Child Labor: Open Access Resources for Primary Sources

Yifu Xing, Independent Scholar

[Victorian Web Home —> Social History —> The Industrial Revolution —> Economics —> Victorian Work]

In conjunction with secondary sources published by researchers, a list of resources hosting archived primary sources from this period can also help trace the development of attitudes towards child labour:

UK Government Resources

• National Archives
  • Historical Education Policy and Administration: Elementary and Primary Schools
  • Schools — Research Guide
  • Education Inspectorate Reports
  • Children's Homes
  • Poverty and the Poor Laws
• Historic Hansard

Third Party Archives

• Proquest Parlipapers [requires institutional or library network log in]
• HathiTrust
  • Journal of Education
  • The English Journal of Education
  • The Quarterly Journal of Education
• 19th Century British Childhood Archive
• British Online Archives
  • British Poor Schools in the Nineteenth Century, 1812—1901
  • The Industrial Revolution in Britain and the World, 1635 – 1970
• The Victorian Research Web
  • Open Access 19th Century Periodicals
    • Ragged School Union Magazine — digitised run
    • The British Workman — digitised issues
• British Newspaper Archive [needs subscription for full access]
• Curran Index

Area-Specific Archives & Resources

• AIM25 — Archives in London and the M25 Area
  • School Board for London
  • National Schools
  • Ragged School Union
  • York Place Ragged School
  • West London School District
  • Cripplegate Within Ward Schools
  • Margaret McMillan Collection
  • Froebel College / Froebel Educational Institute
  • Howell Ephemera Collection
• Manchester Archives & Local History
  • School Records
  • Poor Law, Workhouses and Industrial Schools
  • Old Poor Law, pre-1834
  • Poor Law Unions, 1834—1929
  • Manchester Certified Industrial Schools
  • Workhouses, Hospitals and Industrial Schools Directory
• West Yorkshire Archive Service
  • Fielden Brothers Ltd., Waterside Mills, Todmorden
  • John Goodchild Collection
  • Bradford Collections
  • Leeds Collections
  • Wakefield Education Department — School Records
  • Kirklees Collections
• Lancashire Archives — Our Collections
  • Lancashire Archives — Schools
  • Half Timers and Adult Weavers, Nelson

Related Material

• Child Labour and Education Reform: A Bibliography of secondary sources
• Nineteenth-Century Education, Theory and Practice: A Bibliography

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Created 1 September 2026