Over the next four hundred years, rooms became specialized and smaller and many were heated. At first there would be one heated room in the building and chimneys would be large. Lord Shaftesbury, the philanthropist, led the later campaign.Ĭhimneys started to appear in Britain around 1200 (with the oldest extant example of a chimney in Britain being in the keep of Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire, dating from 1185 AD ), when they replaced the open fire burning in the middle of the one room house. From 1775 onward, there was increasing concern for the welfare of the boys, and Acts of Parliament were passed to restrict, and in 1875 to stop this usage. As soot is carcinogenic, and as the boys slept under the soot sacks and were rarely washed, they were prone to chimney sweeps' carcinoma. Work was dangerous and they could get jammed in the flue, suffocate or burn to death. After regulation finally took hold in 1875 in the UK and the turn of the century in the US, the occupation became romanticized in popular media.īoys as young as four climbed hot flues that could be as narrow as 81 square inches (9 × 9 inches or 23 × 23 cm). In the northern US, whites gave up the trade and employed black sweep-boys from the South. Joseph Glass marketed an improved sweeping machine in 1828 he is credited with being the inventor of the modern chimney sweep's brush. The first mechanical sweeper was invented by George Smart in 1803 but was resisted in the UK and the US. Chimney sweeping was one of the more difficult, hazardous, and low-paying occupations of the era, and consequently has been derided in verse, ballad, and pantomime. Buckingham Palace had one flue with 15 angles, with the flue narrowing to 9in by 9in (23 × 23 cm). The flues were made narrow to create a better draught, 14in by 9in (36 × 23 cm) being a common standard. The routes of flues from individual grates could involve two or more right angles and horizontal angled and vertical sections. With the increased urban population that came with the age of industrialisation, the number of houses with chimneys grew apace and the services of the chimney sweep became much sought-after.īuildings were higher than before and the new chimneys' tops were grouped together.
Any chimney fire could be fined 3 shillings and 4 pence. The Tudors in England had established the risk of chimneys and an ordinance was created in 1582 both controlling materials (brick and stone rather than plastered timber) and requiring chimneys to be swept four times per year to prevent the build-up of soot (which is highly flammable). Chimney sweepers on a roof in Stockholm in the early 20th century.
0 kommentar(er)
