Sweeping change

In 1796, the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce offered a prize for the invention of a mechanical chimney cleaner. The goal was to help abolish one of the great embarrassments of the early 19th century: the employment of children as young as four to climb inside chimneys to clean them. These children were sometimes abducted by master chimney sweeps, and frequently perished in horrific accidents or of soot-induced cancers. The idea was that a technological replacement could help make the case for abolition.

Smart engineering 

Although the Society played a significant supporting role by offering the prize, the overarching campaign to liberate the child sweeps was orchestrated by the snappily titled Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys, by Encouraging a New Method of Sweeping Chimnies, and for Improving the Condition of Children and Others Employed by Chimney Sweepers. One of its leaders was Society of Arts member William Wilberforce (famous for his zeal in helping to abolish the slave trade only a few years later).

In 1805, the Society’s prize was won by George Smart, a timber merchant and engineer. His ‘scandiscope’ could be operated from the fireplace, and was cheap and effective on all but the bendiest of flues. The brushes, if wetted, could also be used to put out fires in the flue – a task that would otherwise fall to the climbing boy.

But opposition from the master chimney sweeps meant that even a reliable tool was not enough to free the climbing boys from their labours.

At first, the campaign tried to get the industry on side, offering prizes for the number of flues swept using the scandiscope, subsidising their purchase of the machines, and advertising the reliable master sweeps who used them. But some master sweeps took advantage of this generosity, purposefully misusing the scandiscopes in an effort to turn customers against them.