The Living and Working Conditions of the Black Country in the Late 19th Century

The Living and Working Conditions of the Black Country in the Late 19th Century

During my trip at the Black Country Museum I have learned a lot of

things. The employment, housing, the school and mine, the way of

transport and the shops.

There were many types of employment and the main one was the manual

labour. One of these was working in the mine. A very dangerous job

indeed but no-one was concerned because the employers need labour not

scholarship and people needed money for food and in those days if you

do not work, you don’t eat. Disease was rife in the mine and the coal

dust does not help either. Too much and you die from lung disease.

People were also killed, though rarely, by pockets of gas igniting

causing explosions.

Other jobs like sweet makers, chain makers, domestic servants, and the

list goes on, were needed but some education to be employed. I found

something very interesting about the chain makers of the Black Country

of Dudley. They made one of the four anchors of the Titanic. They then

shipped it in the canal to travel an odd hundred miles to Liverpool.

The sweet makers were interesting at the time. They used all sorts of

things to just get colour for the their sweets. For example, they used

tarmac for the colour brown and for red they used beetles blood. They

did not know or did not care that it was a serious danger to health

until people (children mostly) started becoming ill from them.

The housing in the Black Country at those times ranged from back to

back slums for lowly working class or 3rd class people to upper class

posh houses which land owners, employers and just very rich people

lived in.

These back-to-back houses or, slums I should say, had 12 rooms, 6 on

the ground floor and 6 on the first floor. Each room normally

consisted of 16 people (obviously very cramped). These houses were

everywhere in major city such London, Manchester and Birmingham.