AN 11-year-old chimney sweep whose death led to a change in Victorian child labour laws is to become the youngest Briton to be honoured with an official blue plaque.
George Brewster became the last “climbing boy” to die in England after he got stuck in a flue at the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Fulbourn near Cambridge.
An Act of Parliament banning the use of climbing boys was passed seven months later in September 1875 after the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury vowed to renew attempts to change the law.

ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today

Incredibly, US Republican states are systematically dismantling child labour protections, with children transformed back into the cheap, disposable workers of the Dickens era, reports ANDREW MURRAY
