Background to

Oliver Twist

SettingThe novel is set in London and its surrounding districts. The initial years of Oliver’s childhood are spent in a certain town, the name of which is not mentioned by the author. When Oliver runs away from the Sowerberry’s, the undertaker, and walks towards London, it is mentioned that the farm workhouse is seventy-five to eighty miles north of London.

The social setting of the novel is depicted at three different levels. First, the parochial world is revealed. The inhabitants of this world, belonging to the lower-middle class of society, are calculating and insensible to the feelings of the poor.

Second, the criminal world is exposed. Pickpockets and murderers belong in this world. Poverty drives them to crime and the weapon they use to achieve their end is violence. They live with fear and guilt.

Finally, the world of the Victorian middle-class is unfolded. In this world live respectable people who show a regard for moral values and believe in the principle of human dignity.

Victoria (1837-1901 AD) Victoria, born May 24, 1819, was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Edward died when Victoria was but eight months old, upon which her mother enacted a strict regimen that, shunned the courts of Victoria's uncles, George IV and William IV. She married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840; the union produced four sons and five daughters. She died at eighty-one years of age on January 22, 1901, after a reign of sixty-three years.

Balmoral Castle

Date Scientist Discovery Importance

1831 Michael Faraday Experiments with electricity

Led to the invention on the electric generator and motor

1846 Crawford Long and William Morton

Anesthetics Allowed surgeons to peform long, painful operations, while the patient slept.

1859 Charles Darwin Theory of evolution Explained how all living things on earth may have evolved from the first tiny one-celled living things.

1865 Louis Pasteur Germ theory of disease

At last, it was now understood that most diseases are caused by germs. This meant cures could be found for many diseases.

1895 Wilhelm Roentgen X-rays Used by doctors to see inside the human body; also led to the discovery that atoms can be broken up

Important scientific discoveries of this era:

Welcome to London, England

EST. 50 AD

London……

…..during the Victorian Era

As the number of factories grew people from the countryside began to move into the towns looking for better paid work. The wages of a farm worker were very low and there were less jobs working on farms because of the invention and use of new machines such as threshers. Also thousands of new workers were needed to work machines in mills and foundries and the factory owners built houses for them.Cities filled to overflowing and London was particularly bad. At the start of the 19th Century about 1/5 of Britain’s population lived there, but by 1851 half the population of the country had set up home in London. London, like most cities, was not prepared for this great increase in people. People crowded into already crowded houses. Rooms were rented to whole families or perhaps several families. If there was no rooms to rent, people

stayed in lodging houses.

From Country to Town

A London Street….in the 1800s

Peelers

What were the early police like?They became known as 'Peelers' and 'Bobbies' after their founder, and wore a dark blue longcoat and a tall hat which they could use to stand on and look over walls. Blue was chosen because it was the colour of the popular Royal Navy rather than red which was the army's colour and struck fear into the people because of the way soldiers had been used to smash protests. The only weapon was a truncheon. 

How did the public react?They hated the Peelers. Many were poor quality - drunks and bullies. Of the first 2,800 new policemen, only 600 kept their jobs. The first policeman, given the number 1, was sacked after only FOUR HOURS! (He was legless) In 1833 PC Robert Culley was stabbed to death after the police broke up a political meeting. The jury acquitted the man who killed him, and a newspaper awarded the jurors medals! JPs were also angry that they had no control of the police.Eventually however the impact upon crime, particularly organised crime led to an acceptance, if not approval, of the Bobbies.

The tread wheel at Pentonville Prison in 1895.

The prison punishment above had no useful purpose - the convicts are not generating electricity! The prisoners walked for ten minutes then rested for five. Why? So that they would get so fed up that they would not re-offend! Other useless jobs included oakum picking, turning the crank and shot drill.

The worker's houses were usually near to the factories so that people could walk to work. They were built really quickly and cheaply. The houses were cheap, most had between 2-4 rooms - one or two rooms downstairs, and one or two rooms upstairs. Victorian families were big with 4 or 5 children. There was no running water or toilet. A whole street would have to share an outdoor pump and a couple of outside toilets. Most houses in the North of England were "back to backs" (built in double rows) with no windows at the front, no backyards and a sewer down the middle of the street. The houses were built crammed close together, with very narrow streets between them. Most of the houses were crowded with five or more people possibly crammed into a single room. Even the cellars were full.  Most of the new towns were dirty and unhealthy. The household rubbish was thrown out into the streets. Housing conditions like these were a perfect breeding grounds for diseases. More than 31,000 people died during an outbreak of cholera in 1832 and lots more were killed by typhus, smallpox

and dysentery.

Housing

Victorian Housing

Living Conditions

Factory workers

Women Workers, making brushes

in a steam powered factory,

c. 1884

A Chimneysweep

Although in 1832 the use of boys for sweeping chimneys was forbidden by law, boys continued to be forced through the narrow winding passages of chimneys in large houses. When they first started at between five and ten years old, children suffered many cuts, grazes and bruises on their knees, elbows and thighs however after months of suffering their skin became hardened.

Children at work

“Trolley boys”

Chained to a coal car, the front boy pulls his heavy burden along the narrow mine shaft. His comapanion pushes the car from behind.

WorkforceEarly 1800’s

Parish Workhouse

Name andsurname ofeach person

Relation toHead offamily

Age lastbirthday

Profession oroccupation

Deaf and dumb,Blind, Lunatic,Imbecile or Idiot

    Male Female    

Henry Jones Inmate 38   Labourer  

Henry P Owen Inmate 69   Civil Engineer Imbecile 

Richard M Vay Inmate 67   Currier  

Elizabeth Gittins

Inmate   41 Dairymaid  

Martha Hughes Inmate   69 Dairymaid  

Elizabeth Edwards

Inmate   72 Housekeeper Lunatic

Elizabeth Watkins

Inmate   82 Housekeeper  

Sarah Foulkes Inmate   34 None Deaf and Dumb

Margaret Hughes

Inmate   39 NoneDeaf from childhood

Jane Mason Inmate   18 Dairymaid  

Sarah Ellis Inmate   37 None Lunatic

Elizabeth Jones Inmate   40 Kitchenmaid  

Mary Jones Inmate   34 NoneDeaf from childhood

Elizabeth Davies

Inmate   42 None Blind; Lunatic

Eliza Jones Inmate   33 None Lunatic

 

Stones were crushed by pounding with a long heavy bar of iron about four feet long (1.2 metres). The stones had to be broken into small enough pieces to pass through the metal grille in the window shown in this drawing.

Oakum picking was commonly done by small children, (as in the photograph on the right) and the very old. Both tasks left the hands covered in blisters and bleeding.

"As regards Males, for each entire day of detention -The breaking of seven cwt. of Stones.. or The picking of four pounds of unbeaten or eight pounds of beaten Oakum;or Nine hours' work in digging or pumping, or cutting wood, or grinding corn.As regards Females, for each entire day of detention -The picking of two pounds of unbeaten or four pounds of beaten Oakum;or Nine hours' work in washing, scrubbing and cleaning, or needlework."

A day in the life………….

A scold's bridle was a particularly unpleasant form of punishment. A woman would have been forced to sit in full view of the other inmates wearing the bridle which prevented her from speaking

A Parish WorkhouseA Parish Workhousegetting in line for food…..

Young Oliver Twist

Oliver in the workhouse:

“Please, sir, I want some more.”

Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle Mr. Bumble and Oliver

Oliver, The Artful Dodger, and Charley

Bates.

Fagin, the Dodger, and

Charley.

Bill Sikes