What a life for a crust - life for a poor Victorian child

This resource has been produced for the teaching of  Keystage2/3 history. In particular it is most relevant to the history units entitled: What was it like for children living in Victorian Britain? And how did life change in our locality in Victorian times?  There are also a number of parallels with aspects of citizenship teaching. The project has been a joint partnership between the Record Office and Crown Hills School whereby the Record Office has researched and selected the resources and the school has advised and commented on the suitability of material.

The resource has been broken down into a number of themes that reflect the life of a Victorian child in all its aspects. It looks at home life, education, health/disease, work and play. Each theme contains a short summary to that topic, followed by an image of the document chosen, a description of it and the finding number at the Record Office. The majority of the documents used have been taken from archival and local study sources held at the Record Office. This is a principal part of the project; the importance of the local element has been seen as integral to teaching the national curriculum. In so doing it is hoped that pupils will be able to experience history in a more meaningful way and relate to the history of their community to a far greater extent. There are a few photographs that have been taken from national websites and full credit has been given to these sources below.

It is anticipated that this will be a very useful resource to augment the teaching of history/citizenship in secondary schools today. Comments on the usefulness of this resource should be sent via the questionnaire attached. The project has been made possible via a grant from MLA (Learning Links)

Photograph of Brecky Neck Yard Stockton, c.1900 reproduced courtesy of Stockton Library Service - www.picturestockton.co.uk'. Image number S510.jpg

Photograph of 139 George Heddings aged 15, who was caught stealing and sent to the Reformatory reproduced courtesy of robs@robshistory.co.uk

Photograph of the Salvation Army’s Farthing Breakfast, c.1900 reproduced courtesy of Derek Gillard mail@educationengland.org.uk used in his article entitled ‘Food for Thought’

Photograph of mother and sick child, Glencoe Argyll, c.1900 reproduced courtesy of the National Museums of Scotland