Edmond Perrier's Victorian Museum

This document is a still from the movie Oliver Twist.

Oliver, a young orphan, was sent to a workhouse because he was poor. A workhouse is a place where children were lodged and fed but they had to work. For aristocratic people, poverty was synonymous with depravity. Thus, the “poor laws” were voted in 1834, it removed the aid to the indigents and instituted workhouses.

On this picture, there are many children sitting on benches. Boys are in the middle and girls are on the sides. Oliver Twist is in the foreground, In the centre, he is learning how to break the rope, it was a common job at that time. But it was long and painful: it cut fingers. Child labour and workhouses were emblematic of the Victorian Era.