he life of a labourer is marked by five alternating periods of want and comparative plenty. During early childhood, unless his father is a skilled worker, he probably will be in poverty; this will last until he, or some of his brothers or sisters, begin to earn money and thus augment their father's wage sufficiently to raise the family above the poverty line. Then follows the period during which he is earning money and living under his parents' roof; for some portion of this period he will be earning more money than is required for lodging, food, and clothes. This is his chance to save money. If he has saved enough to pay for furnishing a cottage, this period of comparative prosperity may continue after marriage until he has two or three children, when poverty will again overtake him. This period of poverty will last perhaps for ten years, i.e. until the first child is fourteen years old and begins to earn wages; but if there are more than three children it may last longer. While the children are earning, and before they leave the home to marry, the man enjoys another period of prosperity — possibly, however, only to sink back again into poverty when his children have married and left him, and he himself is too old to work, for his income has never permitted his saving enough for him and his wife to live upon for more than a very short time.
A labourer is thus in poverty, and therefore underfed —
(a) In childhood — when his constitution is being built up.
(6) In early middle life — when he should be in his prime.
(c) In old age. [136]
Links to Related Material
- What Daily Life is Like for Unskilled Workers and Their Families
- Slums and Slumming in late Victorian London
- Victorian Workers' Wages and the Quality of Life
Bibliography
Rowntree, B. Seebohm (Benjamin Seebohm). Poverty, a Study of Town Life. London, Macmillan: 1902. Internet Archive online version of a copy in the Harvard University Library. Web. 2 July 2022.
Created 2 July 2022