From a Breadwinner to a Good and Useful Citizen: The Attitudinal Shift Towards Child Labour in NSW, 1850–1916

Abstract

In New South Wales, childhood underwent a fundamental transformation during the modern era as child labour restrictions replaced widespread child employment with education-focused childhoods. This shift, rooted in mid-nineteenth-century reforms, redefined working-class children from wageearners to learners by the early twentieth century. Three key factors drove child labour restrictions: health concerns, educational priorities, and moral considerations. Middle-class reformers, influenced by British discourse highlighting physical damage from industrial work and fears about degeneration theory, worried that child labour would harm the population's future health. Australian climate and sanitation concerns further reinforced these fears. Education became central to changing attitudes, viewed as essential for societal stability and economic growth. As industrialisation progressed, reformers saw schooling as crucial for creating a skilled workforce and preventing crime and poverty. Moral concerns about working children, particularly in factories and street trading, also drove reform. Reformers feared that financial independence and unsupervised work would lead to inappropriate relationships, crime, or prostitution, undermining social order. However, the movement focused pragmatically on securing compliant future workers and preserving social stability rather than genuinely prioritising children's welfare. Reformers didn't address underlying economic conditions forcing families into child labour dependency, and many forms of exploitation, particularly of Aboriginal and state children, remained unexamined