A Victorian Childhood

In the early part of the nineteenth century, shades of the earlier aristocratic power remained. During the previous century a very large gap between the privileged rich and the people existed. Consequently, the very few toys from that period which remain, belonged to the children of the very rich. In this age, the attitude of people to their children was very different from our own. Children were expected to become adults very quickly. Life spans were very short, and children, particularly those of the rich, who survived infancy, often married young to provide heirs for the great aristocratic houses. Famous oil paintings, done at this time, show children exquisitely dressed as replicas of adults, nursing dolls similarly adorned as stiff formal ladies. As the century progressed the growing Industrial Revolution produced a vigorous middle class with changing values toward many things, including their children. The strict conformity and severity relaxed and people began to believe that children should enjoy a measure of childhood.

Girl with a bisque doll, c1895. Doll is probably Simon & Halbig for Heinrich Handwerck (sundayvisit)

Books for children were written and, although they were mostly moralizing in tone, were often beautifully illustrated, and recognised for the first time that children needed to play. Life became easier for many people, and less of a struggle just to exist, so more time for leisure and play was created. Victorian families were large, and parents took great pride in their brood of children and provided them with the great diversity of dolls and toys then becoming available. The stiff formalized wooden dolls of the earlier 19th century were superseded by the lovely child-like wax dolls of the 1850's and 1860’s. Ingenious and prolific toys of every kind flooded a very competitive market, many of these made in intricate detail by skilled craftsmen for a few farthings each. As yet the artisans and working classes, struggling in the sometimes difficult times created by the growing mechanization, did not share in the affluence of the middle classes. The children of the poor still made do with a clothes peg wrapped in a rag for a doll, or a sliver of stone as a toy soldier. By the 1870's "Victorianism” was at its height. People believed that wealth should be displayed in ostentatious ways, and this was the period usually associated with rooms crammed with highly ornamented knickknacks. Furniture, richly carved and solid, stood in houses filled with all manner of charming but unnecessary fripperies. As the children of the time were weighed down with rich clothing, frilled and pleated, similarly their dolls were exquisitely dressed, often with large wardrobes of doll clothes. This period was the pinnacle of doll and toy manufacturing. Makers vied with each other to produce dolls of intricate detail, and we find many novelties at this time. Walking, talking and swimming dolls emerged, dolls with trunks crammed with the social impediments of the day, miniature lorgnettes, engraved visiting cards abounded. These lovely dolls were usually treasured and became "Sunday dolls" only being handled and admired on a Sunday. This tender care has ensured that so many of these dolls have remained in perfect condition to the present day. Toward the end of the 19th century, even the children of the working people could share in these delights of childhood, but sadly often standards declined in the general mass production. But against this, a feeling that children should be uninhibited and free to express themselves was growing. This was exhibited in the naturalistic baby dolls, educational building blocks and creative toys on the market. Thus, by the end of the Victorian era children had begun to be appreciated as children, and parents fondly regarded childhood as a happy time of play and learning with all its warmth and charm.

Judith Leaney writing in 1974 11 DTHS Newsletter