Glad ur not... Victorian

How can you find out about life for children in the past?

Our "Glad Ur Not" galleries look at how children lived in Victorian times. Think of the things you do in your own life. Was it different for children in the nineteenth century?

School

How did children learn before computers and whiteboards were invented and when paper was too expensive for poor children?

Work

What would it be like if you had to go to work instead of school? Find out about some of the difficult and dangerous jobs children had to do to earn money for their families

Being ill

There were no known cures for lots of gruesome illnesses and anyway, what if you couldn't afford to pay a doctor?

Naughty?

Today we would think it was very cruel to whip a child or send them to prison but punishments were severe in the past.

No money?

No toys! And maybe no shoes or bed and not enough to eat....

How do we know all this is true?

The pictures in our galleries are taken from old books and cards and leaflets. Do you think they show what life was really like? Who wrote them and why?

Some of the stories might have been written by well-off people who wanted to make life better for poorer people. Some could have been written to scare or warn children or as 'moral tales' to try and make them behave in a certain way.

If you made a gallery of pictures from books in your school today, would they show what life is like for children in Birmingham in the 21st century?