1. England in 1843

2. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ~ Charles Dickens

3. By 1843, the Industrial Revolution had brought machines and factories to England.

4. The factory owners grew rich—sometimes as rich as the Dukes and Earls. Their houses were large and imposing, and they could afford to hire many servants.

7. Life wasn’t so pleasant for those who worked in the factories, however.

8. Men, women and children worked long hours in the “mills.”

9. People began to move to the factory towns for jobs. But the jobs didn’t pay much. As a result, many people were poor, even destitute. Houses were small, and many families lived in squalor.

10. By the 19 th century, rich people in England had started to feel that the poor were responsible for their own situation. The Poor Law was passed in 1834. It stated that if you were too poor to support yourself, you had to go into a workhouse.

11. Workhouses provided food and shelter in exchange for work. The work was often hard, such as breaking stones to make gravel, crushing bones to produce fertiliser, or working on a treadmill. Life in the workhouses was so harsh that people only went there if they were desperate.

13. The factories were powered by coal, which was plentiful.

14. Coal also powered steam engines, which were beginning to criss-cross the country. And it heated people’s homes.

16. The largest city in England, and the most crowded, was London.

17. Charles Dickens was born in 1812. He was the second of eight children. (His older sister was named Frances, or “Fanny” for short.) His early life was happy; his family was loving, and he enjoyed school. But when Charles was 10, the family moved to London and began to face financial hardship.

19. Many of Dickens’ books portrayed the hardships of the poor. Oliver Twist, for instance, is about an orphan boy.

20. Dickens wrote more than a dozen novels and many short stories. He was considered the greatest English author of his time.

21. But with ten children, he had a hard time providing for his family. He had to work constantly just to put food on the table.

22. He died in 1870 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.