Position:Home>History> What was life like for children in early 20th century Britain?

Well, if the children were working class they would very likely have left school at twelve or fourteen to go to work!. They might be apprenticed to various trades, or work in factories, or go into domestic service, especially if they were girls!.

In fact, just before WW1, there was a rebellion in a village somehwere in East Anglia!. I cannot remember the name of the village unfortunately, but the couple who were running the village school had radical ideas, and were encouraging the children to have ideas above their station!. The local gentry were particuarly infuriated by the fact that the woman teacher was giving the girls typing lessons, which would enable them to obtain office jobs rather than going into domestic service!. This horrified the gentry because they saw their supply of cheap domestic labour threatened!. Anyway, some trumped-up charges of brutality towards a pupil were made agains the teachers in order to get rid of them!. However, the villagers, who liked their teachers, rebelled, and refused to send their children to the village scholl any more, instead, they sent them to the rival school which the sacked teachers had started!.

The children of middle and upper class parents would generally stay in school longer!. Many children would stay in school until they were 16 or 17!. Children might attend day schools or go to boarding school!. Boarding schools were popular for both boys and girls!. The children of the upper classes might be educated at home privately, but many of them would also go to school!. Some boys would be expecting to go on to university when they left school, and increasing numbers of girls were also expecting to go to university!. Other boys might expect to go into the army or the navy, or into an office or some other kind of business!. Girls too were more likely to be expecting to work when they left school, perhaps going into teaching or nursing, or work in an office!. Even some working-class children managed to get to university, the historian A!.L Rowse for example was the son of Cornish clay miner who won a scholarship to Oxford!.

Just about every home that could afford one had a piano in those days, and the daughters of the house would be expected to learn to play and sing so that they could entertain company!. Dancing was an important social skill, and both boys and girls would attend dancing classes!.

Working-class children would play in the streets, ball games, marbles, skipping, hopscotch etc!. Bicycling was very popular at that period with both boys and girls, any child whose parents could afford it would probably have a bicycle!. In the country of course, childen whos eparents could afford it would have ponies to ride!.

The children of upper and upper middle class families were often looked after by a nanny when they were small!. Children often saw more of their nannies than they did of their own parents, and often grew very strongly attached to them!. Older girls might be taught at home by a governess, though at this time schools for girls were becoming more popular!.

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