Robin Longbottom on a trade once marred by tragedies

SOME two generations ago, when most houses were heated by coal fires, it was important that the flues were swept regularly to avoid chimney fires.

Back in the 1920s when the tenant of Crag Farm at Sutton-in-Craven wanted to sweep the chimney, he is said to have sent his lad up onto the house roof with an old hen. The hen was dropped into the chimney and as it flapped its way down the flue it cleared the accumulated soot. A more humane method, for those not wanting to pay a chimney sweep, was to cut the top off a holly, tie it to a rope and drop the end down the chimney and pull it through the flue.

In the 1950s and 60s Jack Barsby was the sweep in Sutton-in-Craven and swept most chimneys in the village, with long cane rods and a circular brush head. When his van arrived in the street all the neighbouring kids gathered to cheer and shout ‘hooray’ when the brush popped out of the top of the chimney pot.

For those who failed to get their chimneys swept regularly, there was always the threat that the accumulated soot would catch fire. If a chimney did catch fire, there was generally a hue and cry amongst the village children who would race to get to the scene in time to watch the fire brigade put it out.

However, there was a time when chimney sweeping was not such childish fun, particularly for those who were sent up the flues to sweep them. Well into the 19th century children as young as eight were made to climb up flues to clear them of soot with a hand brush. The standard flue was fourteen inches by nine and young lads, often naked, would have to inch their way up pressing their back, elbows and knees against the sides.

In January, 1826, two boys were sent to Turkey Mill at Goose Eye, Laycock, to sweep the flues. They were under the control of one Peter Hall, master chimney sweep of Keighley. One of the boys, Henry Johnson, was originally from the Fens and had been apprenticed by his father to a chimney sweep, who had later ‘disposed’ of him to Hall. Hall was said to have treated the lad most inhumanely, often beating him and leaving him to sleep on old soot bags. Henry went up a flue at Turkey Mill but after some time had passed, he did not return. When there was no reply after calling him, the other boy was sent up to look for him. However, he had to return when he encountered noxious fumes. Some hours later poor Henry Johnson, 14, was brought out dead. He was buried in Keighley parish churchyard on January 24.

In 1840 an Act of Parliament attempted to stop a sweep employing anyone under the age of 21, but it was never enforced. Consequently, in 1851, John Crabtree of Keighley – a master chimney sweep – was employing his 13-year-old son and two nephews, aged 10 and 12. Ten years later he employed his two younger sons, the youngest only nine, together with a boy named Samuel Broadbent, who was 11 years old.

It was not until 1875, after a 12-year-old boy had suffocated in a chimney at a hospital in Cambridgeshire, that Lord Shaftesbury – a politician and social reformer – successfully pushed the Chimney Sweepers Bill through Parliament. The Act finally made it a criminal offence to send boys up chimneys and required all sweeps to be authorised by the police before carrying out any business.

Despite the trade's unsavoury past, sweeps are considered to bring good luck, particularly if a bride sees one on her wedding day.