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The Children Who Built Victorian Britain

Using animation and actual recorded testimony, historian Jane Humphries tells the story of the child workers whose exploitation was key to the success of the Industrial Revolution.

The catalyst to Britain's Industrial Revolution was the slave labour of orphans and destitute children. In this shocking and moving account of their exploitation and eventual emancipation, Professor Jane Humphries uses the actual words of these child workers (recorded in diaries, interviews and letters) to let them tell their own story. She also uses groundbreaking animation to bring to life a world where 12-year-olds went to war at Trafalgar and six-year-olds worked the fields as human scarecrows.

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1 hour