Love Climbs In

AUTHOR’S NOTEThe descriptions in this novel of the tortures of the climbing boys is all historically factual. There was an actual case of a tiny boy of four years old who crashed down the chimney of a house in Yorkshire belonging to a family called Strickland. They found that he was obviously well-bred and he recognised a silver fork, saying, “Papa has forks like this.” The Stricklands learnt that the boy had been stolen by a gypsy who tempted him from the garden he was playing in to see a horse. He told them that his mother was dead and his father was travelling abroad, but he was staying with his Uncle George. He had been bought from the gypsy by a Master sweep for eight guineas. Advertisements brought no reply, but the boy was eventually adopted by a lady who brought him up and educated him. The Bill for the Abolition of Climbing Boys was accepted by the House of Commons in 1819, but thrown out by the House of Lords. It was not until 1875 that the country saw the last of the climbing boys. A chimney sweeper’s trade card can be seen in the British Museum. The horrors of St. Giles persisted until 1847 when a new road was cut through it to be called New Oxford Street. The hovels, tenements and stinking alleys were razed to the ground and the rats dispersed to a thousand different holes.