former slaves were bound as ‘apprentices,’ where they continued to work without pay for their former owners.

The historian Marcel Trudel catalogued the existence of about 4,200 slaves in Canada between 1671 and 1834, the year slavery was abolished in the British Empire. About two-thirds of these were Native and one-third were Blacks. The use of slaves varied a great deal throughout the course of this period.

It is estimated that Britain transported 3.1 million Africans (of whom 2.7 million arrived) to the British colonies in the Caribbean, North and South America and to other countries.